My name is Francesco Chiodelli. I obtained my PhD in Urban Policies and Projects at the Polytechnic University of Milan in 2010. I am currently an associate professor of urban and legal geography at the Università degli studi di Torino, Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning. I am the director of OMERO – Interdepartmental Research Centre for Urban Studies at the University of Turin an a member of the scientific board of FULL – Future Urban Legacy Lab of the Politecnico di Torino. I worked at the Gran Sasso Science Institute (l’Aquila) from 2013 to 2020, where I contributed to building and I managed the doctoral programme in Urban Studies. Previously, I was a lecturer at the Polytechnic University of Milan (2010-2014). I’ve been one of the organizers of the Winter School on Research Methodology in Urban Studies and Planning for a few years now.
My research lies at the intersection of urban space and institutions (norms and rules in particular), with a specific focus on questions of pluralism, diversity, informality. Currently, I am working mainly on housing informality in Southern European countries and on different manifestations of illegality in the urban sphere (e.g. corruption in urban planning, criminal infiltration in urban governance and development). I also investigated the spatial dimension of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over Jerusalem.
My papers have appeared in international journals such as Transaction of the institute of British Geographers, Urban Studies, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Political Geography, Progress in Planning, Planning Theory, Town Planning Review, Geoforum, Urban Geography, Planning Theory and Practice, Journal of Urban Affairs, European Planning Studies, Urban Research and Practice.
I have recently published Cemento Armato. La politica dell’illegalità nelle città italiane (Bollati Boringhieri, 2023), Shaping Jerusalem. Spatial planning, politics and the conflict (Routledge, 2017) and co-edited The Illicit and Illegal in Regional and Urban Governance and Development. Corrupt Places (Routledge, 2018).
I write rather regularly for Italian newspapers, such as Il Manifesto and Huffington Post Italia.
You can download my CV here (updated: July 2024)