The ageing face of Venice

Today, a quarter of the population of Venice is over the age of 64. If this trend continues, the city could be without Venetians within the next 30 years, turning it into a sort of Disneyland — full of holidaymakers but empty of natives. In 2007, there were 268,993 people living in the greater Venice area, but the population of Venice proper has almost halved — from 121,000 to 62,000 — since the great flood of 1966, which led to more than 16,000 houses being abandoned.

Although the city state that once ruled an empire could be "empty" by 2046, this does not mean that Venice will be without inhabitants, because foreigners and Italians continue to buy second homes there. Instead, Venice may become a living museum — a place to which visitors would pay an entry fee because their number, already more than 50,000 a day, is climbing inexorably.