March 26, 1968
ROME, ITALY — The Communist Party headquarters in Borgo del Trullo is a storefront between the butcher shop and the fruit stand. It’s furnished with a red banner, a poster of Ho Chi Minh, four card tables, a well-stocked cooler of cold drinks, and two pinball machines.
At the drop of a question, the men who gather here will lay down their cards and take up the subject of public housing. Each has the expertise gained by living in this development of “workers’ housing,” with its 1350 apartments six miles south of the center of Rome. The main commentary is delivered by the club president, a wiry stonemason with piercing eyes. Call him Enrico.
The City of Genoa, as seen from an apartment in the new Forte di Quezzi public housing development. On the right, some of the project buildings.
The faults of Italian public housing in general and this new project in particular are numerous, Enrico says. The rents are too high, the buildings are not as well made as they should be, and a worker needs special influence just to get an apartment. He is sure that public housing in Russia is far better.
“One of the worst things about this place,” he adds with a gesture of disgust, “is that they don’t provide any garages. So when you get a new car, it has to sit out in the weather.”
An 18-Year Wait
A block away from the small shopping center where Enrico and his comrades gather is the apartment of Alberto S., a 43-year-old bartender. With his wife and three children, Alberto lives on the top floor of one of the red brick, four-story structures. Alberto was a war refugee from Anzio when he married in 1950. The government provided the newlyweds with housing in a converted Army barracks in Rome and they applied for an apartment in public housing.
After an 18-year wait, Alberto was given an apartment last July. The new apartment has two bedrooms, a living-dining room, a kitchen and a bath. The rooms are bright and just large enough, neatly kept and modestly furnished. Alberto is especially happy with his balconies — the small one off the kitchen and the large one on the bedroom-living room side. Since the new project is built on a hilltop, they afford a “bella vista.”
Alberto holds a steady job as a bartender, earning as much as 100,000 lire a month when tips are good (about $160). His rent, not including heat, gas and electric, is 21,000 lire monthly ($33.60). Standing on his big balcony, he says the project could be better maintained and points to paper littering a corner of the yard. But aside from the long wait, he is pleased with things.
Meanwhile, Down the Hill
At the bottom of the hill on which the new project sits is old Borgo del Trullo, built in 1947 to house war refugees then flooding Rome. The old development, with starkly simple buildings, is in sharp contrast to its now neighbor. This is the home of Pietro G., a clean-cut 36-yearold porter. Pietro is not pleased with things in public housing.
Pietro has a two-bedroom apartment for himself, his wife and their two children. But also sharing the apartment are his mother, his uncle, his brother and his sister and her two children — 10 people in all. To make matters worse, Pietro and his wife are expecting their third child this summer.
Eight years ago, Pietro says, he applied to the authorities for a larger apartment. He has had no reply and he is angry, claiming that he is unable to get a larger apartment because he lacks proper influence. “I feel like getting a gun and then maybe I can do something,” he says, but without conviction. In the meantime, he pays rent of 4000 lire a month ($6.40) from the money he earns when he can find work.
In their own ways, each of these three men touch on the main problems and major accomplishments of Italy’s commitment to public housing.
Public housing here could be considered to date back to the days when feudal lords built housing for their servants and soldiers. An organized national program emerged early in this century with the formation of an Autonomous Institute for Popular Housing or “Istituto Autonomo Per Le Case Popolari” (I.A.C.P.) in each of the nation’s 91 provinces. The Institutes were an outgrowth of cooperatives formed to build housing.
Before the First World War, many large projects had already been erected. Some, like the 12-block Quarter Testaccio in Rome built in 1913, are still in good condition and fully utilized as low-rent public housing. Others have evolved into privately owned condominiums over the years under a government policy, which permits purchase of public housing units.
The Mussolini government gave strong impetus to public housing, in 1938 decreeing a broad new set of rules for government support of low-cost housing that is still the fundamental law in Italy. It provided the financial assistance of the state for everything from normal public housing to housing of railway and mine workers.
Then Came INA-Casa
As the dust from World War II settled, Italy took stock and found two most pressing needs — jobs and housing. In 1949, the government enacted the so-called Fanfani Law establishing a new federal agency called INA-Casa. It was charged with the task of designing and constructing a vast amount of public housing and creating great numbers of jobs in the process,
The finances for INA-Casa came from three sources. Workers paid a tax of 0.60% on their monthly incomes. Employers were required to contribute 1.20% of the total wages they paid. The remaining one-third of INA-Casa’s budget was contributed by the Italian government from general tax revenue.
