Venice It is a very important topic charm, which is of interest to everyone also for the melting pot of problems that brings with it. As a Venetian, how many times have I been almost forced to talk about Venice, about how one lives in a city without cars, about its survival, about the problems that overwhelm it. In spite of myself, because of a love, a deep love one tends to be reserved, modest. A love born to be lived here but above all for the pride I feel thinking that this city is the product of the ability and wisdom of man because Venice is nothing but the synthesis of man - nature, the man who manages to capture a marshy area from nature and transforms it into a center of life, trade and culture.
The Administrative Question and the Transformation of Venice
Looking at the current situation, a preliminary question immediately arises. The town of Venice, established a century ago, extends its jurisdiction to the whole of the city on the water, with the estuary, and the mainland with Mestre e Marghera. An enlarged Venice, therefore, without considering the metropolitan city carved out of the ancient province which undoubtedly, set up in this way, makes little sense and risks being a political superstructure.
In recent decades, Venice has accelerated its process of city transformation and Mestre, on the other hand, has not become the comfortable and attractive city centre that its citizens aspire to, suffocated as it is by the shopping centres that surround it.
Uncontrolled tourism and urban crisis: Venice and Mestre under assault
Venice has lost more inhabitants, the palaces and many houses have been captured by tourist hospitality. It is known that the , abandoned to the logic of the market with few and inescapable constraints, reigns supreme. It disrupts the commercial offer, clogs up public transport, produces waste and “consumes” the public goods of a fragile city, ultimately corrupting citizens and owners of “second homes” attracted to participate in the banquet. It occupies everything and chases away intruders, those who have nothing to do with tourism: public institutions, banks, professionals and many citizens who cannot afford the rents and the high cost of living. Cultural institutes and foundations are saved. It is a leprosy, that of tourism, which expands beyond the water city, invests large surrounding territories, all using the Venice brand, in great shape. Mestre itself finds nothing better than to equip itself for hotel hospitality, clogging up the historic center even more with commuters.
The technological and financial threat to the lagoon
The problem is Venice and the lagoon, its survival, in an era where the technology , finance are masters of our destinies. Today's omnivorous technology: we see it in Big Ships, fortunately blocked by the Draghi government, but the lagoon continues to be targeted by motorized water vehicles. Finance, with the mountain of liquidity that it finds itself with today, is looking for lucrative investments and certainly does not forget Venice, given the great opportunities it offers. The big hotel brands are competing for palaces and islands in the lagoon and from the vile financial motivation we have also inherited the devastation of the Alberto Des Bains at the Lido.
Proposals for the future and the need for change
Il motorcycle wavy, maintenance Urban, data management; of tourist flows, repopulation of the city, calling for research and study activities to combat the mono-culture of tourism, are issues that have been on the table for years, they are problems – to quote Montanelli – that are being consumed over time, if they are not now urgently addressed. On the other hand, Mestre has others, the suburbs, urban decay, mobility, liveability in the city. Complex problems that need particular focus! To give a jolt, perhaps we should think about distinct administrative entities, I don't know if communes or municipalities, then finding synthesis in an effectively metropolitan reality, in a Greater Venice, borrowing models already functioning in other countries.
Venice and its global identity: the brand that cannot be sold off
The ruling class of the city, not only political, and the economic interests at stake agree however in maintaining the unity between the two cities, opposing the separation by citing constraints given by the port and the airport, when in Milan (Malpensa) and Rome the airports are in other municipalities.
Il Venice brand, for its international importance and for the attraction it exerts is too tempting a morsel to leave to an autonomous political administrative leadership aimed essentially at governing and limiting tourist flows and repopulating the city with new forces. Venice is a heritage of humanity not only for the monuments and artistic treasures that insist here, in harmony with the landscape, but also for the original "city model" that it has been able to preserve by reconciling modernity with a lifestyle still from another era.
