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'Send for Disney' to save Venice

Robin McKie

THE WATERS are rising around Venice. Each year the floods worsen and last longer. Carpets of slime coat St Mark's Square. Statues and church walls are coated with filth. The city is drowning. But there is a solution: run the place like Disneyland, says leading U.K. economist John Kay.

According to Prof. Kay, author of The Truth About Markets and other key works on economics, there should be a major restructuring of the city's operations.

Venice can no longer be run like a normal European city, he argues. Turning it into a theme park offers its only hope of salvation.

"If the Disney Corporation was in charge of Venice it would not be in peril as it is today," said Prof. Kay. "I am not saying Disney should be given the job, however. My point is that an enterprise that is used to providing entertainment for the masses is best placed to save the city. At present, no one is running Venice. That is why it is dying."

Under Prof. Kay's scheme, tourists would be charged an entrance fee of between 20 euros and 30 euros — roughly the fee to Disneyland Paris.

The idea will form the core of proposals to be outlined at an international symposium at the Royal Geographical Society in London on June 12. It will debate the proposition "Enough money has been spent saving Venice."

Prof. Kay will speak for the motion. The novelist and journalist A.N. Wilson and architectural historian Joseph Rykwert will oppose it. The most controversial line will be taken by Sir David King, chief scientific adviser to the British Government, who said: "I love Venice and certainly do not want to see it lost.

"However, if we do not curb the rise in carbon dioxide emissions then there is no point in trying to save Venice. We should be worrying if we can save London or Paris."

Recent archaeological digs have shown that Venice has been sinking by about 10 cm a century for the past few hundred years. But in the 20th century it sank 20 cm because water was pumped from natural underground reservoirs, causing the subsoil to compact. In addition, the water level in the Venice lagoon has risen by about 5 cm. In 1900, St Mark's Square flooded 10 times a year; now the figure is around 60.

Ambitious plan

The Italian government recently backed a £3 billion plan that would involve building barriers between the lagoon around Venice and the sea. The barriers would be raised when abnormally high tides were due. But this plan is based on predictions that there will be a sea rise of 15-26 cm this century. And that poses serious worries for climate experts. Most sea-level forecasts now envisage rises that will reach up to a metre by 2100. If such rises occur, Venice will receive precious little protection from the proposed barriers, thus wasting 3 billion.

In short, unless global climate controls are agreed in the next few years, no one will be able to save one of the world's most glorious cities. Not even the Disney Corporation.

— © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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