Where Is Culture in Rome? - Global Rome: Changing Faces of the Eternal City - page 236

or less, linked to autonomia and a significant proportion of their members were
punks; the only exceptions were alice nella città (alice in the City), which liaised
with the small new left party named proletarian Democracy (Democrazia prole-
taria), and the leninist blitz. all of them had been set up in suburban areas out-
side the city center, in reaction to the transformation of the historic center into a
district catering primarily to mainstream politics, business, tourism, and leisure
(mudu 2002). over the preceding twenty-five years, cultural and social initiatives
had been increasingly concentrated in central areas. entire neighborhoods where
thousands of people were living suffered from the absence of cinemas, theaters,
libraries, and even bookshops. as other chapters in this volume discuss further,
the development of the Roman suburban area, the periferia, was led by real-estate
speculation, offering nothing except bad housing and bad public services (e.g.,
insufficient transport connections). social centers instead provided spaces of
amalgamation where heterogeneous radical subjects, different generations, and
networks could come together. between 1985 and 1989, social centers mainly en-
gaged in building their own network and producing new languages and symbols.
politically speaking, they concentrated on small-scale initiatives to combat the
spread of heroin abuse locally and participated in international solidarity proj-
ects in support of palestinians and Nicaraguan sandinistas.
The second wave of squatting initiatives occurred after the 1990 mobiliza-
tion of university students. to mention a few, askatasuna, brancaleone, Corto
Circuito, maggiolina, magliana, Villaggio Globale were all set up between 1990
and 1991. magliana was turned into a social center using premises occupied back
in 1973. intifada, pirateria, ex snia Viscosa, strada, and torre followed between
1993 and 1995.3 additional centers, for example, acrobax, Rialto, sCola (later
strike), and bencivenga 15 were created between 1996 and 2001. forty-nine social
centers were in operation between 1990 and 2001 in Rome. in 1994, a large survey
was carried out within them (senzamedia 1996). Regular supporters and occa-
sional visitors interviewed described a social center as a “politically committed
group” (45.6 percent) or a “hub for political action” (20.8 percent). people visiting
or participating in their activities traveled on average 5 km from home to the
center (senzamedia 1996). an increasing number of sympathizers and visitors
was the main feature of the 1990-2001 phase, when social centers often hit the
headlines and were able to attract greater flows of visitors thanks to more effec-
tive communication methods (transform! 2004). Their increased visibility also
meant a greater involvement with the local political scene.
in 1993, various social centers supported the election of the center-left can-
didate for mayor of the city, defeating the right-wing candidate. in 1993-1994, the
municipal administration started discussing the possibility of legalizing squats
with some of them. after a long and harsh debate among centers and between
them and the city government, some squats were legalized and officially assigned