Why Nobody Lives in Venice

Venice is one of the most iconic cities in the world due to its amazing Canal system have you ever wondered why Venice has canals at all and how the venetians built a city unlike any other I produced a video to answer those questions and it's over on nebula it's a part of my great City series which so far has covered paris's boulevards the plan for Canberra shanghai's Metro system and New York Central Park new videos in the great cities series drop every month their longer and higher quality than the videos you'll find on YouTube and AD free sign up to nebula so you don't miss any how many people live in Venice the official answer is 258 685 people but for about 200 000 of them home doesn't look like this instead it looks like this to my eye this looks like a normal Italian city not the world famous city crisscrossed by canals that's because most venetians don't live in the historic district in the center of the Lagoon but on the mainland here's the boundary for the full community of Venice it includes the historic center right here but it also includes many of the Lagoon's islands and Terra Firma or the mainland now you might be saying so what there are plenty of cities that have more people living on the periphery than in the historic Center and you would be right but here are two reasons why I think Venice is different first at its height in the 1600s the historic Center of Venice used to be home to 200 000 people vastly outnumbering the population of the surrounding areas today it's home to only 50 000 people that's a massive difference and that decline is not caused by suburbanization like in U.S cities second almost nobody thinks about the parts of Venice outside of the historic Center I guess that most people don't realize that Venice exists outside of the Lagoon let's Rectify that situation and learn more about greater Venice and how it transformed into a city primarily in the lagoon to one where primarily people live on the mainland after the bike Bell in its prime Venice was the center of a maritime Republic so wealthy that it built buildings like this and this Venice surrendered to Napoleon in 1797 and became part of the newly formed country of Italy in 1861. today Italy is made up of 20 regions kind of similar to U.S states or Canadian provinces Venice is located in Veneto and serves as its capital Venice is in the metropolitan area known as petreve for Padua Treviso and Venice taking together the metropolitan area has 2.7 million residents the cities in the region are tightly connected for example there are about a hundred trains per day between Padua and Venice the trip takes 29 minutes on a regular train and half that on a high-speed train most of these trains from Padua and at Santa Lucia station in venice's historic Center but many also stop at Venice mestra station which is just as important to the Region's rail network so in the context of Northeastern Italy historic Venice is definitely a focal point but it's also just one small section of the larger city of Venice which is only 10 percent of the greater petreve metropolitan area but like I said in the beginning of the video it didn't always used to be that way in the early 1900s the majority of venice's population still lived within the historic City however since the 50s the local population of Venice has decreased by about 1200 people per year and Maestro's population has increased as more and more people who once lived in the historical City have chosen to move to the more affordable Mainland residents are more likely to find non-tourism professions on the mainland like in marguera which has a large industrial and shipping industry now over 70 of those living in the metropolitan city of Venice live on the mainland and only about 20 live in the historic City those who continue to live in Venice still often have to leave the island to do their day-to-day shopping in Maestro what happened then how did the Venice that we all know and love the center of a maritime Republic that was incredibly wealthy come to be just a smaller notable section of a larger region let's take a step back into history throughout its history most of venice's economy was based on trade but Venice also made things the island of Burano specialized in lace making Murano became a center for producing fine glass Wares in the past Century that glass making industry has shrunk in size mainly due to the fact that cheaper glass items like simple beads and Bottles can be industrially produced elsewhere as a result only luxury glass products are produced in Murano today manufacturing doesn't happen much in Venice anymore and its role as a trade Hub has declined significantly beginning in the 20th century the city put a great emphasis on the preservation of its historic architecture art and culture initially this was great economically as it brought in lots of tourists who wanted to experience these amazing attractions as more and more tourists visited every year shop owners sold more and cheaper mass-produced souvenirs diluting the Artistry that historically went into prominent crafts and industries like glass making shopkeepers selling Goods to locals just couldn't compete eventually forcing them to move to the mainland or closed entirely and as those older shops closed more stores catering to tourists took their place the reorienting of the city for tourists had an inevitable result more tourists the maximum sustainable daily number of tourists in Venice is around 22 500 tours per day yet in 2021 venison up to 80 000 tours per day in parts of the Year this number of