Altro articolo del NY Times, questa volta su Venezia, citta` che danno ormai per persa 
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/wo...ld&oref=slogin
"Vanishing Venice: A City Swamped by a Sea of Tourists
Four months ago, Mirella Dalla Pasqua, who was born and raised in this venerable city improbably built on water, did something she thought she would never do: she bought a house on the mainland.
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Sandro Michahelles for The International Herald Tribune
Tourists easily exceed residents, totaling 150,000 a day for Carnevale.
Â"I had no choice,Â" said Ms. Dalla Pasqua, 31, who now has to commute to her job in a glove shop near the Rialto. Â"IÂ'm proud to be a Venetian,Â" she said, but Â"house prices are impossibly high in Venice, and then you have to fix them up. Young people just canÂ't afford that.Â"
Ms. Dalla Pasqua is hardly the first Venetian to leave this sea-locked city. From a peak of 171,000 residents in 1951, the population of the historic center of Venice has fallen to fewer than 62,000.
Â"WeÂ've reached the point of collapse, the point where things could fall apart,Â" said Ezio Micelli, an urban planner who leads the municipal real estate development agency. But even as Venetians leave, tourists have been coming. And coming.
According to recent estimates, 15 million to 18 million tourists have come to Venice over the last year. On some days they easily outnumber residents, and during the pre-Lenten Carnevale tourists can number 150,000 a day.
Should the trend continue, newspapers fretted recently, by 2030 authentic Venetians could disappear here and the historic center could be reduced to a shell subsisting only on tourism.
Â"ItÂ's not meaningful to talk about Venice as a city anymore,Â" said Robert Davis, a professor of Italian history at Ohio State University and an author of Â"Venice: the Tourist Maze,Â" an entertaining and thoughtful cultural critique of the tourism phenomenon. Â"The city is basically already lost,Â" he said. Â"The speculation is what will happen to it next.Â"
Venice is now largely dependent on tourism for its economic survival, even as tourists complicate daily life for most Venetians.
Â"You canÂ't get onto a vaporettoÂ" — the public transport boat that ferries people around the canals and to the various islands like Murano that also help make up Venice proper — Â"without finding it packed with tourists and their suitcases,Â" grumbled Gianpietro Meneghetti, a retired bank manager.
He launched into a litany of grievances shared by many locals: high prices for basic foods, the inability to live normally among the interlopers.
Stores catering to daily needs like supermarkets, shoe-repair shops and even cinemas have been steadily muscled out by shops selling Murano glass, of varying qualities, and gaudy ceramic masks that capitalize on the cityÂ's storied Carnevale festival.
Hotels, new bed-and-breakfasts, restaurants and snack bars have added to the space pressure, driving up the price of real estate, a resource particularly limited in Venice.
Â"Things cost too much — if you stay, itÂ's only because youÂ've inherited a house,Â" said Walter Pitteri, who lives in Mestre, the mainland part of greater Venice, which sprawls to the west and includes Tessera Airport and Marghera, the industrial section.
Driving a car, which would be futile on VeniceÂ's winding and waterbound streets if their narrowness had not already precluded it, also has its attractions, he added. Â"IÂ'd never come back,Â" he said. Â"IÂ'm not interested in a city like this thatÂ's too difficult to live in.Â"
Property is exceptionally expensive in Venice, with a 1,000-square-foot apartment going for up to $1.3 million in the historic center, and more on the Grand Canal, but half or a quarter of that on the terra firma across the lagoon.
Even that is too high for some. With few jobs apart from tourism, the population of greater Venice has also declined since its 1968 peak of 367,832. It is today just shy of 270,000, including those in the old city.
Something must be done to Â"stop the exodus and protect the resident population,Â" Mayor Massimo Cacciari said in an interview in his office, in a palazzo abutting the Grand Canal.
The city has set aside money to help young couples meet the high costs of rents or mortgages, but it Â"barely covers a small percentage of the needs,Â" Mr. Cacciari said.
Through the municipal real estate development agency, the city is also trying to bolster the population by building 500 to 600 apartments in three far-flung areas, Santa Marta, Cannaregio and Castello, for rent to middle-class families, the group at the greatest risk of vanishing.
Â"If you lose the middle class, you end up with polarization between the very rich and the very poor, and the city becomes unglued and falls apart,Â" said Mr. Micelli, the development agency head. Similar projects in other areas of Venice, like Giudecca, have been successful, he said, slowing the exodus to the mainland and Â"reinforcing the social fabric.Â"
The Venetian authorities, hoping to lure new residents to the historic center, are looking at ways to develop job opportunities outside the tourist industry. Â"We need new energies from outside,Â" said Mara Rumiz, the Venice council member in charge of housing. The current population, she said, Â"just isnÂ't a sufficient critical mass to launch the city on a new path.Â"
But attracting new businesses here has not been easy.
Â"After all, you canÂ't build a factory here,Â" Mr. Cacciari said, citing VeniceÂ's fragile ecosystem.
Instead, the city is pressing its cultural advantages, increasing research facilities and university programs in the historic center and promoting cultural events like the Biennale art exhibition and film festival.
There may be ways, too, to siphon more tourist money directly into city coffers. Mr. Cacciari proposes a per-night tax on tourist stays and a more nebulous tax on people who make their living from tourism to compensate the city for local services.
Â"The demand for Venice is inflexible — rising prices wonÂ't stop it,Â" said Mr. Davis, the Italian history professor. Â"People will come anyway.Â" "> |
. Più tardi vedo di postare la foto della stazione TOLEDO, una delle più interessanti. 
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