Campaign For A Living Venice

The worrisome fact concerning Venice and the surrounding area is that the city is depopulating: even worse is that the numbers show that the emigration is also and foremost among the young, of those who have time and energy to offer but choose to leave the Lagoon.

From 2006, as reported by the Corriere del Veneto, 5546 residents under the age of 35 have chosen another city in which to live, and the major part of these, 3739, come from the historic center. The numbers do not favor the mainland either: the municipalities of Lido, Pellestrina, Favaro and Marghera  are all in decline, notwithstanding the considerable number of families of foreign origin which have settled in the area.  At Marghera a third of the residents are foreign, however also here those under 35 have dropped from 9379 to 7990, at Lido from 6517 to 5472. Growing numbers have been recorded only at Mestre and Zelarino, where the young have grown in numbers, 253 and 34 respectively.

At the origin of the general decline – the total of residents in the capital of the Veneto has declined in the past ten years from 268,934 to 262,242 and the percentage of young has dropped from 30.4% to 29% – it seems that there is a major and growing political investment in tourism, that neglects, however, the residents. For students and workers rents are nearly inaccessible even though the cost of life, says the spokesman for Generazione 90, Mauro Caberlotto, is lower than other cities of the Veneto. The difficulty will be in settling, in finding a home and work. The urgency, therefore, appears to be establishing an orientation that helps native Venetians settle in the city, limiting the flight of the young, prepared and competent, to destinations more or less far away, but happy to accommodate the full bags of those moving from the Lagoon.

Source: Venezia Today, Jan. 8, 2017