The death of Venice: Corrupt officials, mass tourism and soaring property

prices have stifled life in the city

It's a chilly Monday morning in Venice, and a breeze is cutting through the
city's emerald canals. I'm standing at a busy gondola station, squashed between
crowds of tourists, waiting not for a ride but a conversation with Diego Redolfi. It's
prime tourist season, and free time is scarce for the 49-year-old oarsman.
Redolfi is one of more than 400 gondoliers in this famed aquatic city. Each
day, he plies its narrow corridors with an expertly wielded oar, manoeuvring his
boat around other watercraft, sometimes missing them by inches. Gondoliers are
among the most well-paid workers in Venice, earning as much as £95,000 a year.
But even that salary isn't enough to rent a decent-sized apartment here, which is
why Redolfi and his American wife now live on a nearby island.
The reason the city is so expensive has everything to do with the long line
in front of Redolfi's gondola stand. During the past 15 years, cruise ship tourism
has increased fivefold, and the monstrous vessels have become both a boon and a
blight for the city, which is now the cruise capital of Europe. These water-bound
hotels of lousy buffet food and schmaltzy entertainment relentlessly dump tourists
into Venice's narrow streets. This should be a good thing in a city that relies mostly
on money from outsiders, and tourists from cruise ships spend millions here every
year. But industry critics say these visitors don't waste much time (or money) in
restaurants and shops. Some buy pricey rides on gondolas; most grab a few snacks
from the ship and wander the streets before departing at sundown. Of the 20
million people who come to Venice each year, only half sleep here, which is why
hotel stays have dropped by two-thirds over the past 25 years.
Today, day-trippers outnumber both overnight visitors and people who call
Venice home. At the same time, the population of Venice is declining, thanks to a
dwindling number of jobs that don't involve tourism, as well as the rising cost of
food, transportation and housing. The number of cinemas in Venice has fallen from
20 to two, and some business owners now charge "tourist prices" at shops and
restaurants even to locals, reversing an age-old practice that made visitors who
don't pay taxes bear a greater financial burden.
Long before Venice became a tourist sweatshop, city codes capped the
maximum rents landlords could charge. In the 1970s, landlords fought to scrap
these limits and won, only to watch with dismay as rents spiralled out of control.
Fabio Sacco, president of Alilaguna Spa, which runs water shuttles to and from the
city's airport and cruise ship terminal, would like to see the city subdivide some of
its palazzos into apartments for couples or young families. "In Venice," he says,
"what we need is medium rents."
Except there is no mayor of Venice at the moment. There's no sitting city
government either. Part of the reason for Venice's housing crisis is the city's most
prized asset: water. Since the early 20th century, the Adriatic Sea has repeatedly
flooded and damaged the first floors of hundreds of buildings here – yet another
reason why the number of apartments is declining. Over the past century, the
average water level in Venice has surged, and many experts predict the city has
less than 80 years before it is completely underwater.
To resolve this crisis, the Italian government has poured £5bn into the
construction of 78 underwater gates designed to divide Venice from the Adriatic
whenever sea levels rise worryingly. The project, which began in 2003, is a year or
two from completion, but it is now embroiled in a corruption scandal. Former
Mayor Giorgio Orsoni, along with 35 public officials and contractors, allegedly
skimmed tens of millions of euros from public coffers. The accused officials
resigned last summer, and the scandal has left Venice without a formal city
government. A federally appointed commissario is now in charge, until the city
holds new elections next month, and the fill-in leaders have done little to combat
Venice's housing woes.
At the gondola station, Redolfi has only a few minutes to talk before
loading his next set of passengers. I step on to his boat to chat, and he tells me how
he has worked as a gondolier for two decades. Now, he says, business is as good as
it's ever been.
Redolfi started working here because his previous job, as a receptionist at a
nearby hotel, didn't pay enough to live in Venice. So at his brother's urging, he
bought a gondola and practiced for 10 to 12 hours a day, for the better part of a
year, until he was good enough to traverse the canals. "It's like making love," he
says. "Sometimes you don't [master] it after a lifetime. But in the meantime, you
can practice."
Today, Redolfi can afford to live in Venice, but his apartment would be
cramped. Plus, there are fewer tourists where he lives. Over the past two decades,
he has watched the city become overwhelmed by visitors. But they haven't ruined
the place, he says – at least, not yet. "Venice is changing, like the world," he says.
"But it's still better than any other place in it."
We say goodbye, and I step off his gondola, making way for his next tour
group, which boards and fills his velvet seats. From the dock, I watch as Redolfi
dips his oar into the water and guides his passengers beneath a nearby bridge, then
drifts out of sight.

From The Independent