11 ms·

Rome in Ruins

91 points by scott_s 8y ago

briga 8y ago
It's not just Rome, I saw this in other Italian cities as well. The tourist areas are well-manicured, naturally, but the outskirts of many Italian cities are crumbling. Infrastructure is generally outdated and poorly designed, if not actively falling apart. The Italy of postcards and travel videos is a far cry from the Italy most Italians live in.
- armitron 8y ago
  Not to mention that Italy is fast on the way to becoming - if not already there - a mafia state. Reading Roberto Saviano's Gomorra opened my eyes as to how machine-like in its efficiency and hydra-like in its resiliency organized crime in Italy is with numerous sectors of the Italian state under the direct control of the mafia [1]. Combined with the economic outlook, this doesn't bode well for the future. [1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/mafia-toxic-waste-and-a-deadly-cover-up-in-an-italian-paradise-t/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/mafia-toxic-waste-and-a-d...
  - tatoalo 8y ago
    Thinking of understanding the Italian situation from outside Italy and from reading Saviano is, in my opinion, complete BS. I like to form a personal opinion with my own mind reading real newspapers and getting through different prospectives and then, again, form my own. I wouldn’t take Saviano’s words as pure gold, I don’t like someone who gained and still gains from “writing” those kind of things.
    - armitron 8y ago
      I don't see how I can't understand the Italian situation if I'm not living in Italy. The link I posted in my previous comment was from a "real newspaper". There are hundreds of links like that, all from "real newspapers" documenting the damage that the Camorra/Ndrangheta/Sicilian Mafia has done and how they're even expanding and threatening European mainland. I stopped buying Italian olive oil because odds are it's been tampered with by the clans. Even the Italians I know in Northern Europe prefer buying Greek and Spanish oil! You may not like Saviano but a lot of what he has written and predicted in his book has been validated. The fact that he unmasked Camorra at grave risks to his own life makes it hard for me to see him as "gaining" or exploitative. He lives his life in hotel rooms or police barracks under constant guard [1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/14/-sp-roberto-saviano-my-life-under-armed-guard-gomorrah https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/14/-sp-roberto-sa...
- fyfy18 8y ago
  Spain is in the same situation, although maybe not so pronounced yet. It's a stark contrast to post-Soviet countries, which are relatively well maintained and seeing trash dumped is practically unheard of.
  - runn1ng 8y ago
    Interesting, I am from Czech Republic, I was in Spain recently and I didn't feel like that at all. I have been mostly in Andalusia and the cities look great, Madrid looked fine as well.
    - fierarul 8y ago
      Madrid is a fine city but I also was 'lucky' to visit it while there was a huge demonstration occupying the city centre. Didn't look so well during that time. I think right before that the garbage men had a strike leaving all the trash on the streets. I guess in a way it doesn't take much to make a city look clean (or dirty) but it takes a lot of work for it to be constantly good looking.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - pfdzm 8y ago
    I’m from Madrid and, having recently been to Rome, would have to disagree. While Spain is certainly not on Switzerland or Japan’s level of cleanliness, I think it is miles away from Italy. Just the taxi ride from Fiumicino to Rome made me feel like I was in Brazil again - crooked, dirty road signs, wild vegetation growing everywhere, fading markings/lines, and a general state of chaos on every road.
  - nonphotosynthes 8y ago
    I disagree. I recently spent three months traveling Spain and found myself consistently impressed with the cleanliness of it. It’s not uncommon to see someone carry a spray bottle full of cleaning fluid to spray after their dog’s urinated. I’ve never seen that happen anywhere else.
- dwd 8y ago
  Visiting Venice many years ago, I found myself watching the ground rather than viewing the architecture due to the amount of dog shit on the streets. Obviously picking up after your dog is not in any way.
  - Farradfahren 8y ago
    Pitch,Yaw and Roll: What if there was a drone, to pack your dogshit, clean the location and vannish out of sight. Would you invest in that?
- personlurking 8y ago
  > The Italy of postcards and travel videos is a far cry from the Italy most Italians live I recommend the 2011 documentary Italy: Love It or Leave It. It's about two guys who drive through Italy in an old Fiat 500 to decide if they should stay or move away. In the process they talk about modern Italy. Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnnv3XS4Nj0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnnv3XS4Nj0
webwielder2 8y ago
Like San Francisco then.
phyller 8y ago