Over its 14-year life, INA-Casa spent more than $1.5 billion to construct 370,000 dwelling units in 500 cities. Tens of thousands of units were constructed in the same period by local agencies, principally the I.A.C.P. It was an impressive performance for a nation fighting for economic survival.
In comparison, the United States effort in public housing appears meager. From 1949 to 1963, while INA-Casa alone was building 370,000 public housing units, the U.S. built only 345,513 for a national population four times as great as Italy’s.
And Now GES.CA.L.
Italy’s public housing program was revised in 1963 with the dissolution of INA-Casa and the creation of a new agency — Gestione Case per Lavoratori (GES.CA.L.) or Management of Houses for Workers, The revision had many aims, chief among them a decentralization of the public housing program. Another goal — the use of public housing construction as a tool to implement a new urban planning law enacted in 1962. Under a new financial structure, the tax on workers was reduced to 0.35%, that on employers reduced to 0.70% and the government was authorized to contribute up to 600,000 lire per room ($960) for construction completed by March 1973
One of the most significant revisions was in the eligibility rule, Under INA-Casa; anyone who paid the tax for public housing was eligible to live in it, regardless of need. Now, under GESCAL, public housing units are open to workers with an annual taxable income of 1,200,000 lire or less, about $1920.
In its current 10-year program (1963-73), GESCAL plans to spend $1.6 billion for the construction of 200,000 living units, about 20,000 annually. Again, many thousands more will be constructed annually by local authorities. The 1965 Housing Act, considered a landmark for public housing in the U.S., authorizes 60,000 additional public housing units a year over four years, about 35,000 units a year in new construction and the remainder from use of existing housing.
I.A.C.P. — On the Firing Line
GESCAL, with its national position and financial support, is the most important single agency in public housing in Italy, the glamour agency of the field. But it does not call all the shots. Nor does I.A.C.P. on the local levels. Such a maze of agencies involved in some form of public housing exists in Italy that it is impossible to learn the total number of units in the nation. Even the experts in the field can only estimate the number. They say that perhaps 15% of the housing built in Italy, since World War II can be termed “public housing.” A 1964 survey of 17 Italian provinces found that 34% of their total housing was government-aided low-cost housing.
In the major urban provinces, the I.A.C.P. is on the firing line, building and managing apartments constructed independently of GESCAL and also building and administering GESCAL projects.
In booming Milan, the I.A.C.P. provides homes for 400,000 workers’ families, a fifth of the city’s population, in the 100,000 apartments it operates. Only one-fourth of these were built through INA-Casa or GESCAL. Most were constructed with money borrowed commercially by the I.A.C.P. and repaid with rental income and direct government aid, often in the form of payment of interest. The local I.A.C.P. operates 55,000 public housing units in Rome, 27,000 in Turin and equally impressive numbers in all the major Italian cities.
A Featherbed in Every Apartment?
One critic of the current structure is Professor Gabriele Scimemi of the University of Rome, an architect and city planner. He observes: “Subsidized housing is to a large extent run by public agencies which were designed to carry out quite different activities, but apparently prefer to devote themselves to building houses for their own employees.
“To be sure,” he continues, “there are in Italy many institutions especially devoted to public housing. In fact, there are too many of them. To eliminate the superfluous ones is to move against the interests of a lot of people who have found in them a position of personal power or simply a steady job, for themselves and their relatives.
“Even the GESCAL, which has taken over from the INA-Casa and which seems to be the most reliable organization (it performs the role, more or less, of the Federal House and Home Agency in the United States) I does not go much beyond its competitors.”
Two views of the new Borgo del Trullo public housing development six miles south of Rome. The use of tan brick facing for the four-story buildings (above) and red brick facing for the three-story structures (below) enhances the appearance, as does the staggered setback of the buildings. The 1350-apartment project includes a shopping center and new elementary school. It will have about 6500 residents when filled.
Scimemi’s criticism is echoed by many, including some progressive officials in the public housing agencies. They are asking if agencies like I.N.C.I.S., which exists solely to build housing for government employees, are justified in modern Italy. One early result of this attitude is a program to give incentives to private builders for the construction of low-rent housing. An effective program to assist individuals to purchase a home, like F.H.A. in the United States, is not yet a reality here though a step in that direction is underway.
