Venice’s magnificence curse

MILAN –

International locations with nice wealth or pure abundance typically fall sufferer to their very own blessings.

Economists have lengthy recognized that resource-rich international locations can get caught in cycles of sluggish financial development, intense environmental degradation and weak democratic establishments. However locations endowed with a singular creative and architectural heritage can also endure from this “useful resource curse.” Breathtaking monuments from a storied previous can generate financial rents and sectoral distortions not in contrast to these created by giant reserves of fossil fuels and treasured minerals.

Venice is a working example. Plagued with fast-paced, low cost tourism, it more and more suffers from a “magnificence curse.” Town’s latest resolution to cost an entry price ($5.45) for day trippers merely confirms the bigger drawback: Venice is on its strategy to changing into an open-air museum — a cultural mausoleum.