It's worth noting the corruption around the building of this infrastructure. The president of the region at the time had been arrested along with notable other people within the public and private sector. This, unfortunately, is the story for every public infrastructure in Italy.
Also, don’t forget about the corruption. And the environmental protests. And the corruption.
The article contained almost more references about corruption and environmental protests than technical info. I don’t know how other places work, but in Europe, big infrastructure projects are almost always mired with corruption.
The article read like: “wow, these dumb and greasy Italians finally managed to do something impressive. But they are still corrupt. And their project is not eco friendly. Hah, those Italians...” And I’m not even Italian, but I can smell that snobbism from a mile.
> This, unfortunately, is the story for every public infrastructure in Italy.
I argue it's not the case. Over-bureaucracy (ironically, to fight "corruption", like the useless "anti-corruption authority") is one of the major reasons things get done at glacial paces (and the same reason sometimes people use "other ways" to speed up things). The replacement of Ponte Morandi in Genova is a prime example of this fact: to rebuild it lots of "rules" had to be suspended.
> Over-bureaucracy (ironically, to fight "corruption", like the useless "anti-corruption authority") is one of the major reasons things get done at glacial paces (and the same reason sometimes people use "other ways" to speed up things).
Data in 2018's report "Tempi di realizzazione delle opere pubbliche" [0] seems to contradict this. The 7th post in this [1] twitter thread summarizes it.
The Twitter thread seems to contradict this claim.
> Seconda domanda: da cosa dipendono allora le lungaggini, se non dall’affidamento? La risposta è esattamente quella che state pensando: dalla burocrazia.
"Second question: what is the cause of slowness, if not when a work is actually given [to whoever got the contract]? The answer is exactly what you're thinking about: bureaucracy."
The next few tweets bring data which supports this.
There's plenty of books written about this topic. In recent experience, I remember the World Expo Milan fair in 2015, L'Aquila earthquake works, or even the Coronavirus Hospital in Milano - 21 milion euros to host 25 patients - all ended up with arrests due to corruption.
In the past the legendary motorway Salerno-Reggio Calabria took decades to complete and was a major attraction for public investment and mafia suppliers.
These days, the government is thinking about building a bridge between Calabria and Sicily. This project has been talked about for decades, it's completely useless (I won't go in detail here, but the road network in southern Italy is in a really bad state) and with the upcoming European Union injection of money, it will become the next public work that the mafia will put their hands onto. Looking at the history, it's clear why this project became suddenly important.
Well, at least in Italy people get arrested for corrpution. At first I thought you were just joking.
(Note: I'm Greek)
Edit: Actually, I live in the UK. People over here know how to do corruption the right way and our, Mediterrannean, pathetic excuses for corrupt politicians should really study their ways. In the UK, it's not that there is no corruption, it's that everybody who is anybody is buddy-buddies with everyone else who is anybody (say, they went to the same college, i.e. Eton), so they don't call it corruption, just "doing business". For a recent example, look up the recent non-scandal about giving an 840k quid contract to the buddy-buddies of Mike and Domz:
So let's not all take too big a dump on us poor, corrupt Southern Europeans, because we may have invented the art (in the ancient times of old) of handing public monies to our cronies but Western Europeans turned it into a science (in modern times and not so modern times).
Naming matters. (As a northern European,) My impression is that since we won't use that word to describe things here it's easier to look away. What's corruption in Greece and Italy is called a budget overrun or government support in the Netherlands and Germany, and you won't convince many Dutch/Germans to see it any other way. After all, we don't do corruption 'round these here parts.
The Italians' perception of pervasive corruption also works as a very handy excuse for further misbehaviour. Given the three corners of the so called "triangle of fraud"- motivation, opportunity and rationalisation- a widespread knowledge that everyone is corrupt provides a very handy rationalisation (everyone is screwing me, so it's my right to do the same to the others whenever the smallest opportunity arises).
The examples you mentioned are a tiny number of public works, that do not represent anything but what they are: very well known isolated cases.