This is how I see New York City. Living there I was so used to it, then I went to San Diego for a wedding, couldn't believe my eyes when I saw people walking around outside barefoot. Because everything was clean, why not? Everyone else wore sandals, I was the only one wearing shoes. I came back to NYC early Monday morning, rode the subway from JFK and had to walk through Times Square to get where I was going. Times Square on a Monday morning, cleaning up from the weekend, is so gross. Of course trash, also urine and vomit and food smashed into everything, broken glass, etc. Of course all that and more in the subway, and rats here and there. The wind tunnels that are the streets blowing the detritus in your eyes, basically aerosolized rat feces. Stepping over little rivers of dog, or even human, urine was routine anywhere. And this is Manhattan, one of the greatest concentrations of wealth anywhere.
- pram 8y ago
  Yeah I was in NYC for the first time this year and I was impressed by the filth and general dilapidation. The subways are exceptionally dirty, and the stations/trains along the A line seemed to be in advanced decay. It’s nowhere as bad as Chicago though ;P
  - starpilot 8y ago
    We've almost come full circle to back when people despised cities for being dirty and admired suburbs for being clean and affordable.
  - aristophenes 8y ago
    It’s not that they don’t pay people to clean up. I used to get on the A at the very first stop. The train would be parked until it was time to go, and there was a whole crew of cleaners. The cleaning went like this, the workers would start in each separate car, when the doors opened they’d walk in, then walk towards each other trailing their mops, sit down and start talking. That was the cleaning that the MTA was paying for. This used to drive me nuts. Then one day a high level supervisor came on the train, and a group of the cleaners were in the car I was sitting in. He sat down with them and proceeded to explain how if they went to this certain building and filled out some paperwork they would start getting paid $40 per hour. He was going around, not inspecting work, but on behalf of their union, explaining how to work the system. The MTA is the worst, and taught me the dangers of some unions. I never saw an MTA employee working. Once I saw 4 MTA employees standing around as two contractors changed light bulbs. NYC has a heavily utilized subway system, and it definitely isn’t free. But they can’t even pay the expenses for maintenance let alone improvements without tax payer support because of these leeches. This is why NYC and elsewhere are like this, people not doing what they are paid to do.
marcoperaza 8y ago
I’ve thought for a while now that there is a special depravity to things like littering that makes them worse than, for example, small-time theft. At least the thief has a rational reason to steal and gains from his crime roughly what he has taken from another. The litterer by comparison gains so little but does so much harm.
- abecedarius 8y ago
  I get the impression theft usually pays the thief a lot less than the value of the loot -- they have to fence it, etc. You could view that as a quibble about profit-sharing, but OTOH in the bigger picture theft is highly negative-sum because of the costs around prevention and the thief's extra work in overcoming it (and other costs). So theft actually is rather like littering in this way.
- mcny 8y ago
  The saddest thing I've seen this year was a family waiting for the path train at 33 street and the (I assume parents drop some trash in the floor and yell at one of the kids who proceeded to pick up after the adults. Like not only are these adults actively littering, they are penalizing their children for trying to clean up after them. I wish I could say these people were tourists but sadly I have a feeling they're a product of our communities in the greater New York City area.
Lucadg 8y ago
Last time I was in Rome I had exactly the same impression. I even saw a discarded air conditioning unit at the feet of an ancient wall and it felt like I was in some dirty outskirts. I turned the corner and there was the Colossuem. Some Italian cities are very clean, others are even more dirty. It really depends and my guess is that after a while locals just stop seeing this. Clean and dirty is very subjective after all.
TheLuddite 8y ago
Well, they have a mayor outside of the system that's draining the swamp for the last few years...you get what you vote for.
- lbeltrame 8y ago
  Although not all faults can be attributed to the current mayor, the current one is IMO the worst the city could have: elected because she was "honest" and green (as in inexperienced). It turns out that real or perceived morality without any semblance of skill is not enough to handle a city, even more so a large city like Rome.
  - Udik 8y ago
    As an aside, these people aren't really "honest". They're just the kind of people who, in front of difficult problems and complicated situations, do the exact opposite of assuming good faith: in a textbook case of Dunning-Kruger effect, they think that things are easy to fix and therefore those who haven't fixed them before must have been dishonest. In fact in their cluelesness and will to always point elsewhere for the source of the problems, they're the same as those who preceded them, just worse.
sloanedavids 8y ago
This description of Rome is how I see San Francisco. Formerly such a beautiful city, now all I see is garbage. Recently my grandparents, who had never been outside of Germany before, visited me in San Francisco. As we left SFO by car and drove into the city, they eagerly took in the new sights. Everything they saw was new to them. After a long period of silence, they asked me, with a certain level of disbelief in their voice, “Why is there so much garbage on the streets in America?” I was stumped. Later, recounting their experience, they told me, “Driving into San Francisco felt like entering a land fill.” I will never forget those words.
