Culture and the City: Public Action and Social Participation in Rome's Experience

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyse the role and impact of cultural resources in urban change and growth. In particular the recent experience of Rome, where the municipal administration has often based the urban transformation of various areas upon cultural action, including contemporary architecture buildings, creative artists' work, cultural neighbourhoods and the like, is examined from a range of perspectives, focusing upon the many dilemmas faced by the public decision-maker in a complex ecosystem such as a town where residents, external users, and mass tourists share the same areas for different, and often conflicting, purposes. The main outcomes of the analysis show a substantial connection between the kind of action carried out and the possible degree of social engagement, along with the shared perception of common profiles in cultural resources. The need to activate cultural investments within a strategic framework, and the symmetrical weakness of occasional action is emphasized.

Full text

Journal of Business and Economics, ISSN 2155-7950, USA
July 2016, Volume 7, No. 7, pp. 1168-1181
DOI: 10.15341/jbe(2155-7950)/07.07.2016/012
© Academic Star Publishing Company, 2016
http://www.academicstar.us
1168
Culture and the City: Public Action and Social Participation
in Rome’s Experience
Irene Litardi1, Lavinia Pastore1, Michele Trimarchi2
(1. University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Italy; 2.University of Catanzaro “Magna Graecia”, Italy)
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to analyse the role and impact of cultural resources in urban change and
growth. In particular the recent experience of Rome, where the municipal administration has often based the urban
transformation of various areas upon cultural action, including contemporary architecture buildings, creative
artists’ work, cultural neighbourhoods and the like, is examined from a range of perspectives, focusing upon the
many dilemmas faced by the public decision-maker in a complex eco-system such as a town where residents,
external users, and mass tourists share the same areas for different, and often conflicting, purposes. The main
outcomes of the analysis show a substantial connection between the kind of action carried out and the possible
degree of social engagement, along with the shared perception of common profiles in cultural resources. The need
to activate cultural investments within a strategic framework, and the symmetrical weakness of occasional action
is emphasized.
Key words: urban change; urban regeneration; social engagement; cultural common goods; Rome
JEL codes: H890, Z180, Z190
1. Introduction
In the last thirty years, to coincide with the first globalization, we have been spectators of a radical change
affecting society and cities. The passage from an industrial society to a knowledge society (Ranga M. & Etzkowitz
H., 2013) has led to the conversion of urban factories due to the relocation of the production system in countries
with lower costs of labour. As a result, tertiary services have been focused in Western cities: in particular
professional services, financial and administrative support to the political structure and cultural attractions. This
phenomenon has produced a series of divestments of industrial and impoverishment of certain classes of the
population resulting in abandonment and degradation of areas located around urban centre.
Lavinia Pastore, Ph.D. Candidate in Public Management and Governance, Department of Management and Law, University of
Roma “Tor Vergata”; research areas/interests: public management; cultural management; cultural heritage and museum management;
social innovation; urban development; commons goods management; new cultural production models of cinema industry; public
policy and EU funding. E-mail: pastore@economia.uniroma2.it.
Irene Litardi, Ph.D. Candidate in Public Management and Governance, Department of Management and Law, University of Roma
“Tor Vergata”; research areas/interests: public management; CSR; urban sustainability; cultural management; social cohesion; social
innovation; commons goods management; stakeholder engagement; public policy analysis; sustainable and green public procurement,
sustainable university. E-mail: litardi@economia.uniroma2.it.
Michele Trimarchi, Full Professor of Public Economics, Department of Law, University of Catanzaro “Magna Graecia”; research
areas/interests: cultural economics; analysis of cultural supply and demand; integration and sustainability of cultural resources;
structure and funding of the arts markets; design of public policy for the arts; contemporary arts system and creative industries, opera
and performing arts management. E-mail: michtrim@tin.it.

Culture and the City: Public Action and Social Participationin Rome’s Experience
1169
The arts contribute significantly to the regeneration of a neighborhood, as the former Councilfor Culture of
the city of Rome states during the opening of a new street art “district” in a troubled outskirt. In the last years
many cases of urban regeneration through culture have been recorded in Rome: some of them were bottom-up
processes; some have been the controversial outcome of top-down public policies; most of them have been carried
out thought intermediators between citizens and urban policy makers such as private galleries, social centers,
actors of the third sector active on a specific area. The attempt of this paper is to analyze the urban change that we
are observing in the city of Rome. Our attempt is to find out where a real urban regeneration has taken place
through social engagement of the neighbourhood’s community – creating actually an identity though the practice
of art – and where these numerous painted walls scattered across the outskirts are the result of merely rhetoric
tactics on the part of institutional policy makers.