Every year Italian public administrations award thousands of contracts, only a small fraction of which are actually the result of corruption based on judicial data.
A different problem is the perception of the level of corruption, which in Italy is very high no matter the data. I'm actually not surprised that you are Italian indeed.
> the perception of the level of corruption, which in Italy is very high no matter the data.
A solid belief that everyone else is committing serious crimes is essential to rationalize your own small frauds. I have little doubt that Italians are so eager to point the finger at corruption because it helps them come to terms with their constant disregard of rules.
True, but there's 0% chance corruption wasn't a factor. For what it's worth, the former president of Lombardy, in charge till 2013, has been condemned for 9 years for criminal activities. It's just how the system works.
I will wait for the final decision, personally, as I think presumption of innocence still holds, even if I might disagree at a personal or political level with the accused.
In this context presumption of innocence is different from presuming the crime did not happen. Presumption of innocence could be that even if you 100% sure corruption was pervasive you keep in mind that the people on trial might actually be innocent scapegoats.
unless you have data saying "all" is wrong.
You can say "many" and it will be true, and people won't argue.
The "corruption perception index" is based on this sort of thing: people say "Italy is the most corrupt place in the world!" and have no data or knowledge to compare.
I was in Messina Strait several times by sailboat and ferry traffic was significant every time. So there's a demand regardless the state of road network. IMO bridge would lower ferry traffic thus low-grade ship fuel consumption and overall ecology impact, wouldn't it?
Not data per she but an official point of critique by the EU
>
The business environment is improving, but strengthening Italy’s public administration, justice system and anti-corruption framework remains a challenge. The digitisation of public services is progressing. Further efforts are needed to improve public employment, especially at management level. Weak administrative capacity is diminishing the public administration’s ability to invest and carry out policy or enforcement tasks that affect businesses such as market surveillance. In this regard, a comprehensive strategy to strengthen it is missing. Inefficiencies in public procurement also remain often unaddressed. Despite recent improvements, the length of civil trials remains among the highest in the EU. Recent reforms are starting to bear fruit and an enabling law to streamline the civil procedure is under discussion. However, to reduce trial length, there is still ample room to ensure more efficient management of cases and limit unfounded appeals. The anti-corruption framework was strengthened recently, also through the anti-corruption law of January 2019. However, it needs to be completed. Indeed, no regulation sanctions conflict of interest for elected public officials, embezzlement in the private sector remains only partly criminalised, and provisions against lobbying do not apply to members of government and parliament. Moreover, the low efficiency of criminal justice in appeals continues preventing prosecuting corruption effectively. A reform of the criminal procedure and appeal system is still pending.
This stuff matters. Italy’s GDP per capita is 15% lower today than in 2008. That’s crazy for a developed country. Ours is 33% higher. Germany’s is 43% higher.
Not really. Venice is sinking faster today due to seas rising, but the city has been sinking into the mud since day one. In the past buildings were regularly demolished and new ones built atop the rubble. At some point in recent history we decided to stop doing that, to lock all the buildings in place and "protect" them. This phenomena is not unique to Venice. Whether it is sea level rise in Venice, height limits in Paris, or widespread "heritage" status for anything over a few decades old, all over the world we protect buildings and architecture. This means sacrificing the needs of greater cities and the people who live in those cities.
Let's protect all the Venices of the world, but treat them as what they are: museums or theme parks, not places people actually live and work. Venice already has the boat rides and is talking about a gate price (a tourist day fee). Next will come the wrist bands. Then the mascots and cotton candy.
How many of the tourists on those giant cruise ships actually get off the boat? Do many of them that just look at Venice from their cabins? That might make Venice the world's largest public art exhibition.
The city that I live in faces similar issues, even though it is young by international standards, and those issues exhibit themselves in very peculiar ways.
If we were talking about a building that is actively maintained and played a significant role in events, I can understand the desire to preserve it. Yet, more often than not, the buildings are decayed due to neglect and very few people actually care about the building until it is about to be torn down. Worse yet, the structure has frequently been altered to the point where it is no longer of architectural interest. So yes, this is a concern from the perspective of the greater needs of cities. Which is why I was puzzled by the opposition due to the environmental impact.
