Venice without water • Hacker News Board

Re: Venice without water

#41

Post by CydeWeys » Sun, Feb 04, 2018, 5:55 PM UTC

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…

Venice isn't a practical place to live for many in the modern world though. Transportation is horrendously inefficient, land is expensive and no more is available, and people expect nicer/roomier accommodations than in centuries past.

It sounds like the people living in Mestre are making the best rational choice for themselves. There are plenty of other old cities that did not survive with their way of life intact into the modern age; it is what it is. It made more sense as a city unto itself in centuries past, but things change with technological and cultural progress. There is nothing inherently good with things continuing the way they always have; indeed things remaining stagnant is often bad, and the people who have been enabled to move out onto the mainland thanks to modern transportation methods are likely living better lives now than those who could not do so centuries ago.

Re: Venice without water

#42

Post by CydeWeys » Sun, Feb 04, 2018, 5:57 PM UTC

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #34

jordache wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Dredging is a common maintenance activity on canals, and is easier to do with the water present (since you can use ships) than when it is absent.

It's certainly easier to pop down with a trash bag and pick up litter when the water is absent, but for dredging the dirt, you need the water to come back. There's no good way to move it around without being able to float it off in a boat on the water.

Re: Venice without water

#43

Post by phil248 » Sun, Feb 04, 2018, 5:58 PM UTC

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.

"...Venice looks inadaptable and bound to struggle, and eventually fail"

I'm sure there were people in the 1100's saying the exact same thing!

Re: Venice without water

#44

Post by gnopgnip » Sun, Feb 04, 2018, 6:23 PM UTC

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #35

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.

Here in CA we have to wait on the tides to do work on the sewer. It is only about once every two months that the tides are low enough for certain work

Re: Venice without water

#45

Post by EGreg » Sun, Feb 04, 2018, 6:27 PM UTC

ultimoo wrote: post #32

I had no idea the canals were this shallow! For some reason I thought they were at least 10 meters or so deep.

Yes, this is what surprised me the most! It's just like the canal inside the Venetian in Vegas :)

Re: Venice without water

#46

Post by mschuster91 » Sun, Feb 04, 2018, 6:37 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #38

briandear wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 supple…

> By far the biggest danger to Venice is the absence of those hoards of tourists.

No. The danger is any point away from the equilibrium - too few/no tourists and there's no income, but too many tourists and the tourists won't spread the word for other potential travelers anymore when they e.g. cannot go to any popular place or getting ripped off hundreds of dollars for pizza.

Re: Venice without water

#47

Post by fauigerzigerk » Sun, Feb 04, 2018, 6:56 PM UTC

gnopgnip wrote: post #44

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Here in CA we have to wait on the tides to do work on the sewer. It is only about once every two months that the tides are low enough for certain work

I got the impression from the article that the water is almost never too low to use the waterways for transport. If it happens regularly then it's of course a wholly different matter.

Re: Venice without water

#48

Post by kurthr » Sun, Feb 04, 2018, 6:59 PM UTC

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.

The point is you probably could have said that on any date in the last thousand years! They have been fighting tides and subsidence the entire time... the time integrated wealth there is astounding. They have been "building" giant dynamic sea walls for decades although beimg Italy you never know when they'll finish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Republic_of_Ven...

Re: Venice without water

#49

Post by klez » Sun, Feb 04, 2018, 7:09 PM UTC

Kluny wrote: post #40

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.

The Venice having 155.000 people isn't the islands. Those have roughly 55.000 people. The rest is spread on the mainland.

In Italy when you talk about a city it's usually about the city itself and some towns around it. In this case most of the population is in Mestre and Marghera.

So it's actually even smaller than you thought :)

Re: Venice without water

#50

Post by zakk » Sun, Feb 04, 2018, 7:18 PM UTC

Kluny wrote: post #40

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.

Just about 50k people live in the islands... The density is quite low, and much more people lived there in the past, now for locals it's more profitable to just rent their flat to tourists, while living in the mainland.