Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
economic miracle of the 1980s still had the italian north as its center, this time
gravitating toward the northeast. Rome kept growing in size, hand in hand with
the burgeoning state administration, but could not attract companies such as
olivetti or benetton, nor did small-scale family businesses in textiles, furniture,
or the food industries start to flourish, as they did in regions such as Veneto or
friuli. here is a remarkable continuity here: Rome's economy still relies on bu-
reaucracy, political administration, and religious tourism, a persistent feature for
at least seven centuries. modern Rome is certainly a “political city.” mussolini
consciously played on the city's imperial past via fascist architecture and urban
design (Kirk 2005); all the way back to 1871, Rome was developed by state plan-
ners as a symbolic and functional fixture of the centralizing and modernizing
state.
Cultural identities and outlooks have been shaped together with these larger
political and economic forces. Romans are often acutely aware of the city's his-
tory, even if their own families are mostly post-unification immigrants. how-
ever, historical awareness and pride is in many contexts mixed with a sense of
being peripheral and unimportant. Rome is Rome. The contrast to a capital city
like paris could hardly be more evident. Roman vernacular is considered, also
by Romans themselves, a low-class dialect, whereas real and “cultural” italian
is spoken in florence. Roman cooking is relatively simple and rustic, and Ro-
mans take pride in that very simplicity. in piedmont and tuscany, they excel in
fine steaks and elaborate sauces, served with oak barreled wines. Roman dishes
are cooked with tails, stomachs, and other offal, the cheap parts of the animal,
and accompanied by uncomplicated table wines (white more than red). in most
contexts, Romans do not feel they are living in any center, even if they evidently
do so both geographically and politically. michael herzfeld (2009) has fittingly
baptized Rome a “reluctant capital.” all of these features of the city do not mean
that Rome exists outside globality or modernity. Rome is different not because
it has not been modernized. The city's fractured or alternative modernizations
serve as an important background for understanding the ways in which Rome is
globalized today. Nor is Rome simply a periphery in a larger international divi-
sion of labor. Rome is both center and periphery, depending on perspective and
subject matter. This can also be put differently: urban development, in Rome as
elsewhere, is tied to processes that are locally specific as well as globally entan-
gled. This can perhaps be best exemplified with reference to how Rome is globally
imagined.
Globally imagined Rome
on the official 2010 Global Cities index (each year elaborated by the Chicago
Council on Global affairs), Rome comes in at a decent position: number 28
worldwide. it is placed lower than cities such as stockholm and Zürich, and evi-
dently much lower than the “top” global cities, New York, london, and tokyo.
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