Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
gata is a subspecies of the “borgo”: a piece of city in the countryside, which,
really, is neither one nor the other (insolera 1993, 135. my translation).
aldo tozzetti (1989) describes the mechanism of surveillance and control set
up by the regime for the borgate, where the fascists were constantly present, and
which were also regularly patrolled by the police. for example, the fascists visited
borgata Gordiani several times a day, first in the morning to distribute milk,
second in the afternoon to offer snacks to the children, and third in the evening
for political propaganda. under the regime, the use of housing as a mechanism
of power to control the lower classes was explicit.
The Reconstruction of Rome after world war ii and the Palazzinari
The situation did not progress much after the second world war when Rome
hosted 35 legal borgate (planned by the fascists) and 87 borghetti: illegal borgate
(tozzetti 1989). The dynamics that led to the emergence of borghetti were similar
to the ones for the borgate. areas far from the city center were illegally occu-
pied, and shacks or small houses were built on them (Clementi and perego 1983).
from 1947, for almost thirty years, the Christian Democrat party (Democrazia
Cristiana) controlled the municipal government, allied with the same landlords
and real-estate speculators active during the dictatorship (scalera, talenti, tu-
dini, Vaselli, torlonia, Gerini, Chigi, lancellotti) , and additionally supported a
new generation of palazzinari (armellini, bonifaci, Caltagirone, francisci, mez-
zaroma, toti). a palazzinaro in Roman slang is the builder of palazzine, a deroga-
tory term for an edifice that does not reach the status of a palazzo. in Rome, the
term palazzinaro refers broadly to housing developers and to owners of several
buildings, property speculators that exploit rentals from tenants. The palazzinari
have always been male figures who emerged in the postwar period as prominent
actors in Rome's “development.” Their capacity to control city councilors and
clerks in municipal technical offices became so strong that they were able to vio-
late the city's master plan or adapt it to their needs. Their widespread failure to
respect building regulations resulted in the creation of poor quality houses with
few services. a famous example is the magliana neighborhood built at the end of
the 1960s, below the level of the tiber River, with a high density of houses and no
urban infrastructure or public services at all.
after world war ii, poverty and poor housing conditions could be “justi-
fied” and “accepted” as part of the “reconstruction” rhetoric, but this was no
longer plausible at the end of the 1950s when the italian economy was booming
and it became clear that the Christian Democrat party was not interested in pro-
viding decent housing for immigrants, squatters, and poor people. still, in 1968,
the grassroots association Centro cittadino delle Consulte popolari (Civic Center
for popular Consultations) reported the existence of approximately fifty-seven
concentrations of shacks and borghetti “hosting” 16,506 families, or 62,351 indi-
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