The aim of this paper is to analyse the role and impact of cultural resources in urban change and growth. In
particular the recent experience of Rome, where the municipal administration has often based urban transformation
in various areas upon cultural action, including contemporary architecture buildings, creative artists’ work, cultural
neighbourhoods and the like, is examined from a range of perspectives, focusing upon the many dilemmas faced by
the public decision-maker in a complex eco-system such as a town where residents, external users, and mass tourists
share the same areas for different and often conflicting, purposes. The main outcomes of the analysis show a
substantial connection between the kind of action carried out and the possible degree of social engagement, along
with the shared perception of common profiles in cultural resources. The need to activate cultural investments
within a strategic framework, and the symmetrical weakness of occasional action is emphasized.
2. Methodology
To achieve our purpose the research has been developed along two methodological stages:
(1) Sketch out the state-of-art of literature on urban changing processes. In particular, four main processes
have been identified: gentrification, requalification, regeneration, and self-made urbanism (Paragraph 1). The
findings on literature have been re-organized by the authors as the theoretical framework of this research. For each
process we pinpointed: object, pioneers, stakeholders, role of the public administration and results on the area
interested.
(2) After a brief research background aimed at framing the importance of culture, we investigated upon the
main public art projects carried out in the city of Rome. After taking into consideration the main interventions and
processes of urban change through culture and art (Paragraph 2), we decided to focus this first study upon the
phenomenon of street art. We carried out a qualitative research based on the territory of Rome, selecting five case
studies of urban initiatives that aimed at transforming the city environment through street art (Paragraph 3). The
second stage has been structured as follows:
 Analysis of a Municipal map of street art districts (Municipal tourist map).
 Selection of five case studies that showed, at the same time, comparable characteristics and interesting
differences, especially in the process of development.
 Semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders of the case studies analysed.
 Insertion of case studies into the theoretical framework elaborated in the first stage of the research, based upon
the four urban processes.
The second part of the research has been carried out with an ethnographic approach through the

Culture and the City: Public Action and Social Participationin Rome’s Experience
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implementation of different tools: the participant observation method during surveys and site inspections;
semi-structured interviews and in-depth interviews. This phase has been carried out during one year by the authors.
The research process has been held in a participatory context: most of the participants were interested and motivated
in the analysis of the urban changing processes that they have contributed to generate, and therefore very inclined to
give their contribution.
Finally, international case studies have been analysed in order for this study to benefit from a comparative view
(Paragraph 4).
3. Theoretical Framework: The Arts as Driver of Urban Renewal in the Economic
Theory
Bauman’s (2005) belief is that public places that “recognize the creative and life-enhancing value of diversity,
while encouraging the differences to engage in a meaningful dialogue” are the sites for the future of urban life.
This paper is based on the idea that Bauman’s wished future urban life might be approached through cultural
regeneration processes based on the engagement of the urban community. The assumption of this paper lies on
Warner’s definition of urban space as a range of cultural fields and texts affecting the community (Warner, 2002).
A cultural field is where it is possible to produce, spread and share art. Shelley Sacks (2005) defines art as the
instrument able to involve “trans-actions” between people, issues, and places. Thus, this participation draws
spectators in as participants. The action component is devoted to achieving some social result through the
community engagement. On the contrary, as we will see below, not all the projects that have crossed the city of
Rome in the last years shared these values.
The case studies do not show a replicable model of rebirth through culture but it is possible to identify
contradictory processes that are changing, in positive or negative, the urban areas. Four are the main urban
changing processes analysed in the study (Table 1).
Table 1 Urban Changing Processes
Process Object Pioneer Stakeholder PA role Result
Requalification Public space,
services and
public building PA Resident, PA Urban decoration increase property value;
improve green area and public
transport
Gentrification Private building Private Middle-upper class,
professionals, speculators Branding
new middle-upper class of
resident; new business;
international brand; increase
property value;
Self made
urbanism
Public space
and , abandoned
property
Civil
Society
Public spaces, abandoned
b
uildings Population area,
community centers, collectives
and neighborhood committees
Community
Aggregator Rebirth of unused spaces;
cultural activities
Regeneration Private building,
Public space Private e
PA Residents, PA, private,
neighborhood committees
Urban décoration,
community
Aggregator
increase property value; new
b
usiness; new cultural activities;
citizens participation; a sense of
belonging
Source: Authors’ elaboration.
