Naples - what’s going on?

[u/guarrandongo]

First time here and I’d heard a million times that it was a bit run down & grubby etc., but I was shocked to see the state of large areas of the city centre. I’m Scottish and it reminded me of Edinburgh during the bin strikes 3 or so years ago - 8 foot high piles of rubbish everywhere. Even saw some decomposing rats lying around that had clearly been there for weeks. Was a full-time job trying to avoid standing on dog shit as well. Assuming it was dogs! One guy also definitely trying to get me to take my hands out of my pockets in an attempt to rob me, I’m in no doubt about that. It wasn’t happening, though.

I took plenty of advice from various people to find the ‘nice’ parts, but we wandered around those areas for a couple of hours and it was terrible.

Has it gone downhill recently, or has it always been like this?

Any further advice on some decent areas with nice bars etc. would be welcome. We only have tonight left and we’d like to try enjoy it as best we can. Had a great dinner last night so wasn’t a total write-off, but after it certainly was. I’d rather not go out than wander around these areas again.

What’s actually going on here?

[u/egyptiantouristt]

Naples has always faced a pretty big waste management crisis, it was declared in 2023 that the Italian ministry violated the rights of the Naples’s from 1994-2009 because of how bad the issue was.

[u/LeoScipio → u/[deleted]]

It's not the Mafia.