The politics of town planning in post-war Naples

Journal of Modern Italian Studies

Volumn 8, Issue 4, 2003, Pages 500-527

  Allum, Percy ^a  

^a UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI NAPOLI L ORIENTALE   (Italy)

Author keywords

Building Speculation; Local Politics; Policy; Town Planning

Indexed keywords

EID: 29244444902     PISSN: 1354571X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/1354571032000147737     Document Type: Review

References (95)

1. In Il Manifesto. 23 January 1999, p. 28.
2. Under the Town Planning Act (n. 1150/42), master plans were intended to regulate kind use throughout the city by means of zoning and building regulations and the power of eminent domain, thus controlling development by indicating major circulation facilities and specifying regulations to be observed in building in each zone; see R. C. Fried, Planning the Eternal City. Roman Politics and Planning since World War II (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1973), p. 171;
3. on Naples, one can consult M. Russo, I piani regolatori di Napoli. Verso uno sviluppo urbano sostenibile (Naples: Pironti Editore, 2001), p. 33.
4. In addition to the texts quoted in the notes, one can consult V. De Lucia and A. Jannello, L'urbanistica a Napoli dal dopoguerra a oggi: note e documenti, special number of Urbanistica 65 (July 1976);
5. A. Dal Pliaz, Napoli 1945-1985, Quarant'anni di urbanistica (Milan: F. Angeli, 1985);
6. G. De Luca, I problemi urbanistici di Napoli. Un progetto possibile (Naples: STE, 1987);
7. A. Loris-Rossi, 'Survey of urban and landscape architecture in Italy: Naples', L'architettura, cronache e storia XLVIII (558) (April 2002): 224-97;
8. and for a general survey (in French), Part III, 'Urbanisme et urbanisation', in C. Vallat, B. Morin and G. Biondi, Naples. Démythifier la ville (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1998).
9. For the organization of local government in Italy in the post-war period, see P. Allum, State and Society in Western Europe (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995), pp. 435-41;
10. see also the observations of F. Sabetti, The Search for Good Government. Understanding the Paradox of Italian Democracy (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000), Chapter 4.
11. Fried, Planning the Eternal City, p. 248; on p. 4, he lists six criteria: (1) planning technique and style; (2) planning power; (3) commitment to planning; (4) environmental amenity; (5) goal achievement; (6) time costs. This, after observing that many of the goals of planning, the impact sought, are more easily expressed in subjective and esthetic than in arithmetic terms. And as the goals of physical planning come increasingly to include social and psychological impacts, the evaluation of planning efforts will become even more difficult.
12. see M.-P. and P. Allum, 'The servitudes of a former capital', in Z. Baranski, In amicizia. Essays in Honour of G. Lepschy (Reading, 1996);
13. supplement to The Italianist, pp. 385-97;
14. for a recent novel which recreates the family 'ambience' of Neapolitan developers, see G. Montesano, Di questa vita menzognera (Milano: Feltrinelli, 2003).
15. It has been estimated that some 24,000 bombs were dropped on the city during the war; quoted in Il Corriere della Sera, 3 October 1969.
16. There is an enormous literature on Naples in this period; for an apocalyptic vision, see Curzio Malaparte's famous novel, La pelle (Milan, 1949);
17. and for an American soldier's view, John Horn Burns's novel, The Gallery (New York, 1952).
18. Comune di Napoli, Variante al PRG di Napoli (Naples: Comune di Napoli, 1999), p. 56.
19. In 1976, Vezio De Lucia and Antonio Iannello wrote that the 1939 master plan was 'one of the most interesting products of the town planning culture of that period', quoted in Russo, I piani regolatori, p. 58.
20. Comune di Napoli, Variante, p. 56.
