Amid pope's big Holy Year, overtourism aggravates housing crisis

FILE - Pilgrims crowd St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, May 30, 1998, on Pentecost Day. FILE - A view of the construction site of the new 25.5-kilometer Metro C subway main hub in Piazza Venezia in central Rome, May 23, 2024. FILE - People gather at the Fori Imperiali avenue, with the Colosseum in the background, during an event celebrating the ban on private vehicles, in Rome, Aug. 3, 2013.

When Pope Francis left the Vatican earlier this month for his traditional Christmastime outing downtown, he acknowledged what many Romans have been complaining about for months: That his big plans for a Holy Year had turned their city into a giant construction pit, with traffic-clogging roadworks tearing up major thoroughfares, scaffolding covering prized monuments and short-term rentals gobbling up apartment blocks.