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.
Maybe: fewer tourists, more people move back to the city and other industries begin to re-emerge. But right now, much of Venice is dying off — except for the tourist shops, because of the tourists. It’s turning into an EPCOT Center version of Venice.
However, it would be interesting to see what the per-tourist expenditure rates have been over the past five years; my hypothesis is that per-tourist spending is down despite total tourist spending being up. Cruise ship passengers are a bulk of visitors and they don’t spend much (since they sleep on the ship.) So that crowds out potential visitors who might spend more money.
As another commenter said: there is a equilibrium between tourists and locals that needs to exist. My opinion is that shoulder-to-shoulder people is actually harming the city. There are actually proposals to limit the numbers of tourists — those proposals from the government wouldn’t exist unless there was some sort of problem.
I am not a Venice expert and have only been there a few weeks, but seeing masses of people buying cheap Chinese-made knockoff Murano glass from vendors who aren’t even Venetian (nor even live in Venice) — it’s hard for me to accept that is “good” for Venice or Venetians.
I read that they were now limiting the amount of cruise ships they get a year because of the issue of them crowding the city a lot without spending much.