21. An opposite view was expressed by Ing. Ferdinando Isabella (Public Works assessore in the CLN administration): Rereading today what was written at the time, and not only in the local press, on the Naples master plan and the fact that, independently of what it represented from the technical point of view, it constituted an exceptional act of faith in the future of the city, so seriously hit by the war and so materially and morally exhausted, we cannot but ask ourselves, surprised and bitter, why the political, cultural and professional forces, which had collaborated together on the civic administration in that period, split up so quickly, each assuming different positions, some even hostile to what they had previously supported. (F. Isabella, Napoli dall'8 settembre a Lauro (Naples: Guida, 1980), pp. 127-8)
22. R. Gambardelli and F. Santoro, Urbanistica al di là dei miti (Padua: CEDAM, 1984), p. 179.
23. Ironically, in this regard, one of the first critics was Ing. Amadeo Bordiga (former founder leader of the Italian Communist Party, expelled in 1930), who maintained that: 'it is necessary, on the contrary, that Posillipo be not further mutilated, and that it be maintained in the state in which it is'; quoted in V. De Lucia, Napoli. Cronache urbanistiche 1994-1997 (Milan: Baldini & Castoldi, 1998), p. 57.
24. See A. Pizzorno, 'I ceti medi nei meccanismi del consenso', in I soggetti del pluralismo. Classi, partiti, sindacati. (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1980), pp. 67-98 (English translation: 'Middle strata in the mechanisms of consensus', in D. Pinto (ed.)
25. Contemporary Italian Sociology. A Reader (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 101-23.
26. The list system with preference votes to choose individual MPs; see P. Allum, 'The faces of the Italian Christian Democratic Party', Party Politics 3(1) (1997): 23-52.
27. See P. Allum, 'Cronaca di una morte annunciata. La prima repubblica italiana', Teoria Politica IX(1) (1993): 31-55, at p. 36.
28. See Fried, Planning the Eternal City, p. 171.
29. On all this, see Russo, I piani regolatori, pp. 61-4.
30. Quoted by P. Ottone, 'La Campania', in various authors, Italia sotto inchiesta ('Corriere della Sera'), 1963-1965 (Florence: Sansone, 1965), pp. 681-735, at p. 690.
31. De Lucia, Napoli, p. 59.
32. R. La Capria, L'occhio di Napoli (Milan: Oscar Mondadori, 1996), p. 16.
33. G. Ragone, 'Napoli oggi tra luci e ombre', Quaderni di Sociologia XLI (1997): 5-19, at p. 5.
34. 24 October 1969, quoted in P. A. Allum, Politics and Society in Post-War Naples (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973)
35. (Italian translation: Potere e società a Napoli nel dopoguerra, Turin: Einaudi, 1975, p. 40).
36. See R. Di Stefano, 'Organizzazione e tradizione dell'edilizia napoletana', in F. Compagna (ed.) Napoli dopo un secolo (Naples: ESI, 1961), pp. 255-81, at pp. 271-5.
37. Personal interview, 28 March 2000.
38. P. Varvaro, 'Napoli: il passato come guida per il futuro', in A. Cento Bull and A. Giorgio (eds) Culture and Society in Southern Italy. Past and Present, supplement to The Italianist 14 (1994): 64-88, at p. 67.
39. It should be pointed out that his relations with the DC were of the utmost importance; see P. Allum, Il potere a Napoli. Fine di un lungo dopoguerra (Naples: L'Ancora, 2001), Chapter 3;
40. indeed, the proof that Laurism was no more than the Neapolitan dimension of a southern, even national, phenomenon is suggested by the fact that the same bloc of urban forces in other cities was formed inside the DC, as was the case of the De Martino-Menna group in Salerno or that of Magri in Catania; see G. di Martino, 'La DC a Salerno', in various authors, La Democrazia cristiana nel salernitano (Salerno: P. Laveglia, 1975);
41. and M. Caciargli et al., Democrazia cristiana e potere nel Mezzogiorno. Il sistema democristiano a Catania (Florence: Guaraldi, 1977).
42. Allum, Politics and Society, p. 309.
43. It has been observed that 'the exaggeration of war damage was, for Lauro's administration, one of the pretexts for massive interventions in the city', De Lucia, Napoli, p. 59; indeed, despite the fact that the 1946 master plan estimated the number of rooms (vani) destroyed at 22,068 and those damaged at 13,783, the Committee appointed by Lauro in the mid-1950s established a figure of 232,420, that is ten times as many.