- michaelvoz 8y ago
  I went for a walk today, around my neighborhood in San Francisco. It was filthy. It was really rather sad. I've been here a long time but am now actively looking to leave. It breaks my heart seeing the beautiful city treated as an open air insane asylum and trash pit.
- sloanedavids 8y ago
  It gets worse. I had hoped to show off Silicon Valley to them as a place that is, well, pretty awesome. Having spent their entire lives in Germany though, they didn’t come away very impressed. When we took the Caltrain from SF down to San Jose they laughed, saying how the rickety slow, old train reminded them of the Soviet-era trains they had in East Germany in the 70’s. I couldn’t disagree. Later, we took BART. Let’s just say they were so put off by the stench and the filthy condition of the train car, they refused to even sit down, held a handkerchief in front of their face, and couldn’t wait to get out. Needless to say, they were unimpressed by their visit to the Bay Area.
  - danans 8y ago
    BART is finally deploying their new cleaner and modern trains, but the old cars are indeed well past their expiry date, farther past than any trains I've seen in Western Europe. That may be because until recently, in much of the Bay Area, people of even moderate means often avoided transit at all costs. So the investment and maintenance went to roads, not transit.
mrunkel 8y ago
I'm always struck about how many people complain about trash, but seemingly so few actually do anything about it in their neighborhoods. While preventing littering is a laudable goal, the solution is achievable by all of us. Just pick up a few pieces and ay and throw it away. If everyone who complained about littering did that, the problem would be solved. Sure, there would still be litterers, but at least the neighborhood would be clean. I'd posit fewer people would litter if there wasn't already trash everywhere.
- bobthepanda 8y ago
  This helps to a point, but people only have so much time and can only do so much if the system is systemically broken as it is in Rome, where they are simply not able to process trash even when placed in dumpsters. Plus if the trash contains lots of things like broken glass or sharps, it might be dangerous for untrained citizens to dispose of trash on the street. America hasn’t really made a dent in domestic poverty even though charitable donations are the highest in the world per capita. At some point you do need an organized government response to problems.
  - Frondo 8y ago
    American charitable donations are only so high because church tithing counts. When's the last time you saw a church organize a street cleaning party, though? (or opening its tax-free building to the homeless?)
    - tomjakubowski 8y ago
      > or opening its tax-free building to the homeless? Here are like a dozen examples off the top of my head. https://www.journeystheroadhome.org/pads-shelter-program.html https://www.journeystheroadhome.org/pads-shelter-program.htm...
    - hydrox24 8y ago
      In the USA churches provide a substantial portion of the shelter available to the homeless.[0] Church tithing is often charitable, and churches often open their doors to provide community services. Churches may not regularly organise street cleaning parties, but I don't think that they consider litter to be one of society's great sins either. [0]: https://www.baylor.edu/mediacommunications/news.php?action=story&story=176953 https://www.baylor.edu/mediacommunications/news.php?action=s...
dathinab 8y ago
I had been in room recently on a "business" trip. While I haven't noticed the trash that much (1) what I noticed most was that literally every walk way was broken and had holes in it. (1): I might have seen dirty streets to often/frequent to take much note of it.
cpursley 8y ago
I'm currently visiting Rome and am shocked by the volume of garbage (and dog shit) on the street. It's everywhere and quite strange to see juxtaposed with all the fancy marble. I just don't get it. In comparison, my region in the USA is very clean. Additionally, I just came from Russia, which has a littering problem. But even even Russia is a clean paradise compared to the trash heap that Rome has become...
pionerkotik 8y ago
I have been in around 20 countries in Europe and Italy was the second-worst (after Georgia) in terms of rubbish. The problem is not only with Rome. I have lived for three years in Milan and it is as dirty. Turin is only marginally better. In fact, on some days the road from Milan's Bergamo airport to the city was so dirty that it looked almost as if in a third-world country. Interestingly, from my experience there was very little dog poo on the streets. Italians always seemed to painstakingly collect the poo of their pets and put it into rubbish bins. No such enthusiasm with other types of rubbish.
lordnacho 8y ago
