Rome's car-parking chaos sparks "barbarian" debate
ROME (Reuters) - Visitors leaving Rome with anecdotes of cars parked on zebra crossings, blocking pavements or two abreast on narrow streets would probably think the locals would welcome plans for a giant new carpark.
But this is Italy, where the calmest of conversations looks like a row, and debate between conservationists and modernizers over a carpark on an ancient hillside has escalated into a raging debate with both sides calling each other "barbarians".
Some of the biggest names in Italian culture and politics -- film director Franco Zeffirelli, pop star Adriano Celentano and centre-left opposition leader Walter Veltroni -- are involved.
In a city that is effectively an open-air museum, bulldozers starting public works are almost always halted by archaeologists hailing the discovery of yet another ancient ruin.
Pincio hill is a Neoclassical terraced garden designed by Giuseppe Valadier in the early 19th century astride 1st Century BC ruins that conservationists have dubbed a "Secret Pompeii".
City hall chose Pincio two years ago for a seven-storey, 726-space carpark to allow the narrow streets between Piazza del Popolo and Piazza di Spagna -- one of Europe's poshest shopping districts -- to be reserved for pedestrians.
In a city whose drivers American travel writer Bill Bryson said "park their cars the way I would park if I had just spilled a beaker of hydrochloric acid in my lap", there is a clear need for more orderly parking and more public transport.
The debate essentially forces Romans to choose between their passion for cars -- Italy has one of highest densities of car ownership in the world -- and pride in their ancient culture.
The Pincio carpark was approved when Veltroni was mayor but Rome is now run by right-winger Gianni Alemanno. Traditionalists in Italy's conservative government want him to ditch the plan -- as do some leftists like Celentano, who called it "degenerate".
In the latest round, Culture Minister Sandro Bondi -- a poet -- accused the centre left of turning Rome into "a supermarket for mass tourism". In a letter to one newspaper, he proposed an international contest to solve Rome's traffic problems.
Veltroni, a novelist and modernist, says the real barbarians are those who say "no" to anything new "in the country with the most acute 'Nimby' (Not in My Back Yard) syndrome in the world".
"Without local people the centre of Rome risks becoming a giant tourist mall ... and local people must have somewhere to park their cars," he wrote in Corriere della Sera newspaper.
(Editing by Caroline Drees)