44. The property development interested the Prime Minister of the time, Antonio Segni, who intervened to ensure that 'all obstacles to permitted height limits be removed'; P. Totaro, Il potere di Lauro (Salerno: Lavaglia Editore, 1990), p. 61.
45. V. De Lucia, Se questa è una città (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1992), p. 15.
46. Text of judgement in Allum, Potere e società, pp. 336-8.
47. De Lucia, Se questa è una città, p. 14.
48. See Varvaro, 'Napoli', p. 71.
49. See Allum, Il potere a Napoli, pp. 91-8.
50. Judgement in Allum, Potere e società, Appendice F, pp. 339-49.
51. A. Ghirelli, Storia di Napoli (Turin: Einaudi, 1992), p. 539.
52. See E. Puntillo, Le catastrofi innaturali (Naples: Pironti Editore, 2001), p. 22; the book contains two Appendices ('Voragini storiche', pp. 157-64; and 'Il vuoto che uccide', pp. 165-75); the latter lists the various incidents that caused victims.
53. In Comune di Napoli, Variante, p. 61.
54. Interview, 28 March 2000.
55. On the role of Iannello and particularly his battle against urban speculation, see Francesco Erbani, Un strano italiano. Antonio Iannello e lo scempio dell'ambiente (Bari: Laterza, 2002).
56. Francesco Erbani noted that the 1972 master plan has remained in large part a dead letter. An advantage, nonetheless, it did obtain. When it was transmitted to the Ministry of Public Works, the plan was entrusted to a Neapolitan architect, Antonio Iannello. Iannello was the bête noire of building contractors and politicians. His incorruptibility was legendary. At the Ministry, he slept on a divan and during the night corrected the master plan with a little pen. Bent over the plan, he extended the limits of the historic centre as far as he could, restricting zones where appetites had already been aroused ... For the palazzinari and also for the city authorities, it was a hit on the head. (La Repubblica, 15 February 1999, p. 17) This was a case where, contrary to Sabetti's hypothesis (The Search for Good Government, Chapter 5), central planning (the determination of the master plan) was responsible for preservation of the city's 'historic centre'.
57. Vezio De Lucia mentions that 400 appeals were presented to the Council of State which rejected them all, the last in 1975; Napoli, pp. 69-70.
58. On this, see F. Raimondino, Napoli: I disoccupati organizzati (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1978).
59. For details, see, inter alia, W. Reymond, Mafia S.A., Les secrets du crime organisé (Paris: Flammarion/J'ai lu, 2001), pp. 97ff.
60. See Paola Monzini, Gruppi criminali a Napoli e a Marsiglia. La delinquenza organizzata in due città 1820-1990 (Rome: Donzelli Editore, 1999), Chapter VIII.
61. Quoted in Il Mattino, 24 January 1999.
62. Figli di un Bronx minore (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1993);
63. Un Messico napoletano (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1994);
64. Incendiamo la vita (Milan: Baldini & Castoldi, 1996).
65. De Lucia, Napoli, p. 75.
66. De Lucia, Se questo è una città, p. 155.
67. For a critical reassessment by the Democratic Left of the Valenzi experience, see A. Geremicca, 'Napoli: Cultura di governo e giunte di sinistra', Mezzogiorno Europa I(6) (September 2000): 27-33;
68. A. Geremicca, '"Non ci siamo mai sentiti soli". Conversando con Valenzi', Mezzogiorno Europa I(7) (October 2000): pp. 17-19;
69. Gianni in particular insists on the differences between the two programmes of reconstruction: 'the original one posited and practised the correct relations between public and private operators: for the former the planning, for the latter execution of the works'; the second one, on the other hand, permitted 'a participation of the building contractors in the planning phase, so that it was reduced to an inconsistent formality': R. Gianni, 'Le regole della città. La mala-urbanistica degli anni '80 a Napoli', Dove sta Zazá 2 (1993): 13-17, at p. 15;
70. See Allum, Il potere a Napoli, pp. 123ff. and the literature quoted, specifically footnote 86 (p. 209).
71. Giannì, 'Le regole della città', p. 15.
