WORLD BRIEFING / ITALY : Venetians mourn a shrinking city
A procession of gondolas accompanied a pink coffin along the Grand Canal in Venice in a mock funeral to express dismay over the steep decline in the city’s population.
Pallbearers in black capes accompanied the flower-draped coffin symbolizing the death of the “Queen of Adriatic” at the hands of rampant tourism, rising waters and housing costs, a low birth rate and a lack of services.
It was brought ashore at city hall, where a message of condolence and a poem in the Venetian dialect were read out. The protest was inspired by a report last month that the city’s population had fallen below 60,000, considered a benchmark for a viable city in Italy.
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