
Venice test brings up floodgates for first time - pseudolus
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53361958
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dailygrind___
It's worth noting the corruption around the building of this infrastructure.
The president of the region at the time had been arrested along with notable
other people within the public and private sector. This, unfortunately, is the
story for every public infrastructure in Italy.

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lbeltrame
> This, unfortunately, is the story for every public infrastructure in Italy.

I argue it's not the case. Over-bureaucracy (ironically, to fight
"corruption", like the useless "anti-corruption authority") is one of the
major reasons things get done at glacial paces (and the same reason sometimes
people use "other ways" to speed up things). The replacement of Ponte Morandi
in Genova is a prime example of this fact: to rebuild it lots of "rules" had
to be suspended.

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baybal2
What do you think about Italians voting Silvio for so long?

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bonzini
That if you have two parties both of them are going to get a lot of votes.

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amelius
You make it sound like a mathematical truth.

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bonzini
A sad one.

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esturk
Missing in the article is the cost of the MOSE system which projected to cost
5.5 Billion Euros!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOSE_Project#Projections](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOSE_Project#Projections)

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arcticbull
I suspect building a new Venice would cost a few bucks more.

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sandworm101
Not really. Venice is sinking faster today due to seas rising, but the city
has been sinking into the mud since day one. In the past buildings were
regularly demolished and new ones built atop the rubble. At some point in
recent history we decided to stop doing that, to lock all the buildings in
place and "protect" them. This phenomena is not unique to Venice. Whether it
is sea level rise in Venice, height limits in Paris, or widespread "heritage"
status for anything over a few decades old, all over the world we protect
buildings and architecture. This means sacrificing the needs of greater cities
and the people who live in those cities.

Let's protect all the Venices of the world, but treat them as what they are:
museums or theme parks, not places people actually live and work. Venice
already has the boat rides and is talking about a gate price (a tourist day
fee). Next will come the wrist bands. Then the mascots and cotton candy.

How many of the tourists on those giant cruise ships actually get off the
boat? Do many of them that just look at Venice from their cabins? That might
make Venice the world's largest public art exhibition.

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II2II
The city that I live in faces similar issues, even though it is young by
international standards, and those issues exhibit themselves in very peculiar
ways.

If we were talking about a building that is actively maintained and played a
significant role in events, I can understand the desire to preserve it. Yet,
more often than not, the buildings are decayed due to neglect and very few
people actually care about the building until it is about to be torn down.
Worse yet, the structure has frequently been altered to the point where it is
no longer of architectural interest. So yes, this is a concern from the
perspective of the greater needs of cities. Which is why I was puzzled by the
opposition due to the environmental impact.

On the other hand, I suspect that these attitudes stem from something other
than a desire for preservation. It may sound noble to talk about the greater
needs of cities, yet some mighty nasty projects have been undertaken in the
name of redevelopment. For some people this brings up extreme cases of forced
removal, serving the needs of special interests, or simply creating inhumane
environments.

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toomanybeersies
Sounds like Australia. Lots of 100 year old buildings of no cultural or
architectural significance get protected status.

Meanwhile the government has no issue allowing the destruction of Aboriginal
heritage and archeological sites (as well as old growth native forests) to
make way for roads and mines.

~~~
mattoxic
I doubt there are "lots" of buildings over 100 years old remaining in the
Melbourne CBD. Those that do remain gain significance merely because they have
survived.

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toomanybeersies
It's less the CBD, and more in the surrounding suburbs. There are old cottages
scattered around that weren't good houses when they were built, and aren't any
better today. The land they're on is worth a fortune, but they have heritage
status so they can't be redeveloped, yet they're also not worth renovating
because they're so far gone.

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Jerry2
FTA:

> _Protesters from the No Mose group tried to disrupt the test but police
> stopped them._

The article doesn't elaborate on their motives at all but does anyone know
what they were protesting? The cost? The corrouption? Surely not the function
of the system itself...

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Udik
Unfortunately it's a cultural trait in Italy that people prefer to have been
right all the time rather than working together for a common goal.

The MOSE project was heavily criticized from the beginning for a variety of
reasons, ranging from the basic physics principles on which it works, to the
engineering details, to the effects on the lagoon's ecosystem. It is generally
claimed that there are cheaper "other methods" to achieve the goal of
protecting the city from high tides, but it's not clear which they would be,
how effective they would be, and what would be their environmental and visual
impact.

In any case, a protest from the group opposing the construction of the MOSE on
the day of its general test is absolutely ridiculous. These people cannot
possibly be asking for anything concrete, they just hope that something will
go wrong so they'll be able to say that they've been right all the time,
Venice be screwed.

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Tade0
My SO used to work seasonally in Venice.

It is said that Venetians swear a lot, but perhaps those who got this
impression were simply overhearing conversations about this system.

