One, none and one hundred thousand. Or, if you prefer, one and fifteen, or – again – one and nine. Whichever way you look at it, one thing is certain: Rome it is not, and cannot be, a city like the others. And not only because it has been the capital of the country for over 153 years (3 February 1871, to be precise) or for its great beauty. Rome is one, because it is unique. No one like her ever. But it is also none, because no other European (or world) capital, at least among the largest, is treated as badly as the Eternal City. And then it is 15, or 9 depending on the perspective you consider. Fifteen like the Municipalities of Rome, each of which is a city within the city. Meanwhile as inhabitants. Suffice it to say that the Third, Montesacro, North/East quadrant, has over 200 thousand people.
To understand, how Padua, the 14th Italian city, more than Trieste, Brescia, Parma, Taranto, all below the two hundred thousand threshold. And, since the territories are “designed” in a radial pattern, each Municipality has its own center and its own periphery. Just think of Montesacro: Piazza Sempione is one thing, with its bars, its nightlife, the Town Hall; another is, for example, Fidene, once a village detached from Rome, or Settebagni, on the limits of the Gra. And the same goes for the other municipalities. The VIII is, of course, the very central (and very trendy) Garbatella, but it is also the deepest Ardeatino, just as the IX is San Giovanni, also the religious heart of the city with its Basilica, but then it reaches up to under the Castles.
The extension for nine cities
And why, again, would Rome be one and nine? Because, alone, it makes up the territorial extension of nine cities: Milan, Bologna, Turin, Genoa, Naples, Palermo, Catania, Florence and Bari. In all, almost 1,300 square kilometers. Enough and more to reiterate the obvious: Rome is not a municipality like all the others and therefore cannot be governed as an “ordinary” municipality, that is, with the same funds and the same laws. And this even taking into account the complexities that the Capitol encounters in city management. It would be difficult even if it all depended on the mayor, but if we then combine the tangle of skills, then the undertaking ends up bordering on the impossible: the State Superintendencies, the Vatican, the regional bodies and so on.
The process of the text
For this, finally, this time it must be the right one. There is a text of the government, to give Rome the powers of a Region (it would be the 21st in Italy), ready to be subjected to its natural national process. In a nutshell, its approval would fill an economic (in the sense of funds arriving) and regulatory gap compared to other European and non-European capitals, and would fully implement the reform approved on 5 May 2009 by the Berlusconi government (with Gianni Alemanno mayor of Rome) but never completely completed.
The name changed, of course. And the Cav, a few days later, speaking at the Campidoglio, said that “my friend Bettino’s dream had come true”. Craxi, of course. But then the reform essentially remained a dead letter. No additional funds, no extraordinary powers, no new attributions. Much more, from this point of view, was done for Rome by the institution of the commissioner’s management of the historical debt, which allowed the Municipality’s accounts to start from scratch, an instrument from which all the right-wing mayors have drawn (Alemanno himself, who invented it), left-wing (Marino) or M5S (Raggi). On Roma Capitale, however, nothing. Many legislative proposals, more or less along the same lines whether they came from the Democrats (that of Roberto Morassut for example) or from the centre-right (Fabio Rampelli of Fdi, Paolo Barelli of Fi). The most advanced point was the work carried out by Annagrazia Calabria, an Italian parliamentarian, in the last legislature. Then the Draghi government fell and goodbye.
In the middle, a game of crossed vetoes, of spite between the Municipality and the Region, of delays and obstacles. Now, more or less, the path should be traced in the document that Andrea De Priamo of Fratelli d’Italia has prepared and that has the “stamp” of the government. Rome Capital will have the powers of a Region, therefore the power to make laws, the management of the planning of the local public transport network in its entire vast area, that of waste (thus eliminating the buck-passing between bodies on the identification of solutions or plants to be built), will be able to directly access the funds that the government allocates to local bodies, from transport to social services, will be able to do environmental and urban planning without waiting for the Regional Plan. Al Lazio, understood as a Region, healthcare obviously remains the main part of the budget. And then a series of other skills: international relations and with the European Union, savings banks, rural banks, regional credit companies and regional land and agricultural credit institutions.
Comparison with others
Nothing more, but perhaps finally nothing less, than what happens in the other metropolises with which Rome, in a globalized world like ours, has to deal. London and its hinterland, through two legislative passages, have become the “great London”, responsible for all the functions of his vast area.
Similarly to Paris, in 2010 the Grand Paris was established which unites Paris and the Île-de-France region. Berlin is structured as a municipality and Lander, Washington can even become the 51st US state. All of them, obviously, enjoy much more abundant economic resources than the capital: Paris and Berlin receive a billion euros more, for example. For Rome, one, none and one hundred thousand, this time it is truly the turning point.
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