Abstract

Known since ancient Rome as Campania Felix due to the fertility of land, the urban region between the Provinces of Napoli and Caserta has been lately stigmatized by national and international mass-media as Land of Fires. The phenomenon of fires is the tip of an iceberg that lies on illicit waste trade by the organized crime. Depicted as a biblical apocalypse due to the consequences on human health and local economy, the case of the Land of Fires is highlighting the role that images and stigmas play in coping with the "new urban question" that environmental issues pose in governing urban regionalization processes. In comparing the northern Campania with an unbalanced ecosystem in the face of dynamics connected to the metabolism of waste, the paper suggests that looking at socio-ecological resilience of the Land of Fires in a radical planning perspective could help to bounce back toward the lost collective imaginaries.