Gentrification (Ruth Glass, 1964) is a process of renewal and rebuilding accompanying the influx of
middle-class or affluent people into previously deteriorated areas that often displaces poorer residents.
Gentrification occurs when “urban renewal” of lower class neighbourhoods attracts middle class tenants, driving up

Culture and the City: Public Action and Social Participationin Rome’s Experience
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rents and driving out long time, lower income residents. In this process culture plays a favourable role for business,
since it reflects the globalization of cultural brand identity, similar to the “Non-lieux” (Marc Augé, 1992); an
example is the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. Therefore, culture is used as the brand identity of the area gentrified
stripping it of its territorial identity. Currently the subject of gentrification increasingly binds to questions of greater
scope such as economic and cultural globalization (Atkinson, Bridge, 2005), the abandonment of Keynesian
policies and the advent of the neoliberal (Smith, 2002; Peck, 2005) guided by the concept of urban competitiveness
and its achievement through the attraction of talent (Florida, 2002; 2005).
Urban regeneration is the rehabilitation of impoverished urban neighbourhoods by large-scale renovation or
reconstruction of housing and public works. When regeneration is considered in the context of “urban,” it involves
the rebirth or renewal of urban areas and settlements. Urban regeneration is primarily concerned with regenerating
cities and early/inner ring suburbs facing periods of decline due to compounding and intersecting pressures.
“Re-qualification” (Borri, 1985) is a “transformation of a place (residential, industrial or open space) showing
symptoms of environmental decline (physical), social and/or economic.”Or, better, as “the infusion of new vitality
to declining communities, industries and places bringing sustainable and long-term improvements to the quality of
local life, including economic, social and environmental” (Evans & Shaw, 2004).
The original meaning of “self-made urbanism” is self-built and self-organized city in terms of illegal
construction development. The positive meaning of the term concerns the idea of a self-made city based on
collective and self-initiated living projects of the urban community with the aim of enhancing the quality of public
space. The self-made urbanism is mainly due to the post-2008 crisis movements of occupation of abandoned spaces.
It can be expanded to a form of collaborative economy implemented by local communities in order to make up for
the lack of services and opportunities that the public administration does not offer. In this process culture is difficult
to categorize, it plays a hybrid role and becomes a powerful social driver.
4. Brief Background: Art Landing in Suburbs
4.1 From Meyer to Fuksas, Across the Town
The recent decades have recorded a boiling Roman administration, whose efforts have often been aimed at
re-shaping the urban and metropolitan complex identity, and combining the (too) many labels which already affect
Rome as both beneficial and wasteful (ancient Romans used to say: cujuscommodaejusincommoda); at the same
time a relevant influence has been played by the obsession of appearing in the international press and in the
fashionable debate about creative industries, trying to build sources of international attraction: also in such a
respect the leading contradiction has been connected with two conflicting layers: the intellectual milieu one hand,
and the mass tourism on the other. None of them could win.
In 2006 the new AraPacis container was unveiled. It had been directly commissioned to Richard Meier who
had to re-think the area and offset the simple stone cover that had hosted the AraPacis Augusteae since 1938. No
open call was issued, while some comparative analysis among the proposed ideas could have proved beneficial for
the project as a whole: the original intention was to re-draw the riverfront close to the monument, in order for both
residents and tourists to extract a multidimensional value from an experience able to combine archaeology,
architecture, urban design, sociality and everyday life.
The challenge was dramatically missed, and only a white and clay-ecru building was crafted including a wall
whose shape hides a baroque church and just draws the limit between the monument and the ordinary traffic flows

Culture and the City: Public Action and Social Participationin Rome’s Experience
1172
along the Tiber River. After a few years, the political intuitions about the close future of Rome tried to convince
the decision-makers and the community that the EUR district, a unique wide and rich district of Rationalist
architecture hosting 16 public museums, could be the venue for a yearly Formula 1 race within the world
championship. No need to argue about the disasters that such a project would have generated. It remained into the
dream notebook of the Mayor and his team, and nothing was made.