20,000,000 Rooms
The stated goal of the housing programs in Italy is, as you might expect, the same as the stated goal of every nation. “We are trying to give a proper house to everybody,” asserted GESCAL official Silvano Panzarasa, “and eliminate substandard housing by reducing the numbers of people in one-room flats and upgrading the standards enjoyed by others.”
The Five-Year Plan (1966-70) for Economic Development of Italy puts it this ways “Our goal is reaching the standard of one house for every family and one person per room. To do this, it will be necessary to build 20,000,000 rooms in the next five years. We don’t think this goal is reachable but we must try…”
To make the attempt, the Five-Year Plan proposes vastly increased government “intervention” in the housing market. It points out that the Federal role has decreased markedly, constituting 23.8% of total housing activity in 1959but dropping to only 4.8% of the total in 1963. “This (4.8%) is completely inadequate to create an expansion in building activities,” the plan asserts. Then it suggests, “In the next five years, Federal contributions should be about 25% of the total.”
The Five-Year Plan forecasts an investment of more than $16 billion in housing of all types from 1966 to 1970, with about one-fourth of the total in public housing in the urban centers and underdeveloped South.
Housing experts say the goal of constructing 20,000,000 rooms in five years is quite impossible and that half that amount will probably be built. But, despite opposition from private builders, the government seems certain to take a still bigger part in housing activity, either by direct government construction or increased regulation of the private building industry. Housing is increasingly being considered a legitimate area of public service, the experts note.
Application or Occupation?
How well is the public served? Ignoring the statistics and looking at the tangible results, you get a mixed bag of impressions. The most obvious is that, whatever its faults, public housing here provides decent homes for millions of people. At the same time, of course, thousands live in public housing who could easily afford a house on the private market. They help to create the conditions under which Pietro lives, by using the influence, which he lacks. In a way, this kind of corruption of Italy’s public housing is a compliment to its quality. It is hard to imagine middle-class Americans eager to live in U.S. public housing, regardless of the rent.
The task of deciding who gets in public housing is delegated to a commission in each province. Headed by a magistrate, its other members usually include representatives of ‘the city and province governments, the Ministry of Public Works, ‘the institutes involved in housing, and the unions, who represent the workers.
To be eligible, an applicant must have lived in the area two years. He must earn less than the $1920 income limit and not be the owner of other property. Proof of income, or lack of it, must be supported by evidence such as tax receipts. Other factors considered: Where the applicant currently lives and the condition of his dwelling, if he has been evicted from h1s house (these get special preference), if he is disabled, a pensioner or a veteran, and related factors.
To avoid the long waiting lists, some families simply move into new public housing units and occupy them when the finishing work is nearly completed. Despite threats, they refuse to move out. In many cases, they are allowed to stay but no further work is done on the apartment. (One building in the new Borgo del Trullo was occupied before the heating units were installed so the heating equipment was never put in place and tenants have to supply their own room heaters.)
‘Not So Wonderful’
If an applicant finally receives the blessings of the commission, what does he receive? Except for the apartment itself, not a great deal else. He must provide his own kitchen appliances and cupboards, hot water heaters (two small ones — one for the bath and one for the kitchen), wardrobes (since closets are seldom built in Italian apartments), and even his own light fixtures (finished apartments have only wires ready for connection.)
Outfitting the apartment can be a major task for low-income families but most seem to manage it. The necessity of supplying so many essentials and paying utilities underlies one criticism Enrico made of public housing. He observed, “Many of these people have never had a decent house before and they look only at the base rent and think they are getting a wonderful deal for the small price. After a while, they learn it is not quite so wonderful.”
The rentals are computed by the I.A.C.P. and generally are highest in new buildings, lowest in old ones. Included in the calculations are principle and interest payments, maintenance costs and other overhead. Projects built with Federal aid charge lower rentals than those built only with local funds.
Rentals range roughly from 4000 lire ($6.40) a month for a two room, kitchen and bath apartment in an older project to 30,000 lire ($48) monthly for a new apartment of four rooms, kitchen and bath.
An Elevator and Two Baths
The construction is not spartan. In the new Borgo del Trullo, an apartment win a large entrance hall, connecting hallway, three rooms, kitchen and bath rents for 20,000 lire ($32) a month. The buildings feature cortina marble steps, 220-volt electrical systems, glass-paneled doors for interior hallway lighting, two balconies, built-in television connections and large private storage rooms for each apartment.
