Housing and Homelessness in Contemporary Rome - Global Rome: Changing Faces of the Eternal City - page 48

viduals (insolera 1993). These shacks formed an arc-shaped constellation between
the northeast and the southeast of the city (mudu 2006a). one study defined
Rome city government's management of housing as “against humans” (D'apice
and mazzetti 1970).
popular and illegal housing and the making of the Periferia
in 1949, parliament passed two bills aimed at creating thousands of publicly fund-
ed apartments (law No. 43/1949, the piano iNa-Casa, and law No. 408/1949, the
tupini law). The borgate and borghetti did not disappear, though; they increased.
often, after people were moved to new decent housing, shacks were not demol-
ished but were left abandoned and then squatted by new inhabitants. in 1962, the
new urban master plan for Rome was approved. its main goal was to stimulate
further real-estate speculation with the intention of developing the city to accom-
modate up to five million inhabitants (the population at the time was 2,278,882).
at the end of the 1960s, the construction of neighborhoods known as “167”
(named after housing law No. 167 of 1962) began without an organic project.
housing for about 165,000 people was planned and built on the eastern and
southeastern side of Rome, the first of which was spinaceto. The political mar-
ginalization linked to borghetti, borgate, and slums was reproduced in the large
housing blocks built in tuscolano and monteverde, Corviale, laurentino 38, and
torbellamonaca.2 in each case, these projects were built as single “episodes,” not
as integrated parts of the city. This is the common trait of all the recently planned
and built periferie.
in 1977, “the historical” suburban periferia of Rome was surveyed and of-
ficial boundaries established (ity-ive illegal areas covering more than 3,000 ha).
water, sewage, gas, and electricity facilities were provided. in practice, a large
portion of the periferia was integrated with the rest of the city (leone 1981). in
1980 alone, four thousand “improper houses” were demolished. The municipality
engaged in a massive effort to control the eviction of thousands of people ensur-
ing “from house to house” ( da casa a casa ) mobility, meaning that nobody was
evicted if a new place to stay was unavailable (perego 1981). following the work
carried out by the left-wing administrations between 1976 and 1983, the condi-
tions of marginality of the Roman periferia weakened (martinelli 1995). suburbs
increasingly became places of residence, work, and consumption as well as sites of
production of alternative cultures, such as social centers (see mudu, chapter 16).
Despite the fact that the plan for popular housing Construction started in
the 1960s and another followed in the second half of the 1980s, most real hous-
ing policy interventions were linked to abusivismo (illegal housing construction)
that in the 1950s and 1960s became hegemonic. illegal housing construction
means building without legal authorization and a license from local authorities
who ensure its conformity to the urban master plan (brazzoduro 1989). The word