What are the pros and cons of living in Rome?
In short: strong on history, culture, food, international schools and a large foreign community; weaker on high central rents, traffic, a thin metro network and slow, Italian-language bureaucracy.
Pros
- A world city at the scale of a village: markets, piazzas and neighbourhood life, with the Colosseum, the Vatican and the Pantheon on the way to work.
- Choice of English-language schooling: British, American and IB schools, plus American universities (John Cabot, AUR).
- Good-value transport passes: €35 a month or €250 a year for metro, buses and trams across the city.
- Two airports and Termini, the country’s largest rail hub; the Leonardo Express reaches Fiumicino in about 32 minutes.
- Choice of budgets: asking rents range from €10.84/m² on the eastern edge to €28.82 in the Centro Storico.
Cons
- High and rising central rents: +5.2% in a year; a one-bed in Trastevere or Testaccio asks about €1,340 a month.
- Only three metro lines: many districts rely on buses and trams, or a car, and a camera-controlled ZTL and the Fascia Verde low-emission zone limit driving.
- Queues for paperwork: the Questura’s immigration office in Tor Sapienza draws long lines (Il Post, May 2026).
- Hot summers: average highs about 31 °C in July and August; Ciampino recorded 41 °C in August 1981.
