The Self-Made City - Global Rome: Changing Faces of the Eternal City - page 198

criminate exploitation of resources and intensive speculative building, “sacrifice”
of the public interest, and haggling over the public good. all this relates not so
much to a lack of policies for the city, but rather to a very clear idea of urban
development and of the forces and processes that govern its transformation and
the role that the public administration could play in this connection. and the
idea that was proposed as a form of co-involvement of citizens in governing the
city now reveals its principal character of “shared administration,” giving rise to
a form of externalizing urban planning: that is to say an offloading of burdens
and responsibilities to outsiders, a lightening of the citizen's load, but at the same
time a delegation and a subservience to the workings of the property market and
a relinquishment of the development of an organic program and of an effective
political and urban policy.
Notes
1. This has occurred in a context of deregulation declared at the national level, not without
opposition.
2. ennio flaiano used to say about Rome: “a great city manqué ! The only city in the world
whose inhabitants lack civic pride. There is no sense of collective ownership, ownership is
universal or rather entrusted to providence. everyone washes their hands of it” (1994, 49).
3. The districts researched were Cerquette Grandi (in the northwestern outskirts of the
city), saline and stagni of ostia, the idroscalo of ostia, saxa Rubra in the north, but in particu-
lar borgata finocchio and Valle borghesiana, a huge area in the far eastern outskirts of Rome.
The project also involved a multidisciplinary research group: self-made urbanity (http://smu
-research.net/). particular thanks to the architect antonella perin for her cooperation with
the research, the activities she arranged, the information she supplied, and her strong support
in the field. special thanks also to Dario Colozza for technical and geographic information
system support.
4. in a certain phase of history, on the strength of condemnations that emerged later and
from the voice of the pope himself, Rome was unveiled as a “third world city.”
5. The average size of each plot was between 800 and 2,000 m2.
6. for example, at least fifty thousand requests were registered for the latest building am-
nesty, most of them—it must be noted—in the historic center, one of the most affluent parts of
the city. This demonstrates that we are not dealing here with behavior driven by necessity.
References
allegretti, Giovanni, and Carlo Cellamare, eds. 2007. Les dispositifs participatifs locaux
en Ile-de-France et en Europe: Vers une démocratie technique? Le cas de Rome.
paris: Centre National de la Recherche scientifique.
barberi, paolo, ed. 2010. È successo qualcosa alla città. Rome: Donzelli.
berdini, paolo. 2010. Breve storia dell'abuso edilizio in Italia: Dal ventennio fascista al
prossimo futuro. Rome: Donzelli.