A chronological tour of Italian public housing demonstrates the increase in standards made over the years. GESCAL has committed itself to a policy of building fewer apartments but building them better and the results can be seen in Spinaceto, a massive new project under construction eight miles southwest of Rome. The 26 public housing buildings being erected have a total of 1622 apartments built to the new standards. The rooms are larger and many apartments have two bathrooms (one with a shower). The baths and kitchens have handsome wall tile and the fixtures are larger (the kitchen sink has a double bowl). Each apartment has a small balcony and a large terrace. In the larger units, the living rooms measure 15 by 15 feet. All the buildings are served with elevators.
Some public housing experts, including some GESCAL officials, think the agency is making a mistake by building to higher standards. They feel that available funds would be better spent on the construction of more apartments to a lower, but adequate, standard. Other people express the view that a higher standard will “spoil” the workers. And still others express envy that the poor can rent for 30,000 lire or less what costs a middle-class wage earner 75,000 to 100,000 a month.
The turn to higher standards, together with rapidly rising construction costs, will require GESCAL to spend an average of 5,000,000 lire ($8000) per unit, compared with an average cost of 3,000,000 lire ($4800) under INA-Casa.
The per room expenditure for public housing in Italy and the U.S. makes an interesting contrast. Per room costs here are currently averaging about 1,200,000 lire ($1820). The maximum expenditure per room in the U.S., which has far higher construction costs, is set at $2400 by the 1965 Housing Act.
But on the Outside
The outward appearance of much of the public housing in Italy reflects the sad state of architecture in most post-war residential construction here. “Bruttezza” – ugliness — is all too common. Part of this lack of taste was dictated by pressing demand. Following the war, it was considered more important to put roofs over the heads of displaced persons than to dwell on aesthetics. But the careless pattern continued far longer than was necessary, if it ever was.
Money — or the lack of it — was a major factor in the lack of design, especially in public housing. The necessity of constructing a large number of buildings with a limited budget dictated repetition. Even the best-designed structure loses its visual impact when repeated five or ten times.
The bureaucracy also shares the blame. As Professor Scimemi observes: “The choice of architects (for public housing) is made with such largesse that everybody is supposed to be satisfied — which means that nobody is. Then, the projects are seldom carried out by the designers themselves but rather by specialized offices which are, in fact, much more familiar with the technicalities, not of actual building as you might expect, but of the incredible red-tape of bureaucratic procedures.
“These procedures take up much more time than the design itself, which means that you have always to work out the plans in an incredible hurry, only to see your houses come into being after years of delay, if indeed you can still recognize them.”
Dull architecture, often repeated, is like a visual broken record. This public housing development in Rome is typical of post-war construction.
Despite its weaknesses, the design of public housing here is often superior to that of private residential construction. There are several reasons for this. One is the willingness of the agencies to provide a large amount of open space and green areas in the developments, a quality not common to private developments built for maximum profit and thus maximum use of the land. Another reason is the design competition, which gives many good architects an opportunity to submit ideas for projects. This competition might produce even better results if the design criteria were more flexible. A third factor contributing to better public housing design is a growing desire on the part of officials that their projects look like something other than large barracks.
On the Plus Side
Acknowledging the faults of Italy’s public housing program, many of which stem from the nature of Italian government and society, the long and y large experience of public housing here appears to offer several concrete ideas, which might be considered by those, engaged in the problem in the U.S.
The most striking plus for public housing here is its integration. In most cases, a visitor would find it very difficult to pick out public housing developments, especially in those areas developed before 1960.
It has been the practice, and remains so today, to construct public housing on the periphery of the developed urban areas, on land previously devoted to agriculture or unused. After the construction of large blocks of public housing in such areas, and the installation of related services like streets, sewers and schools, private builders have taken advantage of the development to surround the public housing projects with private residential construction. In time, vast new neighborhoods have grown up around the public projects. And most of the residents of the private housing have income levels above those in public housing.
The need for inexpensive land has been the motivating force for construction of public housing in the peripheral areas. After the completion of the projects, land prices have increased greatly. Unfortunately, much of the speculative development around low-income housing developments has been haphazard. A major new law on town planning in Italy is partially aimed at this problem.
The new law gives the cities much broader use of eminent domain to expropriate land in undeveloped areas. Cities, which desire additional public housing, are authorized to take twice as much land as the project itself will require. Then half the land acquired is turned over to the public housing agency and the rest is offered for sale to private builders. The result is that the city receives some return on its investment in services and, at the same time, regulates orderly development of the new area.
