The clock is ticking for Venice, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, as the city’s population slowly declines.
One of the most populated cities in the world in the 16th century, now the number of residents has dropped to under 60,000 and with an average of up to 150,000 tourists visiting each day Venetians are feeling outnumbered and fear they will soon be squeezed out. A Venetian community group even has plans to stage a funeral for Venice to provoke officials into saving the city.
This jewel of a city, with its romantic views of canals, bridges and gondolas, has enough problems surviving as it slowly sinks into the Venetian Lagoon. That problem always seems to be put off and never properly tackled.
Esteemed international experts somberly predict the city’s demise while Venetians wring their hands in despair. A few of these even envision apocalyptical scenes of the last few “real Venetians” caged on show in Piazza San Marco or of gates clanging shut at night after the straggling tourists on their day-passes exit the artistic wonderland.
Venice’s city hall sends out a continuous battle cry – “Stop the city from sinking! Stop the flooding! Stop the exodus of Venetians! Stop the old palazzi from crumbling! Stop the day trippers! Stop the rich foreigners buying up the palaces as investments! Stop the pigeons! Stop the beggars!” — as it tries to raise more funds to save Venice and preserve its artistic heritage while desperately keeping in step with modern times.
It launched a public Wi-Fi system in July and in a baffling move has just announced that the city will formally bid for the 2020 Olympics.
But some Venetians feel not enough is being done to save the dwindling population and have started to take action.
Andrea Morelli’s family has owned the pharmacy in campo San Bartolomeo which dates back to the 16th century in the heart of Venice for over a century. He has placed a “Venetian resident counter” in his shop window to get Venetians motivated.
The counter is updated regularly with the city’s official data of how many Venetians are resident in the city. Today the digital luminous counter shows 59,984; when it was installed in March 2008 it showed 60,704. “I feel a bit sad,” Morelli said, when he looks at the digital counter each day. “But I see it as something that should also stimulate us to do something. Venetians who come into the pharmacy always cast a glance at the figure and my shop has become a sort of forum, a place to come and debate about the future of Venice.”
Several leading community groups have formed recently to unite Venetians wishing to improve their city and are all fueled by active Web sites.
The idea of the digital resident counter was dreamed up by the Venessia.com supporters, an online group dedicated to protecting the “Venetian way of life.”
Launched by Stefano Soffiato nine years ago as his personal site where he commented on what he saw around him in Venice during his daily life, the site now gets up to 8,000 hits a day. It has spawned a forum with 900 Venetian citizens as members.
The group will meet in a bar this week to put the final touches on its latest enterprise: the staging of a funeral for Venice along the Grand Canal, complete with coffin, drums and funeral oration.
The water-convoy of boats will float down the Grand Canal from the station area, Piazzale Roma to the Rialto bridge where it will stop in front of the city hall. A gondola will dramatically lead the procession bearing a symbolic coffin painted in shocking pink fuchsia.
“I’ve made the coffin already – it’s my size!” says Stefano, laughing. He sounded amused as he explained, “I think we will be greeted by women wearing black. But we don’t want a sad event. We plan on being reborn after the funeral!”
“Yes of course it’s a provocation”, he admits, “but if we didn’t do this funeral or put the resident counter in the window nobody would notice that Venice is slowly declining as well as changing. If the Venetians leave Venice, Venice will disappear and all that will remain is a Disneyland.”
The hope is that the city council will be moved to take measures to stop the exodus and entice back the Venetians who have fled to the mainland.
We hope to arrive in front of the city hall and find hundreds of Venetians there waiting for us,” says Matteo Secchi, another Venessia.com member, “We want everyone to understand that behind the postcard of Venice – the gondola and the canals and all the romanticism – there is a decimated population. Venice is a special place.” “The socio-economic fabric of the city has been destroyed,” continues Secchi. “It has just become full of hotels, restaurants, and mask and glass shops. The politicians must put a stop to this. What they do is just special effects – new bridges and stuff like that – but they have forgotten the inhabitants of this place. In the last five years the city has not inaugurated one new residence for Venetians, there are 5,000 unrented houses in the city and 2,500 people on a list awaiting public housing.”
Venetians increasingly find their daily activities impeded by the throngs that visit each day.
“This is a truly pedestrian city and the beauty of any city is when one can walk about freely and admire its beauty,” says Soffiato. He remembers the Venice he grew up in: “We felt like the city belonged to us and I think the tourists felt special then; now we feel more like outsiders”.
Then again, says Soffiato, “all you have to do is avoid the ‘off limits’ areas around the tourist attractions like St. Marks square, and step into a small alley along a canal to see the old people in the streets and the children playing safely. That Venice still exists!”
Morelli says city administrators haven’t done enough for the city. He thinks more should be done to target “real culture” and dreams of a real living university campus in Venice that would attract young people to live here and “who knows, maybe become Venetian citizens one day!” But he sighs when he admits that most students couldn’t afford to live in Venice today even if they could find a place.
Strangely, many Venetians are not totally opposed to the idea of bringing something as huge and disruptive such as the Olympics to Venice. “If it brought funds and modern structures to Venice and helped us with our transport system, which is one of our biggest problems, it could do a lot for this city,” says Morelli. The city council insists it is doing what it can with the reduced funds at its disposal.
The negative demographic balance is mainly because the number of people who die is greater than the births, the city council says. And the city is trying to coordinate tourist flows to stop Venice from being overrun on certain days. This January they inaugurated www.veniceconnected.com, an online booking site, aimed at helping visitors get discounts if they plan their holiday in advance.
When the number of Venice residents slipped under the 60,000 mark last week, the mayor, Massimo Cacciari, seemed unconcerned. “So what’s new?” he exclaimed, “There’s no difference between 60,000 inhabitants and 59,999.”
But many Venetians say that there is, and are rallying to do something about it.
source abcnews.go.com
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