Pouring scorn on the so-called Neapolitan Renaissance, some Neapolitans consider that excessive money has been spent on the city’s ‘beautiful areas’, and not enough on the rest, some of which is very obviously crying out for investment. While on the surrounding islands, and on the Amalfi Coast, life continues to be distinctly privileged, it is undeniably the case that in Naples within a few hundred metres of its grand historic monuments, families live in squalor, in tiny houses or bassi, often comprising only a single room. The truth is probably that although some of the mentality of the city has changed in the last 10 years, it will take much more investment over a long period before the city starts to draw the numbers of tourists its attractions justify. This is a vicious circle, since the tourists are really needed now in order to generate the money for further renovation and development. The city of Naples currently has a hole in its finances and it’s hard to see how this will be filled. Beggars are a common sight and unemployment remains high, very high among women and the young (it peaks for young women at above 60%). The consensus about solutions that the once much-vaunted Antonio Bassolino created after he became Naples’ mayor in 1993 has now broken down slightly. The early Bassolino years were marked by a wave of optimism and civic pride in the city and an extraordinary turnaround in Naples’ image in the rest of the country. Bassolino has now become the regional governor and has been succeeded by Rosa Russo Iervolino and although the political make-up of the administration has changed little, there is less agreement about the way forward. This ambivalence to ‘progress’ was also apparent when, in January 2002, Naples was dragged into the Eurozone with scant enthusiasm but more of a shrug than a protest. There was little love for the lira, but old habits die hard and in many shops prices are still added up in the old currency before being converted. Things are still changing slowly, however. The newly renovated, and partly pedestrianized piazza Dante, complete with a new metro station, is a good example of the knock-on advantages urban renewal can bring. Neapolitans hope that when the rest of the new metro extension comes on line, other parts of the city will benefit similarly. Occasional traffic-free mornings in the city centre show how different it could be if it wasn’t constantly clogged with honking, polluting traffic but it will take more than a new metro line to seriously loosen the car’s current stranglehold. The city’s other enormous problem is its lawlessness: although Naples’ reputation for being a dangerous city is massively exaggerated, petty crime, largely bag-snatching, pick-pocketing and car-theft, are still rife. More seriously, though largely out of sight of the average tourist, organized crime still controls a sizeable proportion of the city, from fruit and vegetables and car parking ‘attendants’ to drug dealing and counterfeit goods. Furthermore, gangland killings between different Camorra factions continue, and the attitudes the Camorra have engendered in more than 50 years of de facto power are deeply ingrained into the structure and psyche of the city. Corruption and a lack of respect for the law are endemic and continue, largely unquestioned, to be an integral part of the Neapolitan way of life. The president of Napoli football club was recently arrested for his supposed involvement in a scam where fake paintings were being sold through a local television shopping channel. Prior to that, the Cardinal of Naples was the subject of an inquiry into allegations of loan sharking. This sort of story surprises nobody in Naples. More a focus of attention in the first years of the 21st century has been Naples’ strong ‘No Global’ movement, and especially the events that surrounded the riots of March 2001 at the Global Forum meeting in the city. Eighty activists were allegedly dragged out of hospital, sodomized, tortured, and forced to kiss photos of Mussolini by police in the Raniero barracks. In April 2002 eight police officers were arrested for their part in the affair, and investigations continue into another 100. The entire process has become highly politically charged, with the right-wing national government attacking prosecutors for being politically biased. Whether it is in the arena of organized crime or anti- globalization, contemporary Naples still tends to steer it own course, mostly against the grain. On the surface the city’s religiosity is a much more conventional and conservative element. However, although Catholicism continues to be a vital component of Neapolitan life, here it is a religion which has as much in common with African Christianity as with the more orthodox version which emanates from the Vatican just 200 miles away. Superstition is rife and morbid traditions from ancient cults, such as praying to the skulls of the deceased, continue to exert a strong hold over much of the population. The miracles of San Gennaro are vital to psychological well-being for many. The city’s old Baroque and operatic traditions also continue to be strongly felt culturally though in this respect the city is slowly entering the 21st century: Bassolino’s initiatives to have contemporary art installations every Christmas in piazza del Plebiscito continue to attract attention and various new developments will increase the space for contemporary art. Musically, the city continues to produce bands that use local dialect to create a distinctive Neapolitan sound and this Neapolitan musical scene also stretches to jazz and rap, though there is a trend towards the Italian mainstream among those who become successful. Mostly, however, the cultural focus remains on the golden eras of the past, and here there are some struggles: the San Carlo opera house may be the second most prestigious in the country, arguably in the world, but financially it seems barely to keep its head above water.
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Naples - £5.99
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