Three years before the inauguration of the new AraPacis the archistar Richard Meier had projected and
realized the Jubilee Church in the Tor TreTeste suburb, a troubled area in which such an intervention of public art
was believed able to generate social inclusion. Its shape, aesthetically alien and above all materially and
symbolically locked in a candid wall, has always been interpreted by residents as a stranger object, also in view of
the intensive interest shown by weekend connoisseurs’ visits whose impact was similar to what animals in a zoo
may feel of visitors.
Two years after the AraPacis was unveiled a further archistar action was started, asking Massimiliano Fuksas
to craft a new Conference Palace. Its “cloud”, whose undefined shape will contain halls for conferences, has been
recently inaugurated after (too?) many years of stop-and-go, financial revisions, intellectual, legal, financial,
bureaucratic and atmospheric trouble between the municipal administration and Fuksas himself. The “cloud” has
not yet been used. At a few metres’ distance, slow but emphasized work is occurring for a big, semi-digital
aquarius which should attract hordes of internal and international tourists. It is a sort of urbanistic schizophrenic
view, aimed at creating mass poles rather than smooth trails.
4.2 The Cultural Infrastructure of Rome
Unavoidably chaotic, the interventions and actions based upon culture and the arts actually suffer from
multiple diseases. Even considering the Piranesi-Croce atmosphere where ruins still prevail upon sound and
usable buildings, and a meta-ethical un-touchable of heritage prevails upon active participation of internal and
external visitors, we should acknowledge that slowly but firmly some relevant changes are in view. Many
emerging proposals and projects are in the municipal agenda, from the pedestrian Forum, already realized by the
brave former city secretary for urban spaces Giovanni Caudo, to the gigantic frieze that tells Rome’s history
through ninety nine-metres high drawings by William Kentridge, physically crafted pumping high-speed water on
the biological skin stratified through the years on the white walls built after the unification of Italy and
involuntarily responsible of the isolation of the river Tiber within the urban texture1.
These single, isolated and often feared initiatives may show the horizon of a metropolitan archaeological
park and art city still locked in a bureaucratic grid whose map is complex and often contradictory, if not even
conflictual. Each squared metre of Rome falls under the competence and power of state ministries, special
authorities, regional government, municipal offices (and sometimes ecclesiastical property); quite often different
layers of administration share the same territorial and disciplinary areas of competence, but they do not
necessarily talk to each other; the occurrence of atmospheric competition is not at all rare, and the generous grape
of rules and regulations does not manage to eliminate such an occurrence. Costs normally offset benefits:
decisions and actions are unbearably slow.
Within such a complex institutional framework, further difficulties arise due to the diffused and evenly
1 Interview to Michele Trimarchi (April 2016) in the Executive Board of Tevereterno’sAssociation: “Kentridge’s frieze is an
eloquent public art experience, and clearly shows that a simple, although powerful, work of art is a necessary but not sufficient
condition to make art public; intensive and regular participation is required, in order for the site to be given back to the urban
community and to external visitors, consistently reshaping the urban map”.

Culture and the City: Public Action and Social Participationin Rome’s Experience
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distributed reluctance to accept a synergic and syncretic strategy where the various souls of Rome’s art history,
aesthetics and cultural markets can cross-fertilize. The material and financial relevance of mass tourism (despite
the uneven distribution of its proceedings) ended up to generate conventional trails where the Coliseum, the
Vatican Museums and a few other venues are the only places being actually visited by the majority of Rome’s
visitors. Also the chaotic sequence of temporary exhibitions ends up to bias the trails, and not necessarily such
exhibitions are able to craft a consistent storytelling that could in some way attract a more stable and sustainable
audience, also considering that temporary exhibitions are the object of interest also on the part of many Italian
occasional users of Rome as the town of many services, from conferences to health, from university to public
administration.
Furthermore, there is an extremely dry relationship between the various layers of public administration and in
any case of the decision-making milieu on one hand, and grass-root organizations, creative artists’ guilds
(although informal ones prevail), professionals and experts, both as single individuals and organized groups on the
other. This implies that the needed degree of strategic osmosis in a complex eco-system is totally absent, and for
many reasons it mummifies the views and intuitions that could lead Rome towards a suitable metropolitan growth
where the resident community and the external visitors share the same experience and therefore evenly contribute
to its sustainability.
5. Case Studies
5.1 A Critical Map of the Arts in Rome
Should we map cultural initiatives led by the public administration of the city of Rome in the last decade —
or even before — we would design a curios map where it is difficult to read any strategy credibly laying behind it.
