The Efficiency of Disorganization

By Zachary Durst

The first time a Roman bus stops in front of you, the doors open, and you’re faced with a wall of people, shoulder-to-shoulder, you’re inclined to wait for the next one. Then you see people forcing themselves into spaces that didn’t seem to be there. Soon you realize that there’s nothing rude about jamming yourself between a couple of strangers, at least in this situation. If you want to get around in Rome you have to accept a moderate amount of discomfort, but it’s mutual.

Most people, I take it, don’t mind being in crowds. I haven’t read any scientific studies or conducted any surveys, but the evidence is fairly clear. A crowd is just a bunch of people in one place, and those people don’t mind, and that’s a lot of people, that’s why it’s a crowd. A crowd is very natural. It’s just a lot of people doing the same thing at the same time. People might complain when there’s a long line for the bathroom, but they don’t shake their fists at the heavens and ask “Why?”

In Rome one of the most crowded crowds I’ve been mixed-up in is at the Sunday market at Porte Portese. Before the arches of the entrance the street is wide and open, which is unusual for this part of Rome, but once you walk through you’re confronted by a sea of white, tarp canopies and a current of people moving-still like the waves in a lake. Its vastness can’t be appreciated from this vantage point though.

One of Rome's open-air markets... before the crowds arrive.

Its winding labyrinth of tables piled high with folded clothes, on those selling new clothes, or piled even higher with on those selling used clothes. Scarves brush the crown of your head, towers of leather jackets shoot up here and there and scattered about are sparkling tables filled with row after row of jewelry. The vendors aren’t as pushy here as they are at the daily market by St. John Lateran, where every seller has a “special price” for everyone—or maybe I really am special. There are too many people at Porte Portese for singling out possible buyers (or suckers). They just shout into the ever-flowing mass of people, waving their merchandise in the air, and if you catch their eye they get very excited. Even the slightest gesture of interest is an opportunity in their mind, but it’s just a matter of looking away aimlessly as if you being there is a complete accident and you don’t intend on buying anything.

When you’re on more or less flat ground and there are hundreds of people around you, you’re range of vision decreases significantly. A problem arises when after you come to several intersections and your curiosity is torn because you have that driving desire, as all those like myself who frequent thrift stores, yard sales, and flea markets, to find that “treasure” you are sure is out there, and you realize you can’t possibly just retrace your steps in reverse so as not to miss a single booth. The best thing to do is just follow your feet and hope there is no wrong way.

It’s surprising how few people run into you. This is true throughout Rome. Especially in Trastevere and other cramped districts, the narrow roads seem more like wide sidewalks that people drive down. It’s like we are all weak magnets with the same polarization, only repealing from each other when we come within an inch or two (or three to five centimeters if you’re Roman). This takes no practice; it comes naturally. The multitudes of tourists from anywhere and everywhere in the world are just as deft at not bumping into others as the native city dwellers.

There isn’t much of a strict, formal structure to moving about in Rome. There doesn’t seem to be much of an officially legislated ordering in Rome at all. But it works. It functions through an organic development of expected behavior. It’s disorganized, definitely not the well oiled machine idolized in American, but Rome’s understood and easily mimicked ways of acting make her a very habitable city, and even efficient in her own way.