Rome: the inevitable decline of a centre with no rules

Abstract

The historic centres of cities are inherently delicate organisms: if a reasonable number of tourists is exceeded, a likely result could be a serious threat to the historic identity of the place. The most admirable elements of that slow process of stratifi cation that has shaped the built environment are prey to a relentless deterioration. The old centres are likely to sink into a decline incompatible with the daily life of an increasingly scarce population, and it is certainly true that the cities have lost the complexity that made them viable in the previous centuries. It was the balance among the social classes which ensured wealth of relationships and beauty. Today the historic centres have expelled the lower classes to ever more distant suburbs. In Rome, which has one of the most beautiful historic centres of the world and an extraordinary artistic heritage, we can measure more than in any other city the effects of changes induced by tourism without rules.