I've driven into Italy from Switzerland on a few occasions. It's like one of those MMOs where you know you're in a new zone immediately. Even though you're driving you can tell exactly where the border is, not just where the official building for the import/export inspectors are, but the exact place where the Swiss asphalt ends and the Italian begins. Switzerland: Asphalt is perfect. No potholes, it might be a Formula One track you're on. There's no weeds sticking up. There's no plants growing over the signs or the barriers on the side. Signs themselves are pristine, like they were made today. No debris such as tyres or hubcaps on the roadway, though you do cross a piece of trash every now and again. You also come across the maintenance vehicles that keep all these things clean. Italy: Not like that. Most of Europe is like this. Germany is pretty good. France is a bit less decayed than Italy. Denmark is better but still weeds, trash, and potholes. UK is like Denmark, not perfect but you don't get that sense of failed state that you get crossing into Italy. One social/political thing that always comes to mind is they could hire people to clean things up. They wouldn't be highly paid, but people on low income getting paid could be good for the economy. Italy and France also have reasonably high unemployment rates, so there must be some people who would be willing? And they'd be providing a public good: everyone wants to live in a clean country.
- fiblye 8y ago
  I've heard a lot from other Americans about thinking France was a dump when they visited, and I really thought they were exaggerating. When I visited, I was actually pretty surprised to find it just how they described it. I wasn't sure if it was just that it was different, but I guess it's nice knowing at least some Europeans seem to agree. What really shocked me was how often I've heard terrible things about China from Euros/Americans, but going and seeing brand new, pristine streets, no litter in the rivers and streams, and not even cigarette butts on the sidewalks. I know dirty areas exist, because they do everywhere and China is the world's manufacturing capital, but they're doing great with their urban areas these days. But most Western cities make me depressed these days. You can see what they used to be, but they feel like they're wasting away.
  - tokyodude 8y ago
eecc 8y ago
Process. There’s so much process and bureaucracy in Italy that you can’t singlehandedly do anything. You need politicians - or rather, well connected busybodies - to call in their clientele, a couple private phone calls and “trovare la Quadra” which is an euphemism for finding a solution that appeases all interests. I don’t know, maybe it’s a reaction to authoritarian fascism, or just something intrinsic to us (read several accounts on how it was all just the same during Fascism) but it’s just too difficult to manover such a large ship with small engines and little fuel. It’s not just Rome, it’s everything around her that makes it so.
amelius 8y ago
In Singapore they have a zero tolerance policy for littering.
caymanjim 8y ago
This article is seriously lacking in photo evidence. Aside from the headline image, and one of dumpsters, none of the photos contain any trash or graffiti.
- drugme 8y ago
  That's because its main point is... more than a bit overdrawn. Yes, there's an obvious trash problem in certain areas (especially near Central Termini) and in certain parks. Which can be a bit eye-popping if the standard you're comparing to is on the order of, say, Switzerland. But by and large it's just not that huge of a problem in most areas - and at the end of the day, it's still a fantastically beautiful city. Its main problems are: (1) lack of first-class transportation system (2) tourists (3) of course, Italian politics.
yawaworhtttt 8y ago
Pretty much all large cities are dirty. People like to stereotypically dunk on Paris but to be frank it's got nothing on London or New York. There's just something inherently filthy that comes with large concentrations of human beings. The only exception I've seen first hand is Tokyo. I guess if you're not used to large cities it must be shocking. "There was a certain something about the air in [Ankh-Morpork]. You got the feeling that it was air that had seen life. You couldn't help noting with every breath that thousands of other people were very close to you and nearly all of them had armpits." -Terry Pratchett, Mort
- redisman 8y ago
  HN's beloved Bay Area (esp SF) is by far the dirtiest city I've been to and I've been to a lot of cities.
maliker 8y ago
The blog mentioned in the article (romafaschifo.com) is pretty readable via google translate. I noticed the vast majority of the articles are about political corruption and failure and not garbage. Compared to those issue, and speaking here as a Washington DC resident that is watching a similar kind of political decay, the trash is kind of charming.
drugme 8y ago
Rome in "ruins" is still way more beautiful than 90% of the larger metropolises out there.
primitur 8y ago
The physical conditions of the city are a manifestation of the destitution of its people. I've lived in many cities around the world that were utterly poor - yet, the people kept the streets clean. Things were orderly and maintained. I firmly believe its a matter of the principles of the society. In a progressive, wealthy nation such as exist in Europe, recycling is a thing. People don't want to live in trash - they use it for energy, or recycle it as much as possible. Those who sort trash, promote a cleaner eco-system .. those who eschew the waste anyway, as 'responsible consumers', also help a great deal. These are cultural phenomenon you don't find widely promoted in various civic contingencies around the western world; corruption persists in environments which support its ill-gained prosperity. In Europe, at least, we can find as many good as bad examples of this. I think its clear, the same cannot be said of other of the western nations ..

