About 100k people seem to live there, I assume many of them with kids. I lived for different periods of a few years in two cities of similar structure and size of ancient Florence and Atlanta, and found the quality of life to be much higher in the Florence-like city.

Does the mafia have any impact on daily life? In Naples, with the waste situation, I understand they make it hell.

Yes, and increasingly in northern Italy and elsewhere in Europe [1], although it is barely felt by any citizen.

The impact of such organizations goes from rigging construction contracts, for instance by imposing their affiliates' construction materials under the threat of burning the construction site, to controlling legal and illegal activities, such as the transport of toxic waste (which they just bury somewhere around Naples) [2].

More recently, members of both major parties have been caught asking votes controlled by the various mafias in exchange for favors. [3]

[1] http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-vendetta-of-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_of_death_(Italy)

[3] http://napoli.fanpage.it/napoli-perquisizione-al-comitato-el... (sorry, couldn't find it in English)

This. Maybe I'm just an uncouth American but the idea of living with so many other people in such a small places makes me claustrophobic.

I don't know Florence, but compact settlements aren't necessarily claustrophobic or cramped. They can and do have green space and open areas. The difference is that this space is public, not private.

I live in the densest part of a little English town. We have hardly any garden; our house is three storeys high, narrow and terraced. But it isn't claustrophobic. We can go to the town park/playing field, or the water meadow in the valley, or the walk through the grounds of the big house, or half a dozen other places. Yet the town is still compact and walkable, because this open space is shared between everyone, not walled off.

The existence of all that greenspace in a dense area implies a degree of city planning that is sadly lacking in many parts of America.

Don't you feel claustrophobic when spending most of your time inside of a car when commuting?

I love Mediterranean cities like Florence or Barcelona. They are great places to live and to raise your kids/family.

In fact I do. And also in the crowded open plan office I work in. Maybe I just have a claustraphobia problem ;)

Actually, just the opposite is true. When you build in a really compact way, the countryside is never far away... and that makes the real estate more valuable because a lot of people love the idea of living in the city but having access to the country. In Bath, England, for example, you can stand in the center of town and look down the street and see sheep grazing on hillsides a short distance away. In Atlanta and other sprawling places, you could walk for a day and not reach the countryside.

Well...the most claustrophobic place I've visited was also the one most profoundly American: lower Manhattan ;) But yeah, I see your point - and like with Manhattan, not all who live there also reside in that spot. (I commute from the center, to a slightly less crowded - yet still urban - locality)