Rome in Ruins
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
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.
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.
As for Paris one of the earlier episodes of "This American Life" is basically about how Paris's reputation is from like 100-120 years ago.
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/165/americans-in-paris
It's not the same place it was but it's still promoted as though it is. San Francisco seems similar to me. Much of what SF is famous for is from 100 years ago or more.
While we're on the topic of out dated things. I was amazed that Paris Disneyland has a Hollywood themed park of which a not small percent of which is dedicated to things that were famous in Hollywood 80+ years ago. Maybe people visiting actually know about that stuff but I'd be little surprised that references to movies from the 1930s are still relevant to most guests?
As you said it yourself, there are shitty spots in every country, but so far I'd say France is well rounded.
It's true we're (I) biased toward China, probably because of the regular toxic smog news.
I’ve been to seriously bad places in the US. Like 3rd world shitting in outhouses bad. Nothing like that exists in France.
On the other hand, Normandy and it’s various towns and villages were so heartbreakingly beautiful, quaint, and filled with joy, I could barely believe that such a place could exist on Earth.
I visited Paris last year and stayed in Montmartre. It was hardly a sterile place (like Singapore tries to be), but then again Paris has always been grungy — where do you think modern perfume came from?
What I didn't see in Paris were the tent cities like back in San Francisco. I didn't see feces all over the escalator and stairs at the metro stations like you see in San Francisco. I didn't see any hypodermic needles in the seat backs like you do on BART either.
Not sure why you were being downvoted because that was my exact experience as I drove into Italy from Switzerland using the Simplon pass two summers ago. I remember taking a driving pause on the side of a “statale” one hour after having passed the border and I was amazed about how much garbage there was (“this looks exactly like back home in Romania”, I said to myself) while the same sort of stop I had encountered earlier during the trip on the Swiss shore of Lake Constanz was as clean as a four-star hotel bathroom.
On the other hand Italy is the most beautiful place in the world for history and architecture buffs such as myself, I daydream about visiting different parts of it basically every other day (I’ve already visited Rome, Turin, the shores of Lago Maggiore and Trieste, but there are a limited number of summer holidays in one’s life, plus the money eventually runs out).
I was once in Palermo, the largest city in Sicily, which has buildings that were bombed in WW2 and have not been repaired. An American couple wandered past, looking for the famed Piazza Pretoria: they were actually on it, they just didn't realize the moldy pool with a boot floating in it was the (broken) fountain landmark they were looking for.
* >The University of Naples, the first university in Europe dedicated to training secular administrators,
* >Naples became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 as part of the Italian unification, ending the era of Bourbon rule. The kingdom of the Two Sicilies had been wealthy, and as many as 443.2 million ducats were taken from the old kingdom's banks as a contribution to the new Italian treasury.
* >by 1884, Naples was still the largest city in Italy with 496,499 inhabitants, or roughly 64,000 per square kilometre (more than twice the population density of Paris)
It's funny that part of the north believes that they were better off without the south[2]. It would be funny if it were actually the other way round.
But, Mazzini and Garibaldi were also interested in ridding the south of their Baroni and Viceré, who thrived in the misery and plight of the masses that toiled to support their luxuries
Or perhaps rather, that they would now be better off.
In 1861 Switzerland was a bunch of poor shepherds with goitre. But the world has changed.
Do you think there's a way to resolve this ?
I’m a mathematician and macroeconomist by training and the fourth generation of family business-owners. It’s difficult to see a happy end to the current predicament. The Euro currency’s stipulations are now seen as strictures imposed upon European peoples by intransigent Germans. Native spending power is contracting and only exports are growing. Deficit spending gave us an unmanageable debt-load and this basically excludes deficit spending to reboot the economy. The much-maligned Euro is the only thing that keeps the interest rates on this debt marginally manageable. Devaluation of the currency, the go-to choice of the 1960s-to-1990s is no longer available.
It really is a pickle. If anything I’m amazed that basic services such as universal healthcare and education have been largely untouched. Some of the welfare state has been under fire but mostly the effects have been cosmetic. For now, at least.
[1] here too there's a very easy reflex to say Europe caused our problems, even though it's clear people forget other causes to issues.
This crysis might lead to something quite disruptive. Energy, political technology (information)..
We have created in the Western world a sense of entitlement such that there are jobs only those who immigrate will take. Not because because the work is hard but because the perception that it is for "those people".
In the US the best description I can give is, we have moved away from JFK famous speech of "Ask not what your country can do for you" to the near opposite. When politicians hammer at the idea of unfairness and inequality instead of one of service and hard work it can defeat a society as surely as any conflict of arms. We have far too few inspiring leaders and instead stuck with those who divide in order to obtain the power and positions they want for themselves.
Italy has more than - half a million - illegal immigrants. [1] Italy has five million+ legal immigrants. [1]
The quality of illegal and legal immigrants to Italy is very low. I hope that better explains the differences between Italy and Switzerland.
What you describe is too easy an image to create on one's head. It's easy to convince people this is happening, as fictional jobs where the employer doesn't really intent to hire anyone is are very cheap to create. But it is hard for people to risk their families living just because they think some job is beneath them.
You and I have a different experience on potholes and trash in London.
- Trash are everywhere in inner London, because the regulations against IRA bin bombings are still in effect. This is a hotbed for rats.
- Potholes are that dangerous I've seen couple of accidents just because the cyclist had to do unexpected move or drive through-then fell.
- Many of the roads are although two-way, but actually no two vehicles can fit in the lane (no surface marking to separate the two lanes). Quite dangerous. On top of this, many two-way roads are narrowed to provide shorter crossing for pedestrians. Check the front-left wheels of the cars and you will see what this mean.
> not perfect
They have potholes and narrow lanes, but I've seen potholes you could sleep in some places outside the UK.
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.
It’s nowhere as bad as Chicago though ;P
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.
>otherwise just take it as the impression from a fellow HNer. on the internet everyone is a dog
It’s gotten much better since then, but the MTA barely gets funding for current maintenance, let alone funding to clear the backlog. Most recent fare increases have been to service debt issued to clear said backlog.
Sure it would. Both as a supervisor when this happened, and now that she's mayor. Telling tourists to fuck off only ends poorly for a town like SF that depends so heavily on tourist money.
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.
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-d...
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-sa...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
When's the last time you saw a church organize a street cleaning party, though? (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.htm...
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=s...
Many municipalities in Rome dispose of garbage through large bins placed on the street at the bottom of apartment buildings. Especially during the winter, these bins are not regularly emptied, causing piles of waste around them and litter being carried around by the wind.
The same happens with parks' garbage bins, with the added challenge that you probably can't pick up the park's garbage and bring it to the municipal bins... because they're already overflowing.
"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
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 ..
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.
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.
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.
(1): I might have seen dirty streets to often/frequent to take much note of it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's part of why I stopped riding motorcycles. There was far too often substantial hazardous objects like building materials or furniture littering the streets. I presume it was all falling from improperly loaded vehicles, perhaps people underestimating the effects of hills.
I've observed a lot more negligence and incompetence in general with Californians. There's a combination of extreme carelessness and lack of ownership for one's (in)actions, I'm not sure how to describe it, but it's very apparent after living here for over a decade. Everything is someone else's problem, maybe it's just the ubiquitous self-centeredness Californians are known for.
In any case, it doesn't make for a population that cooperates on keeping the place clean. The state would have to spend far more than other states to clean up after its residents enough to be kept comparably tidy. These people simply can't be bothered about anything other than themselves.