Posted on 04/29/2016 11:50:53 AM PDT by aquila48
Armed with shovels and sacks of cold asphalt, Rome's residents fill potholes. Defying rats, they yank weeds and bag trash along the Tiber's banks and in urban parks. Tired of waiting years for the city to replace diseased trees, neighbors dig into their own pockets to pay for new ones for their block.
Romans are starting to take back their city, which for years was plundered and neglected by City Hall officials and cronies so conniving that some of them are on trial as alleged mobsters.
In doing the work, Romans are experimenting with what for many Italians is a novel and alien concept: a sense of civic duty.
One windy recent Sunday morning, Manuela Di Santo slathered paint over graffiti defacing a wall on Via Ludovico di Monreale, a residential block in Rome's middle-class Monteverde neighborhood. Men, perched on ladders, used mechanical sanders to erase graffiti on another palazzo. Women and children swept up litter, filling black plastic trash bags provided by the city's sanitation service, which is only too glad to have someone do the job for free.
(Excerpt) Read more at bigstory.ap.org ...
Glad to see this is changing.
The New Deal killed American civil society. Today, when people get together to address a problem, they don't take care of it themselves. They get together and write a petition to government to address the problem. Taking care of the problem themselves will cause arrest for some degree of vigilantism or a lawsuit from the government.
About 25 years ago one of my sons traveled throughout much of Europe,about 12 contries,and when he returned he said the place he liked the least was Rome.
He referred to it as “just a dirty city” and for a young guy to say that it must have been pretty bad.
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Bill the city against the taxes they are trying to extract.
America’s future if the democrats win the next election.
My mom marveled at how clean the towns were in the area I lived in (Traben-Trarbach, Mosel River).
“Taking care of the problem themselves will cause arrest for some degree of vigilantism or a lawsuit from the government.”
Or complaints from the Unions.
Austria is the cleanest country that I have ever visited. Germany was second.
One summer day, the local farmers showed up with tractors to dig the drainage channel a little deeper while the local town folk pulled weeds and cleaned out the culvert with long poles and rakes. Problem solved. Repeat again in five years or so if necessary.
Today, the EPA would show up to issue citations for draining a wetlands without a permit. In those days, they would've ended up like the Federal-es in the song who climbed up Mount Rocky Top looking for a moonshine still.
I was there last year. Compared to San Francisco it was pretty clean, and nowhere near the number of bums, except maybe around the train stations.
Yes. he went to Germany -—and he loved it.
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We should all do that. The other day, I stopped at a Stop sign. There was a temp sign from a road crew that was blocking the road. I got out and moved it a foot or two so drivers could see. None of the road crew challenged me. Later, they moved it even more.
Done
That big round thing in the middle of the city needs a coat of paint and some windows.
Do they have public unions?
Hello? Government IS the Mob. They put La Cosa Nostra out of business years ago. Not because of law enforcement, but because they could compete no more.
How about that for one afternoon? Neuschwanstein, Linderhof, and the Wies Cathedral.
Try that around here and the union will put a stop to it.
Impressive. :) Austria and Germany have some of the most beautiful castles and churches that I have ever seen. Scotland also has gorgeous castles, but I haven’t yet visited there.
“Do they have public unions?
Is the pope a marxist?
Unfortunately, unions are a potent force in Italy. That’s where a lot of the corruption, inefficiencies, non-competitiveness comes from. They’ve tried to reform labor laws, but the unions won’t have it.
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