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A comment on Venetians fear ‘museum relic’ status as population drops below 50k. Parent comment

Re:Venetians fear ‘museum relic’ status as population drops ... by jfengel on Thursday August 11, 2022 @05:15PM (#32431802)
A lot of people do want to live there. There is a significant university, and all of the things needed to support it (like grocery stores). There's a well-developed water taxi service. It's been a real place to live for centuries.

It's an idiosyncratic place to live, to be sure. They even seem content to live with the acqu'alta, the regular flooding. The houses are set up with barriers that prevent water, up to the height of about a foot. Any higher and the pressure would risk collapsing the walls, so they just let it in and clean up. Not pleasant, to be sure, but there are plenty of people who would put up with it to live in such a charming, beautiful city.

It really is the tourists that push it over to "unlivable". They massively outnumber the residents, especially during the summer. It's actually not as bad as you might think in the many parts of the city that the tourists don't go to, but you have to pass through them.

It might be AirBnB that really ends up taking it out. Whatever you'd pay to live that life, somebody else will pay more to spend a night in it.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Venetians fear ‘museum relic’ status as population drops ... by themitigating on Thursday August 11, 2022 @06:11PM (#32432441)
If it's just airbnb why not ban it. Hotels for tourists and homes for residents
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Venetians fear ‘museum relic’ status as population drops ... by nradov on Thursday August 11, 2022 @06:19PM (#32432517)
A lot of the tourists come for day trips via cars or cruise ships. Banning short term rentals like AirBnB might help slightly but wouldn't really solve the problem.

Living in a place where tourists outnumber permanent residents will always kind of suck no matter what. The same type of issues impact beach towns in the summer and ski towns in the winter.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Venetians fear ‘museum relic’ status as population drops ... by themitigating on Saturday August 13, 2022 @01:00AM (#32447065)
If tourists out number residents wouldn't the economy need tourists?
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Re:Venetians fear ‘museum relic’ status as population drops ... by LtWorf on Thursday August 11, 2022 @06:28PM (#32432604)
> A lot of people do want to live there

But only rich people can afford it.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Venetians fear ‘museum relic’ status as population drops ... by killjoywashere on Thursday August 11, 2022 @06:37PM (#32432689)
And by rich, we're talking San Francisco expensive. This is not "upper middle class in Omaha" rich. This is money-coming-in-from-somewhere-else expensive. You are not moving to Venice and opening a diner, waiting tables, or opening a carpentry studio and selling chairs. You are definitely not selling sharpened pencils (http://www.artisanalpencilsharpening.com/index.html)
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Re:Venetians fear ‘museum relic’ status as population drops ... by allannienhuis on Thursday August 11, 2022 @07:20PM (#32433049)
omg thank you for linking to that wonderful site. I found my way to their video on how to sharpen a pencil, and it put a huge smile on my face. :)

https://vimeo.com/60718161

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Venetians fear ‘museum relic’ status as population drops ... by killjoywashere on Saturday August 13, 2022 @07:42PM (#32454839)
If you like that, you'll love this: http://blackpeopleloveus.com/
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Re:Venetians fear ‘museum relic’ status as population drops ... by jfengel on Friday August 12, 2022 @09:40AM (#32438483)
Not everybody who lives in Venice is rich, but it is rapidly becoming that way. There are a fair number of longtime residents who live modest lifestyles. But they're discovering that they can sell their houses for umpteen gazillion dollars, and thus this article.

It's kinda unfortunate, but Venice has basically been a museum of itself for centuries. It stopped being a world power and became a curiosity in the late 18th century. It took until now for tourism to ramp up from "part of the Grand Tour for British lordlings" to "cruise ships bringing tens of thousands of tourists per day".

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Venetians fear ‘museum relic’ status as population drops ... by jesusofnazarath on Thursday August 11, 2022 @05:31PM (#32431968)
> It might be AirBnB that really ends up taking it out. Whatever you'd pay to live that life, somebody else will pay more to spend a night in it.

Yep. Great way to put it. I've felt for a while that airBnB is the rot at the core of many previously great cities.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Venetians fear ‘museum relic’ status as population drops ... by jacquesm on Thursday August 11, 2022 @07:11PM (#32432974)
Amen. AirBnB was the last nail in the coffin for lots of houses in Amsterdam that had families living there.
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