72. for Pomicino's view, see Geronimo (Pomicino's pseudonym), Strettamente riservato. Le memorie di un superministro della Prima Repubblica (Milan: Mondadori, 2000), pp. 33-5. Pomicino claims (p. 34) that Marotta's opposition was motivated by the huge sums of money that he had made in the first phase of the Reconstruction, when he was charged with attending to the large number of expropriations necessary for the construction of the 20,000 dwellings required. Since then, perhaps to make amends for the large sums made, he attacked the 'concessioners' who had given him work up to then.
73. On the transformation in Neapolitan politics as a result of Tangentopoli and the 1990s local government reforms, see L. Brancaccio, 'Napoli', in AA VV, Comuni nuovi. Il cambiamento nel governo locale (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2002), pp. 124-59.
74. The grounds for the arrest of the mayor (Nello Polese of the PSI) also included the accusation that he had accepted 30 million lire (£10,000) for aiding the company Er win the contract for managing the city's real estate. His problems began a year earlier when he substituted the words 'presa d'atto' ('taken note of') with the more committed 'approvazione (letto e approvato)' ('approval (read and approved)') as regards the 'preliminary plan'. As De Lucia noted: 'thus continued after the falsification of the 1939 master plan, the story of the violation of town planning instruments in Naples', De Lucia, Napoli, p. 79;
75. Antonio Ghirelli, Napoli dalla guerra a Bassolino, 1943-98 (Naples: Ediz. Simone, 1998), p. 169.
76. Antonio Bassolino, La repubblica delle città (Rome: Donzelli Editore, 1996);
77. for a personal account of the Bassolino administration (1993-2001), from the viewpoint of the deputy mayor, see Riccardo Marone, Una sfida in comune (Napoli: Pironti, 2002).
78. For an analysis of Bassolino's policies, defined as 'symbolic', in his first mandate, see M. Cilento, Governo locale e politiche simboliche. Il caso Bagnoli Naples: Liguori Editore, 2000);
79. further, on the creation of a new image of the city, which was one of the elements behind the so-called 'rebirth' of Naples in the 1990s, one can see M. F. Palestino, Mira Napoli. La costruzione dell'immagine urbana negli anni '90 (Naples: CLEAN Edizioni, 2003).
80. See G. Camopos-Venuti, 'Napoli e l'urbanistica', Urbanistica 107 (1997): 120-4, at p. 120.
81. The text of the document is in V. De Lucia, 'La ripresa del discorso', Urbanistica 107 (1997): 91-9, at p. 93.
82. V. De Lucia, Napoli, p. 101.
83. Quoted by A. Belli, 'Il vero errore fu scegliere un'urbanistica superata', Il Corriere del Mezzogiorno, 17 June 2003, p. 5;
84. in this connection De Lucia has been described by his colleague Riccardo Marone (Una sfida, p. 56) as 'an old left-wing environmentalist, rigorous and attentive to the historic values of left-wing culture', commenting that he had finally to carry out town planning in a city like Naples that had never had it and, thus, it was necessary that it be carried out in the most traditional and rigorous manner possible. To impose finally master plan regulations, without venturing into new avenues, such as planning agreements or similar novelties in a city like Naples would be wrong, since it had no town planning culture and this would ail have to be created. For a critique of his method and results (i.e. the Variante al PRG), see A. Lorsi Rossi (ed.), 'PRG: dieci errori da evitare', supplement to Il Denaro (1999); and note 91 below.
85. R. Giannì, 'L'urbanistica ritrovata', Quaderni del Circolo Rosselli 14 (1999): 29-39, at p. 32.
86. On the political background to the approval and the conflict with the right-wing-controlled regional government, see the account of the deputy mayor, R. Marone, Una sfida, Chapter 10, 'Bagnoli ed il suo piano', pp. 61-7;
87. on the whole question of Bagnoli, past, present and future, see B. Mauro, Da Balneolis a Bagnoli futura (Salerno: Plectica Editore, 2003).
88. R. Gianni, 'L'urbanistica ritrovata', cit., pp. 33-4.
89. See also the criticism of Prof. Andriello: 'This sort of "silence-consensus" is a strange criterion for measuring [the level of participation], where, on the contrary, one should seek the positive effect of the multiplication of discourses and actions resulting from a proposal' ('Piani urbani a Napoli tra visione strategica e partecipazione', Quaderni del Circolo Rosselli 14 (1997): 40-7, at p. 45).