In the city of Rome the municipal administration has often based urban transformation in various areas upon
cultural action, including contemporary architecture buildings, creative artists’ work, cultural neighborhood, and
the like. Here we intend to examine this transformation from a range of perspectives, focusing upon the many
dilemmas faced by the public decision-maker in a complex eco-system such as a town where residents, external
users, and mass tourists share the same areas for different, and often conflicting, purposes.
In order for us to present the “re-generated Rome” we will use the “eyes” of the municipal administration
following the alternative/new tourist map created lately for Rome Street Art with the slogan “the street is your
new museum”. During this research we will not focus only upon street art but — as we will analyse in the second
part, adopting street art is a fixed indicator of urban regeneration — we will explore the whole city and its
multiple evolution, considering its various and not necessarily consistent maps. Once we have defined the district
of our interest we will start digging it to find out if the artistic process activated though the street art intervention
left just a painted wall or if it has actually generated any other cultural activities enhancing social engagement and
participation in the district.
Below, figure 1, the municipal tourist map of the street art districts can provide us with the clear image of an
urban patchwork often dominated by occasional and not reciprocally fuelling interventions. Furthermore, as we
will be able to observe later, there are no connections between such interventions based upon street art on one
hand, and the rest of the territorial identity of Roman districts on the other hand, since both their material and
symbolic shapes are totally ignored, and the location of any other art and creative actions is neglected.
To understand whether urban regeneration policies have been effective or not we have identified some of the

1174
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Culture and the City: Public Action and Social Participationin Rome’s Experience
1175
has its strength that is based on the desire of the occupiers and the artists, where each artist has to finance
her/himself”. The cultural project led to residents’ added value in terms of protection, international image,
processed and hardened environments, the relationship between art and society. The Metropoliz represents the
example of how a community can use art to express real needs and desires. Unfortunately, the cultural supply of
the city of Rome is usually far from a bottom-up approach. As mentioned in section 2.1 the experiences of
archi-star projects are many. Besides from the “great super archi-star projects” the city of Rome has tried to
reshape its image as a contemporary city at the edge of street art and other trend initiatives. As mentioned before,
we have been interviewing and mapping stakeholders of some projects involved in the street art map presented by
the municipality of Rome. What has been interesting is to find out that some of them where design with and
through the PA guide, others have been of no-interest for the PA until that have decided to embrace this “new
image of Rome”. The emblematic example of the attitude is the MAAM case. Indeed, even if in MAAM there are
the most interesting contemporary artworks — much more if compared to the mainstream institutional museums
such as MAXXI — the PA is not collaborating in the needed process of legalization of the place.
A different story is the one of the ferment district of the capital: Ostiense. This district — is it a district or not
it is an interesting question without an unequivocal answer — is marked by industrial archaeology. This
characteristic made the area attracted artists of various kinds, from directors to street writers that have changed the
urban landscape during the years. Ostiense district was first to start a process of regeneration, in particular through
street art hosting the works of important artists, including some of international fame. From Blue Guy Denning,
from Behr to Roa, many have ventured beautifying rail and subways walls of entire buildings. It is necessary to
highlight the fact that the very first street art interventions that made Ostiense famous came from illegal artists’
artworks that are far from the “institutionalized public street art”; here it all started in 2009/2010, during the years
of German Government’s austerity policies. They looked at us with distrust, while thanks to 999Contemporary
important works were realized, and also reviewed by the Times which called the district the Sistine Chapel of
Street Art “Now that the city has realized the potential in terms of expression, artistic, cohesion of the territory and
urban regeneration you have to make another step. We must instil it in the young generations, who may have the
opportunity to express themselves beautifying the city, no more ruining it”3.
Though the words of Ostiense main stakeholders — the municipality representatives and activist of the
neighbourhood — the awareness emerges on the importance of creating active cultural realities able to collaborate.
Ostiense was the first district transformed through cultural activities and it has become the reference point for
other districts. Hereafter we will analyse other cases where it will be interesting to notice that they replicate the
Ostiense formula in terms of stakeholders and activities carried out:
 PA funding street art project with the objective of creating new touristic routes (usually Fondazione Roma).
 A private intermediary, usually a gallery, executes the project and tries to involve the residents.
 The facades interested in the street art restyling are usually property of ATER, therefore the buildings are
social housings.
 The success of the regeneration processes varies from case to case since the repetition of a formula does not
guarantee the success — on the contrary in a shifting reality unlikely works.