91 points by scott_s 8y ago

It's not just Rome, I saw this in other Italian cities as well. The tourist areas are well-manicured, naturally, but the outskirts of many Italian cities are crumbling. Infrastructure is generally outdated and poorly designed, if not actively falling apart. The Italy of postcards and travel videos is a far cry from the Italy most Italians live in.

armitron 8y ago
Not to mention that Italy is fast on the way to becoming - if not already there - a mafia state. Reading Roberto Saviano's Gomorra opened my eyes as to how machine-like in its efficiency and hydra-like in its resiliency organized crime in Italy is with numerous sectors of the Italian state under the direct control of the mafia [1]. Combined with the economic outlook, this doesn't bode well for the future. [1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/mafia-toxic-waste-and-a-deadly-cover-up-in-an-italian-paradise-t/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/mafia-toxic-waste-and-a-d...
- tatoalo 8y ago
  Thinking of understanding the Italian situation from outside Italy and from reading Saviano is, in my opinion, complete BS. I like to form a personal opinion with my own mind reading real newspapers and getting through different prospectives and then, again, form my own. I wouldn’t take Saviano’s words as pure gold, I don’t like someone who gained and still gains from “writing” those kind of things.
  - armitron 8y ago
    I don't see how I can't understand the Italian situation if I'm not living in Italy. The link I posted in my previous comment was from a "real newspaper". There are hundreds of links like that, all from "real newspapers" documenting the damage that the Camorra/Ndrangheta/Sicilian Mafia has done and how they're even expanding and threatening European mainland. I stopped buying Italian olive oil because odds are it's been tampered with by the clans. Even the Italians I know in Northern Europe prefer buying Greek and Spanish oil! You may not like Saviano but a lot of what he has written and predicted in his book has been validated. The fact that he unmasked Camorra at grave risks to his own life makes it hard for me to see him as "gaining" or exploitative. He lives his life in hotel rooms or police barracks under constant guard [1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/14/-sp-roberto-saviano-my-life-under-armed-guard-gomorrah https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/14/-sp-roberto-sa...
fyfy18 8y ago
Spain is in the same situation, although maybe not so pronounced yet. It's a stark contrast to post-Soviet countries, which are relatively well maintained and seeing trash dumped is practically unheard of.
- runn1ng 8y ago
  Interesting, I am from Czech Republic, I was in Spain recently and I didn't feel like that at all. I have been mostly in Andalusia and the cities look great, Madrid looked fine as well.
  - fierarul 8y ago
    Madrid is a fine city but I also was 'lucky' to visit it while there was a huge demonstration occupying the city centre. Didn't look so well during that time. I think right before that the garbage men had a strike leaving all the trash on the streets. I guess in a way it doesn't take much to make a city look clean (or dirty) but it takes a lot of work for it to be constantly good looking.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- pfdzm 8y ago
  I’m from Madrid and, having recently been to Rome, would have to disagree. While Spain is certainly not on Switzerland or Japan’s level of cleanliness, I think it is miles away from Italy. Just the taxi ride from Fiumicino to Rome made me feel like I was in Brazil again - crooked, dirty road signs, wild vegetation growing everywhere, fading markings/lines, and a general state of chaos on every road.
- nonphotosynthes 8y ago
  I disagree. I recently spent three months traveling Spain and found myself consistently impressed with the cleanliness of it. It’s not uncommon to see someone carry a spray bottle full of cleaning fluid to spray after their dog’s urinated. I’ve never seen that happen anywhere else.
dwd 8y ago
Visiting Venice many years ago, I found myself watching the ground rather than viewing the architecture due to the amount of dog shit on the streets. Obviously picking up after your dog is not in any way.
- Farradfahren 8y ago
  Pitch,Yaw and Roll: What if there was a drone, to pack your dogshit, clean the location and vannish out of sight. Would you invest in that?
personlurking 8y ago
> The Italy of postcards and travel videos is a far cry from the Italy most Italians live I recommend the 2011 documentary Italy: Love It or Leave It. It's about two guys who drive through Italy in an old Fiat 500 to decide if they should stay or move away. In the process they talk about modern Italy. Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnnv3XS4Nj0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnnv3XS4Nj0

webwielder2 8y ago

Like San Francisco then.

