GROUP 3

William (18)
William
Dessy
Justika
Juniadi
Geofrey

Vanishing Venice
Venice has been known as the"City of Water", "City of Masks", "City of
Bridges", "The Floating City", and "City of Canals". described it in The New
York Times as "undoubtedly the most beautiful city built by man". Venice has
also been described by the Times Online as one of Europe's most romantic
cities. It has threatened to vanish by acqua alta, relentlessly flooding caused
by the rising tides and sinking foundations, but that is the least of its
problems.
Acqua alta (Italian: 'high water') is the term used in Veneto for the
exceptional tide peaks that occur periodically in the northern Adriatic Sea.
The peaks reach their maximum in the Venetian Lagoon, where they cause
partial flooding of Venice and Chioggia; flooding also occurs elsewhere around
the northern Adriatic, for instance at Grado and Trieste, but much less often
and to a lesser degree. The phenomenon happens mainly between autumn
and spring.
High waters may occur in autumn ,spring or winter seasons and are most
likely to happen in November and December. But even in these months, high
waters usually affect only the lowest parts of the town, such as St. Mark's
Square, whereas exceptional high tides (>= 140 cm) statistically occur only
once every 3 years.
Since 1867, exceptional tidal events have been recorded - the first being in
1867 itself, when the water level rose 153cm above sea level.
The last time the waters passed 1.6m was in 1979, when they reached
1.66m.
In 1966, some 5,000 people in Venice were left homeless after an even higher
flood - 1.94m - hit the city.

Five Reasons Venice is Sinking (Its not the high water)

Venices Population is Elderly and Dying
The population of Venice is just over 60,000 and shrinks by 3 to 5% every
year. The population is elderly, and is not being replaced.

Jobs are Disappearing

As real commerce is replaced by souvenir shops and bad restaurants, high
paying jobs disappear. The young are leaving in search of better opportunity
(and more space) on the mainland.
Hospitals, Butchers, Poultry, Dry Cleaners, Fresh Pasta Stores are Leaving.
As these services disappear, life on the island becomes more difficult. As life
becomes more difficult, residents (who can) leave. As more residents leave,
more services do the same.
Foreigners are Buying Up the Stores and Cafes
I have been told that immigrating to Italy is much easier if you already own a
business there. Many foreigners have been purchasing the cafes and clothing
stores, replacing them with mediocre products, and 1 Euro stores. Of
course, these new store owners, like most other workers in Venice, live on the
mainland, thus contributing virtually nothing to the social fabric of the city.
Building Maintenance is Unaffordable
Owning a home in Venice is very difficult as maintenance costs are too high
for the residents to pay. Construction materials must be brought in by boat
and usually hoisted up through outside windows. Re-surfacing the outside of
your building frequently means building a temporary dock on which the
scaffolding can be placed, and then having it removed after the work has
been completed. Many residents, therefore, leave rooms or even floors of
their building closed off, living only in the sections they can afford to
maintain.
Mayor Massimo (Italian pronunciation: [massimo kattari]born 5 June
1944) is an Italian philosopher and politician .When asking about the acqua
alta he would just says "So go get boots." boots are useless against the flood
causes more concern for venetians than any lagoon spillover.

In May 2008, for example, on a holiday weekend, 80,000 tourists descended

on the city . In mestre's Public parking lots, where people park and take the
bus or train to the historic center, filled with floodwater and were closed.
Those who managed to get to Venice is going through the streets like,
snapping up pizza, leaving paper and plastic bottles in their wake.
Rain caused the flood , not acqua alta.
There is talk, always talk (this is Italy) about limiting tourists, taxing
tourists, imploring them to avoid the high seasons of Easter and Carnival, but
tourismtogether with the loss of resident population, complicated by the
power of hoteliers, gondoliers, and water taxi drivers, who have an interest in

maximizing the influx of visitors

The Mayor Cacciari caution that The loss of the population is not only a
problem in Venice but in all historical towns, not only Italy.exodus, which
dates back very far in time, is deep rooted in the lodging issue."
Redemption may be out of reach. "It is too late," Gherardo Ortalli, the
historian, says. "Nineveh is finished. Babylon is finished. Venice will remain.
That is,the stones will remain. The people won't." But for now there is still life
as well as death in Venice. Franco Filippi walks at night in search of carvings
on weathered walls. Silvia Zanon leaves for school, crosses San Marco only to
fall in love with the city again, and, assuming it is in season, you can still
manage to buy an eggplant.
For example, one fall day not long ago two children, 12 and 13, from
Grosseto, a town in Tuscany, decided to run away. Their parents disapproved
of theirromance, so they saved and spent their allowance on a train to
Venice. They walked narrow streets paved in stone and lingered on the
bridges that vault thecanals. Night approached, and with it the need for a
place to stay. They arrived at the Hotel Zecchini, a modest guesthouse with
an inviting orangeandwhite. The clerk heard a small voice ask about a room,
looked up, saw nothing, leaned over the desk, and looked into the faces of
two children. Skeptical oftheir story about an aunt who would arrive soon, he
gently questioned them, listened, then called the carabinieri.
"Such innocence and tenderness. They just wanted to be together," said Elisa
Semenzato, the hotel manager. When the carabinieri arrived, they took the
pairon a tour of the city in their boat, then to district headquarters in a former
convent and put them to bed in very separate rooms. The next day they
wereserved a threecourse meal on a table set with linens in a hall facing the
15thcentury courtyard.
afternoon to take them back to Grosseto, away from the soft ache of first love
and the gilded beauty of Venice.Kisses end. Dreams vanish, and sometimes
cities too. We long for the perfect ending, but the curtain falls along with our
hearts.
Beauty is so difficult.