From Rome's Backyard to Resilience Frontier: Valle GaleriaMingxin Chen and Catherine Cibeira Lachmann

With the intention of articulating a long-term vision for the city of Rome by 2050, this exploration focuses on the south-western part of the city, extending between the compact urban fabric and the Roman countryside in an area known as Valle Galeria.

The Valle Galeria area hosted the Malagrotta landfill, one of the largest landfills in Europe, until its closure in 2013. Situated within the Rome’s XII municipality, Valle Galeria, including the working-class neighborhood of Massimina, constitutes the most geographically marginal section of the municipal territory. The area has undergone substantial environmental degradation and associated waste largely attributable to the long-term operation of the landfill and associated waste management infrastructure. In addition, the presence of multiple industrial facilities classified as posing a major accident hazard further exacerbates the environmental and safety risks affecting this territory.

This part of the territory has experienced persistent processes of social and spatial marginalisation, both symbolically and materially, resulting from its location beyond the Grande Raccordo Anulare (GRA) and its historical role as receptacle for waste flows displaced from whole Rome. Despite this marginal positioning, the area has long constituted an integral component of the Roman metropolitan fabric, contributing to the city’s historical development and functional organisation. Our vision for Rome 2050 recognises this dual condition as essential for advancing a socio-ecological regeneration proposition that redefines territorial centrality of Massimina by strengthening connections between the Massimina neighborhood and the city centre, while simultaneously recognising the value of the openness of the valley’s landscape. Such a strategy also entails the regeneration and adaptive reuse of former industrial sites and extractive landscapes, with the aim of fostering environmental restoration, social inclusion, and long-term resilience.