EU Green Capital Valencia will host 2024 edition of European Urban Resilience Forum
Crucial aspects of resilience, sustainable development and recovery will be under the thematic spotlight
Experts from the global organization have taken into account chronic factors that threaten the integrity and existence of the iconic Italian city
Experts from UNESCO are recommending that the historic core of Venice should be placed in the World Heritage Sites in Danger list next month when the World Heritage Committee meets in Riyadh.
This time, however, apart from the regular issues plaguing the city related to climate change, depopulation and overtourism, the international heritage body is pointing the finger at the Italian authorities for not doing enough to save the unique lagoon city.
According to UNESCO, the Italian government has simply failed to produce any meaningful and working plan to safeguard the coastal city, which has been increasingly under pressure from human and environmental factors. The organization added that Italy “has not been communicating in a sustained and substantive manner since its last Committee session in 2021, when UNESCO had already threatened to blacklist Venice”, according to Reuters.
Putting the Lagoon City on the list of endangered sites is meant to be a last resort and a signal to the Italian authorities that they need to take matters into their hands and act. On that list, Venice will likely be in the company of the war-impacted Ukrainian cities of Odesa, Lviv and Kyiv (also to be added to the list in September).
There is criticism towards Italy that it hasn’t taken advantage of the EU Recovery Fund financing to develop coherent plans to protect its coastal cities and make them more resilient. Scientists predict that by the end of the century, there will be a relative rise in sea level somewhere between 44 and 76 centimetres.
That would mean that most of the time the mobile barriers protecting the Venice lagoon from the tides would have to stay up, which in turn would change drastically the ecosystem of the water body, making the city unlivable in the long term.
So far as tourist management is concerned, critics say the current mayor Luigi Brugnaro has achieved nothing - all his attempts to control visitor numbers through a system of ticketing have proven unworkable.
Nevertheless, a spokesperson for the Venice municipality told Reuters the city "will carefully read the proposed decision published today by the Center for UNESCO's World Heritage Committee and will discuss it with the government".
The city was concerned about street noise and disturbances to residents
This, however, is likely to change soon
Crucial aspects of resilience, sustainable development and recovery will be under the thematic spotlight
This is city twinning for the 21st century
You can find it in the capital Sofia, where it was installed upon the initiative of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
People in both cities got to sit together both in person and virtually
The city was concerned about street noise and disturbances to residents
And the current administration plans to make Jardin del Turia Europe’s largest city green space by extending it to the sea
The aim is to have the public be able to admire the architectural design without distractions
The installation has been thought out with the concept of letting people “talk” to their dearly departed
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