Actually all the interviewed persons involved in the street art map do not recognize themselves as part of a
formula embraced by the PA. They strongly underline the specificity of each experience even if it is not difficult
3 Andrea Catarci President of the Municipality VIII.

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to read them a posteriori in this perspective.
From instance, the San Basilio suburb is included in the Municipality map but has its own story. San Basilio
district since two years is involved in the “Sanba project” carried out by the creative team of Walls and it relies on
the financial support of the Foundation Rome-Art-Museums, with the support of Zétema, ATER and Rome City
Hall IV. Restyling, community, openness, development, regeneration are the keywords of “Sanba project”
according to its organizers. Besides impressive art works on the grey building of the district, on its second year the
project has moved towards other activities promoting the realization of works of urban design, entrusted to the
local schools, to regenerate areas through residents’ creative involvement4.
After the “Sanbaproject” Walls5 considered it necessary to involve a group of psychologists (NOEO) to
deepen the regeneration process of the area. This project, named “TRAME”, lasted six months and involved the
residents to participate and produce work of arts. Through this project the desire emerged to revive the historical
memory of the neighborhood and to pass it forward to young generations in order to enable collaborative
processes aimed at reviving the neighborhood. The project TRAME was a real attempt of urban regeneration that
was born after scoring the non-comprehension of the street art paintings within the previous “Sanbaproject”.
Moreover, it is necessary to keep in mind that, even if the PA is trying to regenerate suburbs through art, primary
problems of the residents of that area remain unresolved. Indeed, from the interviews of the residents emerged that
they feel the distance between the “city” and the district and the absence of public action to rehabilitate an area
that sees a total presence of ATER properties, roads and public services not sufficiently restructured6.
The issue of non-resolved primary needs vs. art projects is a “mantra” in these kinds of experiences. Indeed,
in the neighborhood of Tor Marancia the residents have the same feeling. In Tor Marancia in the year 2015 the
project “Big City Life” took place, promoted by Gallery 999Contemporary, already promoter of public art
initiatives in Ostiense, financed by Fondazione Roma-Art-Museums and ATER, which is the owner of the
buildings (social housing buildings). Over 500 people involved and 20 international artists, some 2,500 square
metres of works and 20 facades (14 metres high), painted in 70 days, are the figures of ‘Big City Life’, a public art
project that aimed to regenerate the complex district of Tor Marancia. The Big City Life goal is to transform the
historic district of Tor Marancia in an open-air museum accessible to all7. As stated by Giovanna Marinelli, former
cultural counsellor of Rome, “We have set in motion several paths of street art, from Ostiense to San Basilio, in an
effort that even Rome, as many other European cities has a tourist route in the outskirts”.
As highlighted above, the restyling of an outskirt like Tor Marancia does not convince some of its residents
that complain about the decay of the area starting from unstable ledges of the buildings to the absence of basic
welfare services. The transformation into open-air museum does not solve complex problems of outskirts, and to
some residents the Big City Life project looks like a marketing project rather than a regeneration process.
The idea of transforming suburbs into “open air museum” is spreading around without taking into
consideration if and how the residents are involved in the process, like in SANBA case, and who are the
beneficiaries/consumers of the art projects.
Another neighborhood that is experimenting this process is Tor Pignattara. Torpignattara is a crossroads of
different cultures where the construction of dialogue is a challenge.
4 Interview to Simone Pallotta, Art Direcot of Sanba Project in San Basilio, September 2015.
5 Walls is a cultural organization works on blending contemporary art and the social sphere, http://onthewalls.it/about/.
6 Interview to Maria GisaMasia, Psychologist and NOEO team, September 2015.
7 Interview to Francesca Mezzano, Project manager di Galleria 999 contemporary, September 2015.

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For some time in this neighborhood, street art has played as the pioneer of urban regeneration, consciously
sought, promoted and wanted by the local population, by neighborhood committees and agents of cultural territory
as the art gallery Wunderkammer8. The neighborhood committee has activated “Light Up Torpigna project!”
where the WunderkammernGallery was responsible for bringing international urban artists and involve them in
creating high-value cultural and artistic works on the suburban walls in January and February 2015. According to
“Light Up Torpigna” organizers leading contemporary artists become the principal agents in an urban renewal
process, which has also social and cultural connotations, benefiting first and foremost the local community.
The project goal is to transform Torpignattara into an “open air museum”, as Ostiense district already did.