On the other hand, I suspect that these attitudes stem from something other than a desire for preservation. It may sound noble to talk about the greater needs of cities, yet some mighty nasty projects have been undertaken in the name of redevelopment. For some people this brings up extreme cases of forced removal, serving the needs of special interests, or simply creating inhumane environments.
Sounds like Australia. Lots of 100 year old buildings of no cultural or architectural significance get protected status.
Meanwhile the government has no issue allowing the destruction of Aboriginal heritage and archeological sites (as well as old growth native forests) to make way for roads and mines.
I doubt there are "lots" of buildings over 100 years old remaining in the Melbourne CBD. Those that do remain gain significance merely because they have survived.
It's less the CBD, and more in the surrounding suburbs. There are old cottages scattered around that weren't good houses when they were built, and aren't any better today. The land they're on is worth a fortune, but they have heritage status so they can't be redeveloped, yet they're also not worth renovating because they're so far gone.
There is a Slate Star Codex article[1] talking about how people die in hospitals. A common trend is that families that lived close to their elderly relatives are the most ready to accept when there is nothing more to do, while families that "fly in" to visit their sick elderly relatives often refuse to give up and try to do anything to keep them alive a bit more.
One interpretation is that guilt plays a factor here.
In my opinion something vaguely similar happens here, in globalized times everyone is citizen of bigger and bigger places and feel progressively weaker connections to local culture. To this you can add that this local culture is under constant pressure from new external actors (I imagine that more than a few people tried to build new hotels in the middle of Venice).
None of what you say actually refutes the argument: yes, rebuilding Venice would obviously cost a lot. And it would cost even more in lost revenue, considering it is unlikely anything new would continue to attract them.
And while it's true that few ("normal") people still live in Venice, it doesn't follow that what remains is as worthless as Disneyland. Nobody lives in the Louvre, and it's still a culturally significant place!
The idea that buildings in Venice are layered, with newer ones built on top of older ones when they succumbed to the water seems to be mythological.
Venice isn't going to do cotton candy. Picnicking on the streets will get you fined, and in some cases tourists have been thrown off the island for such uncultured behaviour.
Why is disneyland worthless? It employs lots of people. It makes kids happy. It is also old enough, by north american standards, that its iconic buildings could probably qualify for some sort of heritage status.
>> tourists have been thrown off the island for such uncultured behaviour.
I suspect that given a longer historical perspective, Disneyland will be seen as something other than "culturally vacuous". Much of our evaluation of "high" vs "low" culture is due to cultural snobbery. Low culture becomes more valued as time passes and the distinctions fade.
We nearly lost centuries of folk music because it wasn't considered worth preserving and only the efforts of a few weirdos like Bartok, Vaughan Williams and Alan Lomax who acted at just the the right moment saved some knowledge of it for future generations.
And it's not "folk" vs "commercial" either Commercial Art from the turn of the century (and before and after) is immensely interesting and of great aesthetic value to my eyes.
> Low culture becomes more valued as time passes and the distinctions fade.
On the other hand, things that are worth preserving tend to survive longer thanks to the effort put in preserving them. In other words, while age and cultural value correlate well, it might be cultural value to cause longer survival times and not the other way around.
It's also a good thing to make a distinction between cultural value in an anthropological sense (any relic is an historically important testimony of the past, but that doesn't make it good: a milk carton from today could be invaluable to a historian from 2000 years in the future) and actual craftsmanship and beauty.
> On the other hand, things that are worth preserving tend to survive longer thanks to the effort put in preserving them
I wonder if this is presupposing the point I'm trying to argue against. I'm arguing that contemporary tastes are often not a good measure of quality due to the biases introduced by being too close. I'm not sure where you've engaged with that point other than by merely stating a contrary position?
Not really. One of the aims of Main Street USA was to preserve the ambiance of a small town Main Street, which was already disappearing even before the 1950s. If the Haunted Mansion is so culturally vacuous, why did Cory Doctorow set a book there? I doubt it was just for the whuffie. Pop culture is culture.
