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Venice without water

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Re: Venice without water

#31

Post by dgudkov »

wojcikstefan wrote: post #8

To an uneducated eye (like mine), Venice looks inadaptable and bound to struggle, and eventually fail. Buildings require constant repair due to erosion. Too much water brings flooding, too little exposes mud and filth, and hinders transportation... I'm very curious to know what counter-measures are put in place to protect the city from these (and many more) dangers.

These problems existed for centuries but apparently something kept Venice from failing. I suspect it's not about engineering or construction, but it's about money. As long as Venice has a sufficient influx of money it will do well. A significant drop in tourist revenue is way more dangerous to the city than erosion or flooding.

Re: Venice without water

#33

Post by swaggyBoatswain »

klez wrote: post #28
swaggyBoatswain wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to venice a few years back, there's an outer seawall that protects it from tides. Venice also naturally floods all the time, when I was over there the large square next to the cathedral / church flooded. When it floods, it usually floods several inches on average There's a good article on it here https://www.visit-venice-italy.com/acqua-alta-venice-italy.h...

> I went to venice a few years back, there's an outer seawall that protects it from tides. As I said in another comments, no, the wall (MOSE, several walls, actually) has not been completed yet and is non-operational.

hm, didn't know it wasn't operational yet. I just remember seeing a diagram of it relative to the venice map

Re: Venice without water

#34

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

jordache wrote: post #16
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #5

This would be the perfect time to clean up the city :)

is it filthy? do the canals have trash floating? What are you alluding to?

Any body of water in a city collects dirt over time. When the water is gone cleaning becomes possible.

Re: Venice without water

#35

Post by fauigerzigerk »

aerovistae wrote: post #13

I feel like this is a good thing....it's not going to last, and it gives them an opportunity in the meantime to more easily clean and repair places that are normally less accessible.

I have my doubts. There's probably no standby army of cleaners, builders and engineers waiting to jump at this glorious opportunity.

I would even guess that the work already in progress has come to a complete standstill. Surely, they are not equipped for wading through deep mud, and they have lost their main means of transport.

Re: Venice without water

#36

Post by thriftwy »

klez wrote: post #24
thriftwy wrote: post #18

The comment about declining population looks really off. I think most of protected old town areas lost population compared to 100 years ago. People no longer cram in tiny rooms, undesirable ground level flats are converted to shops. Why would this ever be a problem? They have Mestre just over a bridge.

What I know for sure is that Venice proper (that is, what is in the middle of the lagoon) has been hemorrhaging residents for a long time now. Residents strated moving to Mestre and Marghera for various reasons (for example because they worked there) but also because Venice is becoming a touristic attraction, not a place people want to live in. Prices for houses are completely insane, and the fact that people are goi…

I know many places that are more like a tourist attraction. Tallinn or Bruges' historic centres for example. I fail yo see what's wrong with it? The lagoon is full of islands that can offer other lifestyles if anybody wants that.

Re: Venice without water

#37

Post by greglindahl »

lkbm wrote: post #23
jordache wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is it filthy? do the canals have trash floating? What are you alluding to?

I was struck by the fact that the bottoms of the canals is just mud--no trash (at least in the photos in the article). The article mentioned the "filth buried at the bottom of the canals", but they seem remarkably clean.

... the island doesn't have a sewer system.

Re: Venice without water

#38

Post by CydeWeys »

briandear wrote: post #26
starik36 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same thing happened when I was there as well. But, surprisingly, it wasn't as big of a hassle as one would have thought. You could just walk around it. And a few hours later rain stopped, the flooding relented and it was back to normal.

And you’ll see stepping-stone type things scattered around the sidewalks to help people walk over flooded areas as well as doors to homes and businesses sealed at the bottom to allow for about 1 meter of flooding without causing any interior damage. Then there are sandbags scattered about to help with flood protection when necessary. Venice has been fine for hundreds of years; it isn’t all the sudden going to fail..…

> By far the biggest danger to Venice is the hoards of tourists that make getting around for a local almost impossible.

You've got it precisely backwards. By far the biggest danger to Venice is the absence of those hoards of tourists. Venice is dependent upon tourism income for its economy to an extent much greater than most other cities. Rome, Florence, Milan, and others have big businesses and use tourism as supplementary income, but it's the main source for Venice.

Re: Venice without water

#39

Post by jvagner »

klez wrote: post #24
thriftwy wrote: post #18

The comment about declining population looks really off. I think most of protected old town areas lost population compared to 100 years ago. People no longer cram in tiny rooms, undesirable ground level flats are converted to shops. Why would this ever be a problem? They have Mestre just over a bridge.

What I know for sure is that Venice proper (that is, what is in the middle of the lagoon) has been hemorrhaging residents for a long time now. Residents strated moving to Mestre and Marghera for various reasons (for example because they worked there) but also because Venice is becoming a touristic attraction, not a place people want to live in. Prices for houses are completely insane, and the fact that people are goi…

When I lived in Europe I visited Venice a few times, and what I learned from various readings is that Venice itself, from a buildings perspective, is less than 50% occupied, and the population is overwhelmingly skewed older. So, there's an economic vitality issue to that...

The buildings are empty because if you renovate your building you have to bring it up to contemporary building codes, which is very expensive. So people abandoned the buildings and no one wants to pay to make them habitable by current standards.

And so you're left with the tourism conundrum -- things are good enough for the tourism economy but everything behind that is failing.

That said, I always enjoyed the beauty, strangeness and pedestrian culture of Venice. It's a lovely place to visit and walk and read.

Re: Venice without water

#40

Post by Kluny »

I was surprised to learn Venice only has 155,000 or so inhabitants. For some reason I thought it was a big city. It's half the size of my small city.
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