Building Communities
Italy does not build public housing “projects” in the sense that the word usually implies — a vast sea of buildings barren of all but apartments.
Even the smallest public housing projects have supportive services. Agencies are required by law to provide basic shopping areas, for instance, which are leased to private shopkeepers at competitive rentals. The opportunity to enjoy a steady trade and turn a profit lures businessmen to locate in the developments. They don’t have to be recruited.
Some of the large projects now under construction will not only offer a variety of services but will actually be satellite cities when completed. Spinaceto, south of Rome, is a prime example of this idea of using public housing developments as urban planning tools. Located on a 250-acre site, the low-rent housing construction will house 7500 people in $14.5 million worth of new buildings. But the total population, when the project is finished in 1971, is expected to be greater than 45,000, just a fraction of the residents living in public housing.
Land in Spinaceto is being provided for a number of cooperative apartment buildings. On the fringes of the area, land has been set aside for private homes and low-rise apartments. A large boulevard running through the site like an elongated “S” will be the site for construction of commercial and office structures.
Other services include three schools, a sports complex, several social centers, a church, a police station, numerous outdoor recreation areas and underground parking facilities, plus a movie theater. A new network of roads and an extension of the underground rapid transit system will serve the complex.
If execution follows the vision, Spinaceto should be a diverse community, bringing together people of different social and economic backgrounds and producing the kind of living that follows from diversity. It serves as a reminder that public housing need not be an isolated island of the poor.
Where the Jobs Are
The practice of constructing public housing in peripheral areas has encountered criticism from workers who found it difficult to get to jobs in the core cities from their homes. Now, Italy, like the U.S., is beginning to see the movement of industry to the suburbs and public housing residents are beginning to find themselves close to good jobs.
The development of low-cost housing on the peripheries of America’s urban centers might serve a dual purpose — put residents closer to job opportunities and open up precious land in the core city for redevelopment. It could also channel often-uncontrolled suburban growth in more useful directions.
Such an effort would require in most cases a regional administration for public housing, which could span political boundaries, instead of the present agencies, which are confined to the city limits and are often unable to carry out any new development.
Italy’s use of public housing as an employment tool, as well as a means of housing its poorer populace, also merits consideration. The construction of new developments creates jobs initially. In Borgo del Trullo, many of its first residents were masons who found work in the construction and then found homes once it was finished. With the skill they acquired in the two years of construction, under journeymen supervisors, they were able to obtain other work when the project was finished.
The shops, schools and other services in public housing are another source of employment, though most of these jobs go to persons living outside the developments. One approach to providing jobs could be the operation of some commercial enterprises within the development by a cooperative of residents.
The Homeowner
In Milan, more than a tenth of the residents of public housing are buying their apartments. In other cities, the number of purchasers is greater. The Italian law governing public housing permits a tenant to purchase an apartment after he has rented public housing for five years. He is not required to buy the apartment he rents but may buy another. Mortgages of up to 25 years in length are arranged by the government.
Portineria Tufello in Rome: Toward a sense of community in public housing
Once he has taken out a mortgage to purchase his apartment, the tenant, with the approval of the may sublet it. And after the mortgage is ten years old, the apartment may be resold. There is no restriction on the incomes of those who purchase or rent from the original purchaser.
The effect of the program is such that a 15-year-old building may theoretically house persons renting from I.A.C.P., some buying their apartments from the Institute, others who rent from a person who has purchased, and even some who have purchased apartments from the original buyers. Some older buildings are now completely in private hands and operated as condominiums. Ironically, a few former public housing buildings are now fashionable upper-class apartments.
There is mixed reaction to the idea of selling public housing. It is criticized as subverting the basic purpose of the program — providing habitats for the poor. Others support it eagerly, contending the concept gives many people an opportunity to own their own home who otherwise would never have such a chance. They further contend that ownership virtually always results in better maintenance of the apartments.
In Genoa’s impressive Forte di Quezzi, built on the mountainside with a marvelous view of the city and the sea, many residents are purchasing apartments. Apartments in Italy are measured by number of vani, approximately the size of a medium room. A living room, for example, might be considered one and one-half vani and a hallway one-half vano.
A five-vani apartment in Forte di Quezzi rents for 10,000 lire ($16) a month and sells for a monthly payment of 17,000 lire ($27.20). A seven-vari apartment rents for 13,000 lire ($20.80) and sells for 21,000 lire ($33.60).
