Roma, Città Sportiva - Global Rome: Changing Faces of the Eternal City - page 141

10

Roma, Città Sportiva

simon martin

s ports and sporting events have played a crucial role in shaping Rome,
stimulating major transformations in urban planning and the evolution of the
cityscape throughout its history. one of the largest urban footprints was left upon
the city by the 1960 olympic Games, which resulted in infrastructural changes
and planning decisions that continue to resonate in the capital and among its
inhabitants. as Rome prepared its bid to host the 2020 olympic Games, the ques-
tion of whether the planners had learned any lessons from the past was inevitably
posed. The decision not to back the bid, which was taken by the leader of italy's
technical government mario monti and resulted in its withdrawal, suggested that
at least the lesson of financial prudency had finally been understood. while good
sense left monti with almost no alternative, there was nonetheless huge potential
for this major sporting event to, once again, radically affect urban development
in the capital. Nonetheless, as analyses of Rome's central role in italy's hosting of
the 1990 world Cup finals and the more recent 2009 world swimming Cham-
pionships reveal, the positive potential has often come at significant cost. while
leaving their marks upon the city, these international tournaments also revealed
the type of internecine struggles for local and national political power and re-
sources that have wracked italy and Rome's postwar history. providing oppor-
tunities for illicit practices and corruption, such events were still fundamental
moments in the capital's development that have too often been overlooked and
thereby warrant this overview.

sport and place
Karl Raitz's suggestion that the creation of a sense of place is largely based around
the history and past events associated with that site (Raitz 1995) can clearly be
directly applied to almost all sporting venues. it is as much their history as the
current event—if not more so—that gives meaning and importance to fans and

159