Livable Cities - London AMPS | City, University of London Page 233 THE CATANIA FISH MARKET. THE CONFLUENCE OF CONTRADICTIONS AND TRANSFORMATIONS The history of the city of Catania is closely intertwined with disastrous events and disasters of various kinds, which have helped determine the future directions of the transformation of the urban fabric. Even in recent periods, the city has been affected by floods and inundations that have caused damage and casualties among the inhabitants. In October 2021, the city of Catania was hit by a disastrous flood that turned the streets of the historic centre into rivers. The extent of the damage was accentuated by concomitant causes attributable to poorly organized land management: lack of a system for conveying water from the Etnean towns, insufficient maintenance of maintenance holes clogged by lava sand from Etna's eruptions, the presence of abandoned urban waste in the streets. The historic Fish Market is characterized by overlapping cultural meanings, historical processes, and urban and economic issues. The presence of underground watercourses and the proximity to the sea coastline are determining factors for the flood risk exposure of this area. On the one hand, there is no in-depth knowledge of the routes of underground rivers, and on the other, invisibility has reinforced the weakening of the perception of flood risk. The market presents itself as a dynamic context traversed by spatial transformations and catastrophic natural events such as earthquakes and lava eruptions, which have shaped its spatial configuration of streets and squares, with an articulation between houses, shops and stalls of street vendors. The crisis in neighborhood commerce is more acute and severe, resulting in problems in selling products such as fish, meat, fruit, and vegetables and the risk of expulsing historic traders who are making way for restaurant and tourist activities. The contemporary location market is produced from spatial choices after the transformations conditioned by specific disastrous events. The reconstruction of the city after the earthquake of 1693, imposing the need for a more rational and functional configuration to meet the economic and social recovery requirements, allocated a specific square to the functions of the market in the city center area. Despite the institutional decision to change, merchants and shoppers continued to use the traditional location of the market in the area known as the marina, benefiting both from its proximity to the seaport and from the progressive reclamation of the aquifers present, which led to the construction of palaces, squares and fountains in the late 19th century. Over the centuries, the market strengthened its commercial functions, articulating itself in an area occupying three squares and connecting streets. As witnessed by the interviews conducted during the field research, the Fish Market presents considerable vulnerabilities concerning flood risk. During the autumn season, with heavy rainfall phenomena, all the spaces of the market flood due to the confluence of rainwater flowing towards the sea from the mountainous areas of the volcano Etna, with the emergence of groundwater from the river called "Amenano." While resistance to flood phenomena has facilitated the market's growth, other economic and social factors are responsible for the progressive crisis and spatial contraction of the market. The first aspect relates to the market's close connection with global transformations in the food trade and changes in consumption styles due to housing movements and new forms of social organization of individuals and households. Large-scale food distribution weakens the functions of the historical market. The second aspect concerns the market's spatial and economic transformation directly linked to urban regeneration policies. The market organization is based on informal economy mechanisms consolidated over time that allow operators and buyers to share information and knowledge in a constant exchange of information and goods. Informality builds a response through context-based experiential processes in which those involved promote dynamic and dialectical modes of action within a specific economic, political and social configuration. Informal activities are not irregular or irrational; they denote phenomena and processes that elude institutional definitions of reality11. The geography of market stalls, the types of goods on sale, and the methods of storing and displaying products constitute the essential elements of
