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B. Pizzo:
"The many path of self-organization. Origins and meanings of self-organization as a concept for planning and urban studies";
Tracce Urbane. Rivista Italiana Transdisciplinare di Studi Urbani, 4 (2018), 4; 49 - 67.

This contribution aims at giving a consilient interpretation of the various approaches to self-organization - as they emerge from the two issues of Tracce Urbane, n. 3 and 4, and from the preliminary conference dedicated to the topic - and one sufficiently structured to allow orientation among the variants in which the concept is used in relation with the city. Three authors in particular have been often quoted during the conference: they are Henry Lefebvre, Elinor Ostrom and Juval Portugali. Their work contributed to the spreading of the interest for self-organization in urban studies, although it is just Portugali that grounded an urban theory on that concept. Indeed, each one refers to self-organization in a specific way, thus they have been chosen here to help making fundamental differences emerge. The intent is, therefore, also methodological, and concerns the consistency between theories and concepts, and the heuristics we adopt to analyse and explain urban phenomena and
practices - a consistency that should be taken into serious consideration.

https://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/publik_274817.pdf