> The idea that buildings in Venice are layered, with newer ones built on top of older ones when they succumbed to the water seems to be mythological.
It is pure invention. (Source: architect living near Venice).
Probably originated from Hollywood movies, where Venice features underground tombs, sewers and tunnels; and palaces can be sunk like ships hit by a torpedo.
> but treat them as what they are: museums or theme parks, not places people actually live and work
I know a lot of people born and raised in Venice who still live and work there. So labelling Venice as a theme park or similar is really not adequate.
Proof of that is the post Covid-19 lockdown situation. Venice without all the international tourist has proven to be a lively and nice city to live in, based on what I've been told by people from there.
Also, if we were to label Venice as a museum, then we would need to label half of Italy's old town centers as such.
However having been in Venice a couple of times, and coming from a Portuguese region where tourism is one of the main commercial activities of the city, I can relate with the theme park description, we even call ourselves Portugal's Venice!
It gets pretty annoying that when you go to places in the city center where you aren't known to the business owners, everyone assumes you are a tourist.
You guys do realize that Venice brings in half of that in tourism dollars per year, right?
And I suspect the overall impact on the Italian tourist economy of having Venice around is even higher.
So even setting aside any relocation costs, just the tourist economy (and there is more to the Venetian economy) will pay for the entire project in 2 years.
One example of crazy protection I've seen recently is this piece in Paris: https://danielfeau.com/fr/archive/annonce/3495936 it's has no archtectural value, has no history, has been abandonned for 30 years, is really in bad shape, in the most central part of the city, and doesn't even have the same style as surrounding streets... but the rules are for the new buyer to restore it as it is: can't build anything new, can't change shape or size, ...
I mean, sure it wouldn't be
nice to have a pink/green ultra-strange new building there, but there are ways to make something nicer than what is currently there
I'm not sure even letting the sea reclaim it would be cheaper, the environmental impact alone might well require either a costly dismantle operation or just walling it in where the waste can't get out.
While I completely agree you cant go knocking down building there, those building are built with parts from older ones. Eg the Horses of Saint Mark-Lysippos in St Marks basilica.
Letting Venice go is also an option. Going to happen to a lot of low lying geographies as sea levels rise and mitigation becomes unaffordable. Hard decisions ahead about what’s worth saving.
The EU's budget is only a tiny part of public spending of the EU's member states, though, as they each handle their own military, welfare, etc. spending individually. It's more like DC's budget than the US Federal budget in magnitude/importance.
That’s a fair point. Looking at the EU as a whole, I would argue it doesn’t have the resources to spend on enormous climate mitigation capital projects consistently with most of its countries dependent on a handful of economic engines (primarily France and Germany with the UK leaving), compounded by a rapidly aging workforce turning into pensioners who will be competing against those capital projects for fiscal support.
Alarming media stories that twist the facts about rising sea levels are dangerous because they scare people unnecessarily and push policymakers toward excessively expensive measures to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The real solution is to lift the world’s poorest out of poverty and protect them with simple infrastructure."
>Protesters from the No Mose group tried to disrupt the test but police stopped them.
The article doesn't elaborate on their motives at all but does anyone know what they were protesting? The cost? The corrouption? Surely not the function of the system itself...
Unfortunately it's a cultural trait in Italy that people prefer to have been right all the time rather than working together for a common goal.
The MOSE project was heavily criticized from the beginning for a variety of reasons, ranging from the basic physics principles on which it works, to the engineering details, to the effects on the lagoon's ecosystem. It is generally claimed that there are cheaper "other methods" to achieve the goal of protecting the city from high tides, but it's not clear which they would be, how effective they would be, and what would be their environmental and visual impact.
In any case, a protest from the group opposing the construction of the MOSE on the day of its general test is absolutely ridiculous. These people cannot possibly be asking for anything concrete, they just hope that something will go wrong so they'll be able to say that they've been right all the time, Venice be screwed.
