The Urban Growth Machine

Francesco Rosi’s 1963 classic, Le Mani sulla città, provides a fantastic visual exposé of the urban growth machine at work. The Italian director succeeds brilliantly in simultaneously portraying how key power brokers act both in the public and private realms to enclose and direct the city’s growth. Using marvelous scenes shot in the historic Naples council chambers, the back-rooms of bourgeois homes, the offices of the city’s ruling-class, and streets of rapidly expanding Naples, Hands Over the City follows the dirty politics postwar urban development. The polemical script follows the intimate relationship between developers and the ruling party, several of whom have interest in property development whilst also sitting on council.

Armed with these powerful connections and the ability to control City Hall, the governing party is able to rule the city, using its influence to overturn even the sacred city plan, and to overrun old districts to make way for porfitable development projects. The most notorious of land developers, Edoardo Nottola (pictured above), is also Commissioner of Building Standards, and he uses his power to expand his real estate empire with shoddy buildings for tidy profits. The governing party is more than willing to be complicit so long as Notalla is able to secure votes for them - until scandal erupts.

After one of Nottola’s buildings collapses, the media demands answers, a scandal ensues, and the various factions at city hall try to put their own stamp on the conflict. Nottola’s main protagonist is the fiery and combative leftist Councilor Da Vita. De Vita proves to be a worthy opponent for the governing coalition as he works tirelessly to expose corruption at City Hall, against a well-oiled corporate elite. The glorious oratory of the Rod Steiger (Nottola) and Carlo Fermarillo (Da Vita) plays out in the theater of City Hall Chambres.

Rosi provided a sophisticated portrayal of insular city politics and the urban growth machine. All the elements of a perfect city politics drama are there: political control over development, complicity between the political and economic elite, scandal, corruption, class politics, concrete, back-room dealings, cooptation of social movements. If the script is brillant, the real story of Hands Over the City is about the conflict and cooptation of interests.

In one of the key scenes, now hamstrung by public scrutiny, Nottola makes a visit to the home of an influential fellow councilor tos hore up his power. Now clearly inpublic view, Nottola argues for the need for his building project to move ahead despite the accident.

“Those buildings must come down but my name mustn’t come up,” Nottola notes.

“Just what do you want”

“No. It’s “What do we want?” Your interests and mine are identical,” Nottola rebukes.

The story of urban development and redevelopment is also the story of how the interests conflate and are easily co-opted. No one is above them, no matter how sincere their will. As the leftist Councilor De Vita notes during a riot as the residents are protesting their expropriation:

“There’s no choice, you must go. You brought this on yourselves. This is what you get for voting for them. You gave them power to do as they please. What have they done to you? Think you’ll live in those buildings? You’ll end up somewhere even worse, where you can’t even walk.”

Just as they voted against their interests, De Vita is willing to abandon them.

In both of these scenes, Rosi shows a sensitivity to the geography and the political economy of urban development. For anyone interested in urban politics it is a mesmerizing story played out in cities across the world, and a wonderful insight into power, politics, development, and the truly disturbing trend of voters voting against their own interests. Why, indeed, can’t they just keep their hands of our city? Rosi has asked a question for the ages, and provided an essential film for students and scholars of the city.