90. For example in the case of Bagnoli, the amendment of the Forza Italia deputy Nicola Cosentino (later withdrawn) to the Finance Bill would have made initiatives in the area subject to a planning agreement between central governmental, Campanian regional, Naples provincial and city authorities; it would have permitted the central government to regain control of the whole operation. At the same time, the government delayed the payment of the funds (voted by the previous centre-left government) to finish the work of depollution; see G. Persico (ed.) La città dismessa, Spazi consumati e desideri, le aree ex Italsider ed Eternit di Bagnoli (Naples: Pironti, 2002)
91. and particularly, G. Muto, 'Problemi di una riconversione di un territorio urbano: riflessione sul caso Bagnoli', pp. 179-96;
92. and G. Mazziotti, 'Una conferenza europea per Bagnoli', MezzogiornoEuropa III(4) (May-June 2002): 40-2.
93. U. Leone, 'Bagnoli futura?', Il Tetto 233 (February 2003): 43-5, at p. 43;
94. another Neapolitan intellectiual, Pasquale Coppola, expressed similar sentiments in an editorial ('Se l'industriale a Napoli cita Cavour' in La Repubblica of 18 June 2003, Neapolitan Page I): President Tommaso Iavarone has called in aid Count Cavour, who carried out the unification of Italy in less than a decade. He did so to contrast his action with the immobilism of Naples administrators, who have been wrestling for more than ten years with Naples town planning projects which still don't take off. The quotation is somewhat reckless but it can help us to come to terms with some of the knots that prevent the opportunities planned in Naples from coming to fruition in acceptable time periods. Finally, as regards the personal security situation a Neapolitan shopkeeper, asked whether it had worsened in recent years, replied: I am afraid so ... I won't talk about the criminal escalation. In the last few years, nothing has changed. For the last six years, it has been the same story. There was a period, in Bassolino's time, when it seemed that things were moving. Then, we fell back into a new degeneration (degrado). I don't know, I think of the Napoli '99 Foundation, which no longer exists. (Il Corriere dei Mezzogiorno, 4 May 2003, p. 3)
95. In Il Corriere del Mezzogiorno, 17 June 2003, p. 5; this volteface by Bassolino provoked an angry response from Vezio de Lucia, who called it a 'revisionist position': The planning agreement, repeatedly invoked by Bassolino, is not a panacea, but a legal instrument. If it was merely functional for the application of the approved master plan, there would be no reason for any discussion. I may be wrong, but I find it difficult to believe today that this instrument cannot be used as a cover for the project's eventual transformation, its violation and even a different distribution of power to the detriment of the City Council. (Il Corriere del Mezzogiorno, 4 May 2003) For De Lucia the Trojan horse for this kind of operation is provided by the Americas Cup with the requests of the Alinghi syndicate for Bagnoli: 'There was a time', De Lucia added, 'in which left-wing culture supported with conviction that Naples had a dramatic need of ordinary things. Now, like it or not, we have gone back to the culture of emergency. I would like to remind you that in Italy there is a history of havoc linked to extraordinary events.' Finally, De Lucia noted that ten years earlier with Bassolino, we decided not to make planning agreements or sign undertakings with the government. A decision dictated by the conviction of the need to bring town planning back to its proper place [the City Council] in contrast with the 'negotiated town planning' which was then being affirmed. And we placed procedural transparency before all this. Naples became a point of reference of efficiency and timeliness for the whole of Italy. The Bagnoli variant was approved in record time. It was afterwards that things started to get stuck. I feel embarrassed by the fact that ten years ago it did not seem opportune to sign an agreement with the Ciampi government and now it appears useful to do it with Berlusconi's.