Marginal Centers - Global Rome: Changing Faces of the Eternal City - page 203

within the sociospatial landscape of modern Rome, the history of idroscalo
is both unique and conventional. it is unique because it is the last surviving self-
built small borghetto (illegally constructed neighborhood), and it is conventional
because its history follows that of other illegal, informal settlements in this city
that have grown to become large neighborhoods. it therefore offers a unique op-
portunity to study twenty-first-century urban processes whose roots go deep into
the making of Rome.
The chapter develops as follows: the first part includes a brief history of idro-
scalo since the early 1960s. The purpose of this section is to emphasize and clarify
a process of city-making that befuddles foreign observers, that is, how it is pos-
sible for private citizens to build on public land without formal permits. to an-
swer this legitimate question, it is necessary to briefly discuss urban development
in Rome since unification in 1870, intertwined with that of idroscalo. The sec-
ond section begs the question of how squatters are able to live in their makeshift
communities for years without being evicted or formally recognized by the city.
searching for an answer highlights the relationship between the city authorities
and working-class citizens living in informal, illegal neighborhoods. The con-
temporary proposal to relocate idroscalo residents to subsidized apartments that
have yet to be built and the violent police operations underway to “convince”
them to abandon their homes fits into this section. The chapter ends with the
question of why, if all is bad, people want to stay at idroscalo. answering this
question leads the discussion to individual motivations and the very system of
social relations that simultaneously unites and divides the residents. such an eth-
nography highlights the difficulties of self-organization and coordination and, at
the same time, some of the reasons why residents continue to resist moving out.
The methodology used is both quantitative and qualitative. surveys, interviews,
videos, photographs, and informal meetings with residents and institutional ac-
tors, as well as secondary data for comparing idroscalo to other illegal neighbor-
hoods, have been used in the research, which started in 2007 and is still ongoing.
idroscalo: a Roman history
The peninsula of idroscalo covers an area of approximately 10 ha (500 m by
200 m). on the northwest side, it borders with fiumara Grande (as the tiber
mouth is known there), and on the southeast with the tyrrhenian sea and the
new port of Rome. topography varies from a minimum of -0.70/-0.90 m in rela-
tion to average sea level near the river, to -2.0 m at the center of the settlement,
and -1.4 m along the shoreline. The mouth of the tiber at this point is about 200
m wide with an average depth of 5 m and the medium slope of the sea bed is ap-
proximately 1:100. During winter, atmospheric pressure and northwesterly winds
create trains of waves that raise the sea level further. although flooding occurs
frequently on the tyrrhenian side and appears more dangerous there, the risk of
inundation is actually greater on the tiber side. This is because the sea water en-