Seems to me they have limited choices.
Leave things as they are.
Create extensive dikes like Holland.
Move the whole city to higher ground.
Seems to me like the dikes make the most economic sense but moving could have merit, too.
Otherwise—’enjoy’ the flooding & quit whining. It’s exceedingly predictable.
Built on lagoon sand? Sheesh. That’s fairly clueless. Even the Bible is clear about building one’s house on sand. Why such willful idiocy?
So many foolish comments here. Willful ignorance? The city was founded around the 5th century. Lots of landlocked ancient cities are deep underground today. Venice floods in November. It’s a beautiful city and even if it’s decaying or sinking it’s not going anywhere for hundreds more years. It usually floods in select areas for an hour or so.
The mayors dramatize to get aid. This summer, I read statements that Italy’s Cinque Terre towns had been literally destroyed by storms and mudslides. A few months later I met travelers who went there and everything was beautiful.
The city was founded in the late Roman period (5th century) by refugees from the mainland, which was being ravaged by constant warfare as civil order collapsed. The early residents knew perfectly well that living on islands created storm risks, but they deemed those preferable to being sacked by Goths, Lombards, or local warlords from neighboring city states every few years. The city prospered through the medieval and early modern period, in large part because of its defensible location. Now it is an extraordinary historical site and tourist attraction with huge maintenance issues. We were there this summer. Wonderful place.
I'm all in favor of letting the hurricanes take Hilton Head. Our development on barrier islands is insane and we shouldn't waste money rebuilding after storms. It was a mistake to rebuild New Orleans below sea level. But Venice has so much historical and artistic importance that it's worth trying to preserve. I suppose the price might eventually become prohibitive, which would be sad.
Yeah, what’d those Renaissance guys know about city planning!
Maybe they should do what Dennis Hastart so brilliantly suggested about the great city of New Orleans: pave it over.