phyller 8y ago

This is how I see New York City. Living there I was so used to it, then I went to San Diego for a wedding, couldn't believe my eyes when I saw people walking around outside barefoot. Because everything was clean, why not? Everyone else wore sandals, I was the only one wearing shoes. I came back to NYC early Monday morning, rode the subway from JFK and had to walk through Times Square to get where I was going. Times Square on a Monday morning, cleaning up from the weekend, is so gross. Of course trash, also urine and vomit and food smashed into everything, broken glass, etc. Of course all that and more in the subway, and rats here and there. The wind tunnels that are the streets blowing the detritus in your eyes, basically aerosolized rat feces. Stepping over little rivers of dog, or even human, urine was routine anywhere. And this is Manhattan, one of the greatest concentrations of wealth anywhere.

pram 8y ago
Yeah I was in NYC for the first time this year and I was impressed by the filth and general dilapidation. The subways are exceptionally dirty, and the stations/trains along the A line seemed to be in advanced decay. It’s nowhere as bad as Chicago though ;P
- starpilot 8y ago
  We've almost come full circle to back when people despised cities for being dirty and admired suburbs for being clean and affordable.
- aristophenes 8y ago
  It’s not that they don’t pay people to clean up. I used to get on the A at the very first stop. The train would be parked until it was time to go, and there was a whole crew of cleaners. The cleaning went like this, the workers would start in each separate car, when the doors opened they’d walk in, then walk towards each other trailing their mops, sit down and start talking. That was the cleaning that the MTA was paying for. This used to drive me nuts. Then one day a high level supervisor came on the train, and a group of the cleaners were in the car I was sitting in. He sat down with them and proceeded to explain how if they went to this certain building and filled out some paperwork they would start getting paid $40 per hour. He was going around, not inspecting work, but on behalf of their union, explaining how to work the system. The MTA is the worst, and taught me the dangers of some unions. I never saw an MTA employee working. Once I saw 4 MTA employees standing around as two contractors changed light bulbs. NYC has a heavily utilized subway system, and it definitely isn’t free. But they can’t even pay the expenses for maintenance let alone improvements without tax payer support because of these leeches. This is why NYC and elsewhere are like this, people not doing what they are paid to do.

marcoperaza 8y ago

I’ve thought for a while now that there is a special depravity to things like littering that makes them worse than, for example, small-time theft. At least the thief has a rational reason to steal and gains from his crime roughly what he has taken from another. The litterer by comparison gains so little but does so much harm.

abecedarius 8y ago
I get the impression theft usually pays the thief a lot less than the value of the loot -- they have to fence it, etc. You could view that as a quibble about profit-sharing, but OTOH in the bigger picture theft is highly negative-sum because of the costs around prevention and the thief's extra work in overcoming it (and other costs). So theft actually is rather like littering in this way.
mcny 8y ago
The saddest thing I've seen this year was a family waiting for the path train at 33 street and the (I assume parents drop some trash in the floor and yell at one of the kids who proceeded to pick up after the adults. Like not only are these adults actively littering, they are penalizing their children for trying to clean up after them. I wish I could say these people were tourists but sadly I have a feeling they're a product of our communities in the greater New York City area.

Lucadg 8y ago

Last time I was in Rome I had exactly the same impression. I even saw a discarded air conditioning unit at the feet of an ancient wall and it felt like I was in some dirty outskirts. I turned the corner and there was the Colossuem. Some Italian cities are very clean, others are even more dirty. It really depends and my guess is that after a while locals just stop seeing this. Clean and dirty is very subjective after all.

TheLuddite 8y ago

Well, they have a mayor outside of the system that's draining the swamp for the last few years...you get what you vote for.

lbeltrame 8y ago
Although not all faults can be attributed to the current mayor, the current one is IMO the worst the city could have: elected because she was "honest" and green (as in inexperienced). It turns out that real or perceived morality without any semblance of skill is not enough to handle a city, even more so a large city like Rome.
- Udik 8y ago
  As an aside, these people aren't really "honest". They're just the kind of people who, in front of difficult problems and complicated situations, do the exact opposite of assuming good faith: in a textbook case of Dunning-Kruger effect, they think that things are easy to fix and therefore those who haven't fixed them before must have been dishonest. In fact in their cluelesness and will to always point elsewhere for the source of the problems, they're the same as those who preceded them, just worse.

sloanedavids 8y ago

This description of Rome is how I see San Francisco. Formerly such a beautiful city, now all I see is garbage. Recently my grandparents, who had never been outside of Germany before, visited me in San Francisco. As we left SFO by car and drove into the city, they eagerly took in the new sights. Everything they saw was new to them. After a long period of silence, they asked me, with a certain level of disbelief in their voice, “Why is there so much garbage on the streets in America?” I was stumped. Later, recounting their experience, they told me, “Driving into San Francisco felt like entering a land fill.” I will never forget those words.

