Returning to Rome

After a long period of silence on this blog I have been coaxed back into writing.

Honestly, there are so many problems to address that I risk releasing a stream of laments that would be depressing to any reader. My usual optimism is being tested. Rome has become ungovernable and yet it continues to be administered as if things were normal.

I get press releases from Roma Capitale announcing new buses, progress on the Metro C, new hires in the police force, and many other positive notes which to someone reading from afar may sound encouraging. But the day to day reality of living in Rome has never been so dire. (Well, it was worse, perhaps, under the Borgia or during the Sack of Rome of 1527).

Since November I have watched work proceed slowly on Piazza Cinque Scole where I teach. Bids had gone out for the repaving of the square. Repaving, not the design of urban space, to the improvement of pedestrian experience, not the construction of structured, underground parking, but simply repaving the square. Cobblestones were removed and are now being repositioned. It is wonderful to watch the skilled workers doing the job that has been done for centuries. But there is one major difference; rather than laying them in a bed of sand with permeable space between the stones, the joints are being sealed with asphalt. And this isn’t a mistake on the part of the building crew: it was actually requested in the brief. Thus a principal benefit of this traditional paving, that it allows rain water to be absorbed rather than rushing to the storm sewers, has been discarded.  Eventually when they complete the work the fencing will come down, cars and trucks and scooters will move back into the piazza with all their weight  defeating these months of work and thousands of euros of investment.

Elsewhere, a new building has appeared in the archaeological site of Circus Maximus, exactly on axis of the Via Terme di Caracalla at the point of arrival of the Appian Way in central Rome. Where one used to be greeted with the iconic view of the stadium stretching between the Palatine and the Aventine, there is now a banal brick wall. This was not built illegally, nor was it simply allowed by the authorities; it must have actually been commissioned by the cultural heritage authorities since they oversee this historic and listed site.

PH: Paolo Gelsomini

Transit is at a breaking point with several metro stations shut due to needed repairs, no sign of the electric buses which traversed the center years ago ahead of their time, and the fact that transit can be tracked by apps has done little more than give us the frustration of noting that at rush hour on a heavily frequented route there are “no buses” whatsoever.

Rome is now second only to Bogota’ for the amount of time wasted in traffic. Perhaps it is not surprising that the Codice della Strada, the traffic regulations, are now regularly ignored by many. Stopping at red lights, not to mention stop signs, has become an optional. While the Mayor talks about creating new pedestrian zones those already in existence, like Piazza Borghese or Piazza Farnese,  have become open air parking lots.

Several of the new eating places I had grown to love, such as DON in Trastevere which makes great fried pizza, have been forced by confusing local ordinances to remove tables and stools that had allowed clients to eat inside, and instead been reduced to squalid take-out joints. It’s not clear why they are not allowed to provided this useful public service in their own property when outside on Viale Trastevere the sidewalks are blocked everyday with cheap markets of imported junk where little diesel generators spew fumes to provide lighting and big diesel vans stay double-parked in the street all day.

This is the Rome I would love to see improved, the Rome it is easy to dismiss as hopeless, but what’s the use in that? This is the world’s most resilient city with the world’s most resilient citizens.