tourists outnumbers locals by almost two to one some even call Venice a short-term city as the majority of its occupants are only passing through the area soon to be replaced by other tourists this places a lot of stress on the declining number of remaining locals who reported extensive hours-long queue times for restaurants museums and public transit it's not uncommon for tourists and locals to butt heads all of these factors have caused a steep decline in Resident Comfort since the 1950s particularly in the last several decades tourists businesses cater to tourists and the wealthy of inadvertently caused an increase in the cost of living within the historic City and a decreased quality of life due to insufficient everyday businesses like grocery or retail stores that are required to support locals as tourism has flourished many locals have been priced out of Housing and have fewer opportunities for work landlords continue to significantly raise the cost of rent for locals one article I found reported that a family lost their Venetian apartment after their landlord Rose their monthly rent from 800 Euros to 1500 Euros Social Services claim they couldn't do anything to help as there were too many other similar cases that were already being dealt with once locals are priced out of their Apartments landlords often transform rentals into airbnbs hostels or bnbs where they can make more money by catering to tourists a not so fun fact is that Venice not only is unaffordable to low-income residents but is increasingly unaffordable to middle-income Residents as well even though rental costs across the Lagoon are half of what they are in historic Venice some Venetian locals want to keep their city as they know it alive by continuing to live there unfortunately younger residents with less income are often the first to be priced out leading to an older aging population in a generally inaccessible City for the elderly and disabled many are worried that a large number of young adults leaving the city for housing and work on the mainland will deprive the city of a future social fabric with a variety of different types of skilled workers the Steep population decrease has had many worried about the future of this city is there any way to make Venice more attractive and affordable to locals urban planning efforts catering to tourists often don't follow the comprehensive Urban plans for the city many worry that Venice may be past the point of being able to fix the city's growing problems and critics of venice's urban planning efforts have expressed a desire for more of a focus on Resident well-being sustainability and resilience in both short and long-term City Planning but Venice has not yet balanced those goals with tourist Focus goals as historic Venice becomes more overcrowded by tourists Maestra is beginning to gain more tourists each year as a result as is perfectly positioned closer to the historic city has interesting historical locations of its own and has more typical everyday businesses and shops that are lacking in historic Venice finally there's the issue of when Venice will become not only a ghost town for locals but for tourists as well in 2021 UNESCO threatened to add Venice to his list of world heritage sites in danger and Venice narrowly avoided being added to the list by Banning cruise ships in the city center the Venetian government has attempted to enact other policies to limit large numbers of tourists they recently enacted a 3 to 10 euro fee for daytrippers to the island they've yet to put an official limit on the number of people that are allowed to visit the historic City in a day these efforts have saved their City from being placed on the danger list for now but UNESCO expects additional efforts to protect Venice from over tourism and population decline to be set in place for a deadline later this year the growing dependence on tourism the city's increasing vulnerability to population loss and the effects of climate change beg the question of how long the city will remain attractive to humans period the reality is that historic Venice may not have a very long future and it makes total sense for ordinary venetians to vacate it the fall of the Republic the crush of tourists and sea level rise all spelled disaster for historic Venice by 2100 when someone says they're visiting Venice they may not mean this but instead this if you want to learn more about Venice not from 2100 but from say 1100 at the height of the Republic I've got you covered I made an in-depth look at the rise of Venice and how they built their impressive Canal City it's one of my favorite all-time videos you can check it out by signing up for nebula nebula is Creator owned meaning that when you watch a video over there you're actually supporting this channel more than watching it here and that gets you access to all of my exclusive content and there's a lot of it completely ad-free that includes all the great City series a bunch of short bonus videos planning ancient Rome and More in addition you have creators like Wendover Productions real life lore and real engineering posting incredible exclusive content on nebula my entire family is hooked on wendover's jet lag series which is the best show if you like wholesome reality TV mixed with train travel and that's me and now if you sign up with my link 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Channel: City Beautiful

Views: 1,283,748

Keywords: city planning, town planning, urban planning, urban design

Id: SClC9TtQlco

Length: 10min 45sec (645 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 17 2023