Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
clichés are still part of Rome's global identity but they do not exist in isolation
from other processes which idroscalo is evidence and a manifestation of. to cap-
ture the complexities and contradictions of Rome requires a dialectic effort that
brings together the city's rich historical center with its anonymous peripheries,
the art of bernini and borromini with the self-made architecture of hundreds of
unknown masons, of the right to the city granted to some and denied to many.
in this way, we also touch on a fundamental issue concerning Rome's urban form
and quality of life: the relationship between archaeology and architecture, that
is, how an “imagined” understanding of the past has consequences for the “real”
present and future identity of the city. Rome's imagined past as caput mundi of
the caesars was used as justification for the creation of fascist suburban working-
class ghettos. Just as in the 1970s, the ideology of preserving the Roman past
again fueled a new generation of peripheries, today an imagined “natural” past at
the mouth of the tiber is in part shaping the future of the residents of idroscalo.
looking at Rome from idroscalo is not an exercise in postmodern neoreal-
ism; we do not intend to romanticize the margin. Rather, it is an attempt at read-
ing the peripheries as integral parts of urban agglomerations and not as mere
accidents in an otherwise coherent and rational development. in doing so, we
further a critical perspective on modern urban planning that, since the end of
world war ii, has theorized that the best way to deal with urban growth is to
concentrate people in large complexes located in whatever empty areas of the city
are still available (la Cecla 2008). This perspective allows us to consider idrosca-
lo as a place where social and environmental degradation coexist with hopes and
opportunities for a qualitatively different urban future. This view is not based on
wishful thinking but on the observation that in many parts of the world—less
so in Rome unfortunately—approaches to urban peripheries such as idroscalo
“have generally shifted from negative policies such as forced eviction, benign ne-
glect and involuntary resettlement, to more positive policies such as self-help and
in situ upgrading, enabling and rights-based policies” (united Nations human
settlements programme 2003, xxvi). to such an end, uN-habitat observes that
informal settlements, where most of the urban poor in developing countries
live, are increasingly seen by public decision-makers as places of opportunity,
as “slums of hope” rather than “slums of despair.” while forced evictions and
resettlement still occur in some cities, hardly any governments still openly
advocate such repressive policies today.
There is abundant evidence of innovative solutions developed by the poor
to improve their own living environments, leading to the gradual consolida-
tion of informal settlements. where appropriate, upgrading policies have been
put in place, slums have become increasingly socially cohesive, offering op-
portunities for security of tenure, local economic development and improve-
ment of incomes among the urban poor. however, these success stories have
been rather few, in comparison to the magnitude of the slum challenge, and
have yet to be systematically documented (ibid., 23).
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