Consumo di lusso e cambiamento urbano Le Main Streets di Napoli

The article aims at analysing the changing role played by the main streets of the Naples city-centre through the interpretative key of retailing and consumption geography. Firstly, a short introduction on the relationship linking luxury city and city branding is proposed, focusing in particular on the main streets as relevant places for both economic and cultural factors in this stage of the urban development; some international studies on the branded streets are reviewed, in order to systematize some theoretical elements that animate the contemporary geographical debate. Secondly, a case-study on the main streets of Naples is presented, stressing their position in Chiaia, the district of the entertainment and of the movida, but also their transition as representative places for the dialectic between luxury consumption and traditional retail. The fieldwork in the so-called Luxury Shopping Line reveals that these streets of style at times are places for the negotiation of different consumption practices and dissimilar urban life-styles and at times are spaces of conflict among various urban players, especially between city users and city makers. Through the case-study, some concluding remarks on the importance assumed by the main streets in the urban change are proposed, emphasizing the pressure between standardization and resilience.