This project is just the last in time, but may other projects were carried out previously.Among them
#TuttoATorpigna that aims to offer a wide cultural program in the district, often left alone, eager to meeting
opportunities, recreation and entertainment, but also for reflection and sharing. The proposal was to “occupy” the
nerve centers of the territory (removing them from degradation) and develop them through four major themes
(Movies, Music, Theatre and Street art). The key stakeholders promoting those projects are Wunderkammer
gallery, Varsi gallery, and I Love Torpigna neighborhood committee with the support of the municipality of Rome
thought the program Creative Rome.
The challenge of those experiences lies in a dichotomy between urban regeneration processes led by a truly
participatory approach, and the merecolourful ornament of forgotten suburbs. The problem is that for the PA those
experiences are all the same, collected in a map, and there are no policies, through funding, to actually complete in
medium-long run activities of urban regeneration boasted9.
5.3 The Arts and Quality of Urban Life
The case studies have a common denominator: street art. The first areas that have been the object of urban art
are Torpignattara and Ostiense. The latter is the first case of Rome and it is taken as an example of the
development of similar projects. In fact, it is the hub for Roman contemporary art and creative industries, and the
projects are located in the urban area, but not only in single building (see St. Basilio Tor Marancia, Table 2).
Interestingly, the role of public administration (PA) may prove important: in Ostiense and Torpignattarait has been
a financial supporter and facilitator of processes already under way; in the areas of San Basilio and Tor Maranciait
has played a leading role as an activator, just in the attempt to replicate the successful case of Ostiense.
The role of PA is often marginal and linked to cultural calls for street art project, but the final message for the
Roman administration is the regeneration. All “Pioneers” agree on the decorative and social role of street art, since
it could activate a process of redevelopment thanks to the increased perception of both citizens and vistors. This
effect should be the trigger that should attract PA to deliver a series of general services recognized for the quality
of citizens’ lives so that the perception of improvement can become real (see Turin, 4.2).
In general, in these processes the role of public administration has declined. In fact, the progressively drained
public budget, amplified by the absence of effective policies for culture and the weakness of a fragmented cultural
sector, asks professionals active in the cultural system to pursue new forms of economic and financial
sustainability (such as crowd funding). These forms of financing are sometimes not sufficient for the realization of
cultural projects, remaining dependent on public and corporate funding.
8 Interview to Giuseppe Pizzuto, Art Director of Wunderkammern Gallery, October 2015.
9 Interview to Claudio Nieffi, Social media manager of Tor Pignattara’ Neighborhood committee, October 2015.

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Table 2 Urban Changing Processes in Roman Neighborhoods
Case study Year Project name Object Cultural action Pioneers PA role Results Process
Ostiense 2009/2010 District Street art; festival;
performing art
Independent
street artist; art
gallery; social
center
Project
support
Establishment of
creative and cultural
activities Regeneration
San Basilio 2013 Sanba project Buildings Street art PA; art gallery;
art collective Activator New type of tourism Requalification
Tor Marancia 2015 Big City
Life project Buildings Street art PA; art gallery;
art collective Activator New type of tourism Requalification
Tor
Pignattara 2014 Light Up
Torpigna project! Neighborhood Street art; small
culturalinitiatives,
festival
Neighborhood
committee; art
gallery
Project
support
Citizens participation,
new cultural
organization Regeneration
Metropoliz 2009/2010
Space Metropoliz/
MAAM Building Street art; small
cultural initiatives,
festival
Comunity,
artist,
association
Citizens participation,
new cultural
organization, new type
of “village museum”
Self Made
Urbanism
Source: Authors’ elaboration.
The implications of such processes of urban change are associated in particular with the skills and methods
of stakeholder engagement. The city, as a place of all = common, becomes a “good” where it manages to establish
strong connections between the local community and its neighborhood. The citizens can perceive the city as a
“common good”. Stakeholder engagement (Jeffery, 2009) is important because not only it creates a sense of
belonging but also because it is an opportunity to respond to the needs of users’ lives if the identification of the
problems of a territory is appropriate.
The PA has a will of planning to leave the streets malfunctioning, with little connection between the
neighbourhoods, to a mismanagement of public transport, non-existent artistic activities, to close organizations
seeking to produce art like “Teatro Valle” in Rome. At the same time where there is no money to improve the
architecture, the administration is doing nothing and the street art is financed because it has a lower cost if it is
compared with a substantial urban and architectural regeneration.
