Marginal Centers - Global Rome: Changing Faces of the Eternal City - page 207

of being destroyed. The ambiguous behavior of the city government raises false
hopes among the residents which in turn creates diffuse mistrust preventing the
development of virtuous civic behavior. to complicate things further, benign ne-
glect does not stop residents from creating a sense of community and investing
their life savings in ameliorating their living conditions. The informality of the
settlement becomes their lived world and their home the only tangible property
upon which to construct a present for themselves and a future for their children.
it is thus understandable that residents resist plans for their relocation, at times
violently.
since the mid-1970s, idroscalo residents have negotiated with city authorities
to obtain visibility and legitimacy, but to no avail. as noted by residents in inter-
views and documents sent to the city government, the site is practically devoid
of primary and secondary infrastructures and existing services are temporary
and incomplete. internal roads are made of packed earth and, apart from a few
canalizations made by the residents at the end of the 1980s to drain gardens and
channel rain water into the river, there is no proper sewage system. Roads are
constantly flooded, therefore, making walking and driving particularly difficult.
The distribution of drinking water is another exercise in creativity. most
homes receive water from three drinking fountains. The water is collected into
large tanks and then flows through exposed metal pipes to smaller containers
placed on rooftops; from there it is distributed into homes and gardens with the
help of small electrical pumps. Residents have built all these connections, using
water that is public and therefore free, with the full knowledge (and blessing) of
the azienda Comunale elettricità e acque (aCea). Not all homes receive water
in this way, though; some are hooked up to the communal aqueduct, and resi-
dents therefore pay for it. This paradoxical situation came about because in the
mid-1990s, aCea offered residents the possibility of signing a contract to con-
nect their houses to the grid. This initiative, however, was short-lived and not well
advertised so that only a few informed and well-organized residents were able to
take advantage of the brief window of opportunity.
Cooking is done at idroscalo by using gas cylinders. most homes have elec-
tricity from the city grid but, as with water, the history of their access to electric
power is a convoluted one. according to residents, before 1977, it was possible
to get electricity simply by making a request to the power company. since then,
two laws concerning illegal settlements (law No. 10/1977 and Regional law No.
28/1980) have prevented further access. at idroscalo, therefore, homes built be-
fore 1977 have a regular contract with the power company, whereas the majority,
built after 1977, connect illegally to the grid. This practice is also known to aCea
and to the city government.
There is no garbage collection inside the settlement because the municipal
authorities consider its internal roads to be “private”; refuse is collected only in