michaelvoz 8y ago
I went for a walk today, around my neighborhood in San Francisco. It was filthy. It was really rather sad. I've been here a long time but am now actively looking to leave. It breaks my heart seeing the beautiful city treated as an open air insane asylum and trash pit.
sloanedavids 8y ago
It gets worse. I had hoped to show off Silicon Valley to them as a place that is, well, pretty awesome. Having spent their entire lives in Germany though, they didn’t come away very impressed. When we took the Caltrain from SF down to San Jose they laughed, saying how the rickety slow, old train reminded them of the Soviet-era trains they had in East Germany in the 70’s. I couldn’t disagree. Later, we took BART. Let’s just say they were so put off by the stench and the filthy condition of the train car, they refused to even sit down, held a handkerchief in front of their face, and couldn’t wait to get out. Needless to say, they were unimpressed by their visit to the Bay Area.
- danans 8y ago
  BART is finally deploying their new cleaner and modern trains, but the old cars are indeed well past their expiry date, farther past than any trains I've seen in Western Europe. That may be because until recently, in much of the Bay Area, people of even moderate means often avoided transit at all costs. So the investment and maintenance went to roads, not transit.

mrunkel 8y ago

I'm always struck about how many people complain about trash, but seemingly so few actually do anything about it in their neighborhoods. While preventing littering is a laudable goal, the solution is achievable by all of us. Just pick up a few pieces and ay and throw it away. If everyone who complained about littering did that, the problem would be solved. Sure, there would still be litterers, but at least the neighborhood would be clean. I'd posit fewer people would litter if there wasn't already trash everywhere.

bobthepanda 8y ago
This helps to a point, but people only have so much time and can only do so much if the system is systemically broken as it is in Rome, where they are simply not able to process trash even when placed in dumpsters. Plus if the trash contains lots of things like broken glass or sharps, it might be dangerous for untrained citizens to dispose of trash on the street. America hasn’t really made a dent in domestic poverty even though charitable donations are the highest in the world per capita. At some point you do need an organized government response to problems.
- Frondo 8y ago
  American charitable donations are only so high because church tithing counts. When's the last time you saw a church organize a street cleaning party, though? (or opening its tax-free building to the homeless?)
  - tomjakubowski 8y ago
    > or opening its tax-free building to the homeless? Here are like a dozen examples off the top of my head. https://www.journeystheroadhome.org/pads-shelter-program.html https://www.journeystheroadhome.org/pads-shelter-program.htm...
  - hydrox24 8y ago
    In the USA churches provide a substantial portion of the shelter available to the homeless.[0] Church tithing is often charitable, and churches often open their doors to provide community services. Churches may not regularly organise street cleaning parties, but I don't think that they consider litter to be one of society's great sins either. [0]: https://www.baylor.edu/mediacommunications/news.php?action=story&story=176953 https://www.baylor.edu/mediacommunications/news.php?action=s...

dathinab 8y ago

I had been in room recently on a "business" trip. While I haven't noticed the trash that much (1) what I noticed most was that literally every walk way was broken and had holes in it. (1): I might have seen dirty streets to often/frequent to take much note of it.

cpursley 8y ago

I'm currently visiting Rome and am shocked by the volume of garbage (and dog shit) on the street. It's everywhere and quite strange to see juxtaposed with all the fancy marble. I just don't get it. In comparison, my region in the USA is very clean. Additionally, I just came from Russia, which has a littering problem. But even even Russia is a clean paradise compared to the trash heap that Rome has become...

pionerkotik 8y ago

I have been in around 20 countries in Europe and Italy was the second-worst (after Georgia) in terms of rubbish. The problem is not only with Rome. I have lived for three years in Milan and it is as dirty. Turin is only marginally better. In fact, on some days the road from Milan's Bergamo airport to the city was so dirty that it looked almost as if in a third-world country. Interestingly, from my experience there was very little dog poo on the streets. Italians always seemed to painstakingly collect the poo of their pets and put it into rubbish bins. No such enthusiasm with other types of rubbish.