6. Public art and Urban Texture in International Experiences
6.1 Foreword
There are cities around the world that have accomplished to change their core business and their reputation
through a brilliant strategic planning based on cultural and creative industries. Hereafter we will describe some
example, not because they might be reproduced by the logic of best practices that we do not believe in, but
because they appear representative of the role that culture can play in the transformation of a city.
6.2 From Steel to Green Trails and Creative Hubs: New York
New York cultural offer and creative industry are a complex and patchy system that we will not describe in
this section. Of this emblematic city, we want to highlight symbolic experiences that show how a cultural
intervention can change the urban perception of a neighborhood and its future development. It isthe High Line
(also known as the High Line Park) a 1.45-mile-long linear park built in Manhattan on an elevated section of a
disused New York Central Railroad. The High Line has been redesigned and planted as an aerial greenway and
rails-to-trails park. The recycling of the railway into an urban park has brought on the revitalization of Chelsea,
which had been “gritty” and has suffered from poor conditions in the late twentieth century (Koblin, 2007).
According to the former Mayor Bloomberg, the High Line project has helpedto further something of a renaissance
in the neighborhood: by 2009, more than 30 projects were planned or under construction nearby (Pogrebin, 2009).

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A series of articles and data show that the High line has brought a positive social impact in terms of decrease of
crime rate, change of perception of the neighborhood and new investments. Actually, the high line project has
been even too successful and it has brought upon Chelsea a process of gentrification, something quite violent for
the former residents. What it is interesting for our research about this case study is the capability to transforms the
perceived unconscious of a certain area through culture changing progressively the image of a city.
6.3 Smooth Art Dynamics: Turin
The city of Turin is the example of an industrial city that converted its development model through a political
strategy, in an age of post-Fordism restructuring and economic globalization. Turin has been invested by a
Pro-growth agenda — that consists of different sets of policies and may be supported by different coalitions (Lee,
2006) — as pointed out in a study of Belligni and Ravizzi in 2013. Among pro-growth agenda there are some
cities focus on advanced technologies and research, sometimes called “knowledge machines” or “triple helix
model” (Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 2000; Koch & Stahlecker 2006), others try to foster culture, creativity and
entertainment (often labeled as “knowledge machines” or “entertainment machines”). These kinds of pro-growth
regimes differ from the so-called “growth machines”, aiming at enhancing real property gains and led by local
economic élites (Molotch & Logan, 1987; Vicari & Molotch, 1990; Harding, 1994; Stone, 1989). Turin has
adopted the cultural and creative industry as the driver of its renewal. The cultural strategy has been clearly
divided into two sections: the big events – that are also comprehensive of entertainment and sports such as the
winter Olympic games that have been used to launch the city as a tourist city — and the institutional cultural
supply has been the object of an accurate integration system among different actors (museum card-cinema
network, etc.).
Even if the cultural strategy of Turin has also been criticized because too dispersive and not sustainable, it is
common conviction that through almost 30 years of oriented public policies towards cultural change the city has
been transformed.
7. Concluding remarks
From our analysis of urban troubles in using the arts as a driver for growth and development we can get a few
and simple orientations for credible strategies to provide art projects with a sound and sustainable backbone:
 Residents as embedded stakeholders of the process. It emerges explicitly from our case studies that the success
of an intervention should be based upon the participation, also in terms of ownership of the cultural goods, of the
residents of the area.
 Co-design of cultural goods and services with the residents. The cultural production has to be integrated in the
eco-system where it is installed, and design with which it is living in. The successful process is the co-design
approach to avoid the production of detached initiatives. Whatever cultural production or initiative has to become an
incentive for creating a sense of community and belonging among all the stakeholders involved.
 The PA has to support medium-long term projects and strategies that show an integrated perspective (Turin has
changed because of a long-term strategy). Indeed, the most evident problem in Rome’s experience is the lack of a
coordinated long-term strategy in terms of policies and funds.
To conclude, Rome should ask itself what is the future of the city. Might culture be at the centre of its policies?
If the answer is yes, it is necessary to build a planned strategy (that might be not a strategy but a new approach to
cultural supply — meaning that bottom-up experiences carried out by residents should be supported in the long

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term). Our proposal of strategy does not imply planned interventions, but it mainly needs to embrace a method or
approach aimed at managing bottom-up process to enhance their potential. To re-shape the city according to its real
needs and calling requires smart and flexible policies and strategies able toadapt and design within a long-term
perspective.
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