Abstract

In the last few decades, the concept of degrado has become a core issue in the Italian public and political discourse on urban environments, together with the diffusion of a neoliberal style of urban management. However, what degrado means precisely is still not clearly defined. In this article, we aim to explore the perceptions and manifestations of degrado on Milan’s public transport, offering an interpretation that delves into urban atmospheres. Thanks to an ethnographic immersion and the strategic use of data collection techniques, we shed light on the interplay of narratives, materialities, and embodied rhythms in the emergence of degrado. Moreover, our rhythmic perspective challenges those representations of degrado – made visible from the sedimentation of neoliberal security-oriented narratives – that regard space as static and time as detached from spatial considerations