The Human Dimension
Virtually all of the public housing built in Italy is still constructed in the traditional manner but a trend toward prefabrication is growing. Milan, considered to have the most progressive I.A.C.P., is leading the movement, followed by Turin. Rome is just beginning to experiment with prefabs.
Clemente DeGregorio, the engineer for Milan’s Institute, is a strong advocate of the prefabricated technique, which is being widely used in France and the U.S.S.R. Milan, began its program after the Italian economic crises of 1961 and 1962 with plans to build 23,000 prefabricated apartments. More than 16,000 of them are now finished and occupied.
The advantages? “For one thing, there is a great saving in time,” DeGregorio explains. “We can build a project that would normally take two years in only one year. So we save a full year’s payment of interest on the loan and we have almost immediate income.”
The second advantage is a large saving in labor. “In traditional construction, about 40% of the cost goes for labor. The same project built with prefabrication will require only about 30% of its cost for labor, so we can improve standards.” He notes that prefabricated units can be quality controlled and tested, something not possible with traditional construction.
At the moment, DeGregorio acknowledges, the time is not ripe for a major move into prefabrication or, as he calls it, “industrialization,” Labor is still plentiful in Italy and most builders don’t have the mentality to leave traditional methods behind and accept a new concept. He estimates that prefabrication will emerge as a common means of production as skilled labor disappears, in about 10 years.
The Bugs
There are many problems to be solved in the use of prefabrication, perhaps the biggest the bad image the technique has in the minds of many. In a survey of residents living in the new Milan prefabricated units, a number of common complaints were found. Most involved poor acoustics, condensation on walls, flooring and the inability of residents to put nails in the concrete walls.
The factory-made walls have a tendency to pick up and transmit noises and most tenants remarked that they could hear water running through the walls. Condensation was a common problem, especially on outside corners of the apartments. For acoustical reasons, the normal stone flooring has been replaced in the prefab apartments by rubber floor tile. Many residents disliked the rubber tile, complaining that chairs will not slide on it and cigarettes can’t be extinguished on the floor. And, they said, hanging a picture is impossible because nails won’t go in the walls. (A special nail has been made available for prefab residents now.)
Despite the complaints, only 9.2% of the residents said they thought prefabricated apartments were of low quality. DeGregorio is confident the bugs can be worked out and that public acceptance will grow. “After all,” he observes, “we can’t stop progress just because you can’t hang a picture on the wall.”
However, he does recognize a far more serious problem – appearance. Because of the nature of the technology, most of the prefabricated buildings have the same shapes and together present a monotonous sight. Finding the answer to this problem will require a joint effort by architects, engineers, sociologists and urbanologists, he believes.
“Only with the help of all these can we find a human dimension,” he says. “The projects will have to be connected to the cities and also have certain autonomous features, features that will give them real characteristics.”
Expectations
It can be argued that Italy, with a per capita gross national product of $1180 (in 1966), has a much more desperate need for public housing than the United States with a per capita gross national product three times as high, $3770. But it is impossible to ignore the fact that the 196o census put the number of U.S. housing units which are dilapidated or lacking basic plumbing at 10,591,000, or 18% of the housing in the nation.
Scimemi makes this points “It would really be too much to expect people coming from distant localities in the deep south to demand a housing level or a living standard they have never enjoyed, not even imagined, in their original homes.
Forte di Quezzi, the most dramatic public housing development in Italy, sits on a mountainside, overlooking Genoa and the sea. Built in five stages at a cost of $8,000,000, it has 850 apartments. The lar6est building (upper center) is one solid construction, with a park behind it.
“It would be senseless also,” Scimemi continues, “to ask them to share in some sort of civil pride for the beautification of the new sectors of a city which mean(s) nothing more to them than the opportunity to find work, whose history they do not know and never shared in. How can they be expected to identify themselves with the local population whose language they do not speak or even understand…
“Local entrepreneurs quickly learnt how to take advantage of these clients — poor people, bad payers, but apparently an inexhaustible number of them and, perforce, contented to accept whatever they were given.”
He was, of course, speaking of the migration to Italy’s great urban centers, which has created the need for massive government action in the housing field. But his words have equal application to the great urban centers of America.
Received In New York April 1, 1968.
Mr. Meeker is an Alicia Patterson Fund award winner, on leave from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. This article may be published, with credit to David A. Meeker and the Alicia Patterson Fund.
