Housing and Homelessness in Contemporary Rome - Global Rome: Changing Faces of the Eternal City - page 46

meet, whereas in 2007, they were 15.4 percent (Corriere della sera 2010). in 1999,
social pensions (that is, pensions of about 600 euros per month that the italian
National social security institute pays to individuals over 65 years of age with no
income), were requested by 37,212 individuals, 7.5 percent of the population over
65 in Rome (Caritas di Roma 1999), whereas in 2004, these had risen to 61,076
(73.3 percent of them women) and in 2008 to 68,569 (70.8 percent women), re-
spectively, 11.9 percent and 11.4 percent of the population over 65. The number of
unemployed in Rome increased in proportion to the national average (between 8
and 10 percent), but youth unemployment (between 15 and 34 years) is particular-
ly high among individuals with high levels of education (71.6 percent compared
to the italian average of 57.4 percent) (Villani 2010).
it has to be recognized that we need to shift our perspective from the “in-
ability of the market economy, or of state policies, to provide adequate shelter”
to the “ability” to actively neglect these. ability should be conceptualized as the
will and capacity to conceive and produce particular devices for social control.
in Rome, this ability not to provide adequate housing is a historical process that
is worth deconstructing.
home and housing after 1870 and the heritage of fascism
“free” market and neoliberal policies largely oriented the development of the city
after 1870, with the exception of three brief periods under the pianciani (1872-1874
and 1881-1882), Nathan (1907-1913), and argan-petroselli (1976-1981) administra-
tions. at the end of the nineteenth century, popular housing was becoming an
important social issue (the construction of the testaccio neighborhood started in
1883 and san lorenzo in 1884). in 1903, the institute for popular housing (istituto
autonomo per le Case popolari [iaCp]) was set up, suggesting that the market-
led situation was going to change. unfortunately, though, due to the opposition
of landlords and real-estate companies, the iaCp was never able to take a leading
role in the popular housing market, except with the building of san saba in 1920
and a few other examples. The fascist dictatorship (1924-1944) openly favored the
upper and middle classes in their housing needs and used any means to ghet-
toize, remove, and evict the working-class population from the center of the city.
Borgate were planned and built between 1923 and 1937 to host people that had
been evicted from the center as well as the poor. The term borgate was used for
the first time in 1924 when acilia was built, 15 km from Rome in a malarial area
for the inhabitants evicted from housing near the Roman forum (insolera 1993).
insolera clarifies the meaning of borgata thus:
This is a derogatory term that derives from the word borgo [village]: it is ei-
ther a piece of city whose organization is not complete enough to be called a
“neighbourhood” or a rural agglomeration which is still blocked by a feudal
economic system that hampers its development as a complete organism. Bor-