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Shit Town: Roma

They say that Rome wasn’t built in a day, but apparently Roma was. The Queensland crapper was clearly named after the Italian capital because it resembles a city that’s just been sacked by barbarians. Australia’s ‘Infernal City’ is inhabited largely by drug addicts (Queensland’s Romans prefer a glass barbie to a pizza oven), sexual deviants (fiddling with themselves while Roma burns) and grey-haired bogans driving around their fourteen-year-old girlfriends (when it comes to romance, Roma is less Romeo and Juliet and more Roman Polanski). When in Roma, don’t do as the Romans do or you’ll most likely wake up naked in a police cell with a long list of charges and a couple of new STDs.
Appropriately rhyming with such delightful words as coma, stoma and melanoma, Roma has been in the fast lane to oblivion since local coal seam gas projects ended. The town is now surrounded by fields full of idle earthmoving machines and littered with empty hotels and an airport that no one uses. Roma also features exorbitant rental prices despite being six hours from the ocean—the only time it has waterfront property is when the entire town floods every year. It’s no wonder that Roma was referred to by early settlers as ‘The Bungil’—or in other words, ‘The Fuck-Up’.
They say that all roads lead to Roma. Fortunately, that also means that all roads lead out again. Take one.
From our book Shit Towns of Australia: The Great Aussie Road Trip, out now in stores and online.
Shit Town Power Rankings
Perth, WA — Residents evacuated after poonami from burst sewage pipe floods street, homes and parks; serial poo jogger caught on CCTV shitting outside health clinic 4 times
Bundaberg, QLD — Psycho sets truck driver on fire after he doesn’t give him money
Melbourne, VIC — Shit IVF company transfers wrong embryo to patient again; crashes and chaos after metal plates pop up off freeway
Sydney, NSW — Gronk charged with trafficking after tricking his wife and kid into family holiday in Pakistan then leaving them there
Glenorchy, TAS — Hillbillies sentenced after filming their dog mauling wallabies
Gladstone, QLD — Gronkess tries to punch cops after flashing tits at resident
Toowoomba, QLD — Gronk in dress attacks man outside pub, claiming he rooted his ex-wife
Airlie Beach, QLD — Pest whips out dick in watch house after being arrested for allegedly wanking in phone booth
Wonthaggi, VIC — Drongoess gets court summons after drink-driving to police station to report item stolen, turns out she’d just misplaced it
Mildura, VIC — Meth head caught stealing flatmate’s panties
What? Port Pirie has dropped off the Top Ten? I demand a recount.