lordnacho 8y ago

I've driven into Italy from Switzerland on a few occasions. It's like one of those MMOs where you know you're in a new zone immediately. Even though you're driving you can tell exactly where the border is, not just where the official building for the import/export inspectors are, but the exact place where the Swiss asphalt ends and the Italian begins. Switzerland: Asphalt is perfect. No potholes, it might be a Formula One track you're on. There's no weeds sticking up. There's no plants growing over the signs or the barriers on the side. Signs themselves are pristine, like they were made today. No debris such as tyres or hubcaps on the roadway, though you do cross a piece of trash every now and again. You also come across the maintenance vehicles that keep all these things clean. Italy: Not like that. Most of Europe is like this. Germany is pretty good. France is a bit less decayed than Italy. Denmark is better but still weeds, trash, and potholes. UK is like Denmark, not perfect but you don't get that sense of failed state that you get crossing into Italy. One social/political thing that always comes to mind is they could hire people to clean things up. They wouldn't be highly paid, but people on low income getting paid could be good for the economy. Italy and France also have reasonably high unemployment rates, so there must be some people who would be willing? And they'd be providing a public good: everyone wants to live in a clean country.

fiblye 8y ago
I've heard a lot from other Americans about thinking France was a dump when they visited, and I really thought they were exaggerating. When I visited, I was actually pretty surprised to find it just how they described it. I wasn't sure if it was just that it was different, but I guess it's nice knowing at least some Europeans seem to agree. What really shocked me was how often I've heard terrible things about China from Euros/Americans, but going and seeing brand new, pristine streets, no litter in the rivers and streams, and not even cigarette butts on the sidewalks. I know dirty areas exist, because they do everywhere and China is the world's manufacturing capital, but they're doing great with their urban areas these days. But most Western cities make me depressed these days. You can see what they used to be, but they feel like they're wasting away.
- tokyodude 8y ago

eecc 8y ago

Process. There’s so much process and bureaucracy in Italy that you can’t singlehandedly do anything. You need politicians - or rather, well connected busybodies - to call in their clientele, a couple private phone calls and “trovare la Quadra” which is an euphemism for finding a solution that appeases all interests. I don’t know, maybe it’s a reaction to authoritarian fascism, or just something intrinsic to us (read several accounts on how it was all just the same during Fascism) but it’s just too difficult to manover such a large ship with small engines and little fuel. It’s not just Rome, it’s everything around her that makes it so.

amelius 8y ago

In Singapore they have a zero tolerance policy for littering.

caymanjim 8y ago

This article is seriously lacking in photo evidence. Aside from the headline image, and one of dumpsters, none of the photos contain any trash or graffiti.

drugme 8y ago
That's because its main point is... more than a bit overdrawn. Yes, there's an obvious trash problem in certain areas (especially near Central Termini) and in certain parks. Which can be a bit eye-popping if the standard you're comparing to is on the order of, say, Switzerland. But by and large it's just not that huge of a problem in most areas - and at the end of the day, it's still a fantastically beautiful city. Its main problems are: (1) lack of first-class transportation system (2) tourists (3) of course, Italian politics.

yawaworhtttt 8y ago

Pretty much all large cities are dirty. People like to stereotypically dunk on Paris but to be frank it's got nothing on London or New York. There's just something inherently filthy that comes with large concentrations of human beings. The only exception I've seen first hand is Tokyo. I guess if you're not used to large cities it must be shocking. "There was a certain something about the air in [Ankh-Morpork]. You got the feeling that it was air that had seen life. You couldn't help noting with every breath that thousands of other people were very close to you and nearly all of them had armpits." -Terry Pratchett, Mort

redisman 8y ago
HN's beloved Bay Area (esp SF) is by far the dirtiest city I've been to and I've been to a lot of cities.

maliker 8y ago

The blog mentioned in the article (romafaschifo.com) is pretty readable via google translate. I noticed the vast majority of the articles are about political corruption and failure and not garbage. Compared to those issue, and speaking here as a Washington DC resident that is watching a similar kind of political decay, the trash is kind of charming.

drugme 8y ago

Rome in "ruins" is still way more beautiful than 90% of the larger metropolises out there.

primitur 8y ago

The physical conditions of the city are a manifestation of the destitution of its people. I've lived in many cities around the world that were utterly poor - yet, the people kept the streets clean. Things were orderly and maintained. I firmly believe its a matter of the principles of the society. In a progressive, wealthy nation such as exist in Europe, recycling is a thing. People don't want to live in trash - they use it for energy, or recycle it as much as possible. Those who sort trash, promote a cleaner eco-system .. those who eschew the waste anyway, as 'responsible consumers', also help a great deal. These are cultural phenomenon you don't find widely promoted in various civic contingencies around the western world; corruption persists in environments which support its ill-gained prosperity. In Europe, at least, we can find as many good as bad examples of this. I think its clear, the same cannot be said of other of the western nations ..