Naples and Barcelona compared as degraded cities in forum

Naples and Barcelona compared for their degradation in a forum

Naples and Barcelona are compared in a forum for their urban degradation, in a debate that starts with the mix of chaos and crime one participant attributes to the Neapolitan capital and extends to Marseille and Madrid. The discussion mixes anecdotes, opinions and some data, ending up as a portrait of European urban malaise.

Naples: the station that greets visitors

The first impression of Naples is signed by its central station. The esplanade of Piazza Garibaldi, with its small square turned into a car park and what one participant describes as a toilet, is the calling card for those arriving by train or bus from the airport. The neighborhood next to the station is described with a derogatory term and several accounts agree that police recommend not venturing down the shortest streets towards the center. According to these testimonies, the recommendation is to stick to large, lit avenues.

Traffic reminds one of India, and so does the dirt. A participant who knows the Asian country assures that such lack of maintenance has only been seen in some neighborhoods of Delhi. Another adds that you have to watch your step to avoid getting a gift on your shoes. Picturesque is the softest adjective dedicated to it.

But not everything is filth. Several messages defend the city as a four or five-day getaway and highlight the brutal contrast between neighborhoods: from the chaos of the Quartieri Spagnoli to the funicular going up to Vomero, which one participant compares to going from the Gothic Quarter to Sarrià, but much wilder. There is money in the city, although the problems are deep, according to one participant.

Camorra as norm and scam as sport

Some argue that the presence of an established mafia, the Camorra, imposes an informal order: unfair rules, but rules nonetheless. The comparison with Barcelona appears here: a city without consolidated mafia groups where anyone can be the target of a robbery or something worse. The absence of mafia is read as absence of rules, not as freedom, according to that participant.

Scams are another matter. One participant recounts that they will try to cheat you even when changing money while buying a train ticket, and that they stage psychodramas on the bus whose sole objective is your wallet. It is not just about tourists: among themselves they fleece each other equally. The explanation offered is anthropological, almost genetic, and sounds more like a witticism than a thesis.

Curiously, the pedestrian rules. In southern Italy, traffic stops for whoever crosses, wherever they cross, with more safety than at a zebra crossing, according to one participant. The circulating speculation is that no one knows who they might run over, in case they have important cousins.

Barcelona: the only place where his backpack was peine

Barcelona comes off worse in several testimonies. One participant confesses that it is the only place where he has caught someone opening his backpack, and clumsily too: he noticed it perfectly. Going out at night through Las Ramblas or the beach area is described as risky. Another message points out that the city was turned into a swamp after years of intensive work, referring to municipal administrations that are not detailed.

The comparison with Naples becomes cruel when talking about heritage. One participant recalls that in Naples you go to Pompeii or Herculaneum and reconcile yourself with the human species: the heritage of that area gives, according to him, five hundred turns to that of Barcelona. That said.

The argument that no family member has been killed is ridiculed: a stabbing is not necessary for a city to degrade. It suffices with neighbors playing music at three in the morning, urination, drunks, people sleeping in the street and not being able to go to the park with children.

Marseille, Madrid and the rest of the ranking

Marseille enters the list and some place it ahead of Naples and Barcelona. The proposed order is Marseille, Naples, Barcelona. Madrid also gets its share: mention is made of one and a half million people who, according to one message, turn even paradise into hell. The response is not long in coming: the person saying it is from Madrid.

The discussion gets poisoned when someone asks what leads them to hate Catalonia so much. The most charitable answer is that it is a fourteen-year-old boy, from Real Madrid and from a town with little to do. The diagnosis is as condescending as the hatred it tries to explain.

There are also those who recall that Naples was already like this thirty years ago, and those who argue that crime is decreasing: the Quartieri Spagnoli, where people were killed in the eighties, are becoming increasingly hipster, although the Camorra system continues to function underneath. Scampia, the setting of Gomorrah, is now more residential after the relocation of residents from the Vele housing estates.

Pizza as last stronghold of civilization

Amid the mud, Neapolitan pizza stands as the definitive argument. Good pizza is balance between ingredients and dough; filling it with things is a shovelful unbecoming of Italy. They do not use buffalo mozzarella, but fior di latte cow mozzarella, because buffalo releases water and ruins the dough. The menu is short: four or five pizzas, some without cheese, with garlic, oregano, tomato and little else.

The opening of a Da Michele pizzeria in Madrid and another in Badalona is celebrated as an opportunity to check the issue without taking a plane. One participant warns that if you look for pizzas loaded with ingredients, do not go: you will be disappointed.

The only real consensus in the thread is that the Veiled Christ, in the Sansevero Chapel, is worth it. It is the only reason not to burn Naples down, states one message. The Palace of Caserta, however, is dismissed as the largest in the world and the most bland, ugly and desolate, with monotonous gardens that do not justify the forty kilometers from the city.

With these elements, the prediction is that the throne of European dump will continue to rotate. Marseille pushes hard, Madrid defends itself and Barcelona does not quite let go of the scepter. No one expects a miraculous cleanup.