It is phantasmagoric to sit in San Marco Square and to see a cruise ship passing by, with its funnel dominating the mythic bell tower. From there you can see the ghost of the decaying Venice to be maintained, and the hypermodern allegory of global tourism that arrives, visits, eats and runs away. Many are overwhelmed by nostalgy, forgetting that 15 years ago the port of Venice was a ghost. Today it is the third port in Italy, the first in the Mediterranean for cruises, with one and a half million people leaving and arriving to Venice with a cruise every year. The port has been wonderfully replanned and enlarged, it has problems of growth and expansion both regarding route and calls, and traffic. You land there flying over the chimneys and plants of Porto Marghera. Their future is divided, as does the cruise ship in the background of San Marco Square, between nostalgics of a past fordism of chemistry and those who dream of a future green meadow in the lagoon.

The metamorphosis

Reality forces towards a postfordist melting pot: a bit for the chemistry from what remains of Eni, as remains the Fiat in Mirafiori, and a bit from several enterprises with an high technologic and research value, and wide disused spaces for a logistic platform in the North-East area. A transition bringing back the 32 thousands workers of the past is unthinkable. Marghera, between 1965 ad 1995, lost 20 thousands workers. It was a continuum between crisis and participation of state and privates. The inversion in trend is visible in the technologic and scientific park. In the area managed by the society Vega, composed of some old companies of the chemical pole, the two universities and local bodies, work more than 150 companies active in telecommunications, production of new materials, biotechnologies and environmental technologies. A private operator took over a big area, making a pole for musical ad multimedia production. The metamorphosis goes on with the settling of the Consorzio Hydrogen, for experiments in the use of hydrogen in a context changed in the past by heavy chemistry and of the Consorzio of logistics Venice-Treviso, with the platform that can count on the ports of Venice and Chioggia, three interports and one airport.

From Mestre to the Arsenale

Also the factory-town of Mestre is changing its destiny of opaque mirror of the shining Venice. The historic centre has been restored and it hosts more and more cultural events and happenings. Big hotels are being built, that exploit and live of the proximity with Venice. In via Torino has been founded the university of the mainland, the park of San Giuliano and the wood of Mestre make it a town with a percentage of green similar to north European towns. The ones with elitary nostalgies have not realized it, but also Venice has changed. At the Arsenale, where the galleys of the Serenissima were built, had remained only a few soldiers that, as in the Desert of the Tartars, were protecting the decline of the Dominating. Nowadays those spaces are used by the Biennale, as a school and for restoration, by laboratories of the Cnr and by the hypertechnologic consortium Thetis. On the island of San Servolo, once seat of a mental hospital, the university founded an international excellence school with two subjects, sustainable development, teached mostly to China and Eastern countries, and the spreading in the world of the model of our capitalism of districts and small and medium sized enterprises through agreements with prestigious universities, such as the Mit in America.

Working with the world

In San Servolo more than 2 thousands Chinese students have undergone training, and with the university of Shanghai has been started a program of exchanges on the theme of small and medium enterprises and design. The manager of this network of knowledge, Stefano Micelli who recently wrote a book on the new production districts and the theme of internationalization and competitivity, explained that working around the world creates identity on the territory. In San Servolo they meet to exchange knowledge and experience of two communities of new professions, Treviso Designers and the Club Bit. Vence is a city leader in cultural events. The annual report by the Venice Foundation says that in 2005 the lagoon hosted 36 events per day. Two thousands events per year, giving work to more than 3 thousands workers, of which 63.5% has a permanent contract. Venice is a workshop of new social composition and of new professions. In the lagoon there are the creatives and in Mestre thousands of free lancers in the diffused economy of the North East. Therefore Cacciari wants to found there the House of new professions.

The real motor

These innovative phenomena cannot be separated from the real motor of Venice: tourism, attracted from its essence of unique historical park. It is a source of production based on 20 million users-clients per year. Of these, 8 millions stay in Venice. They produce a turnover of around tre billion euros per year. Numbers bound to grow, since recently the Chinese population rose by 40%, like Indians and Russians. Every day Venice has to invent a way to keep together three different cities. These cities are the 200 thousands inhabitants on the mainland, the 80 thousands on the islands, the 80 thousands tourists and something like 50 thousands commuters and students. The City Council should tax Mestre to maintain the services and the productive engine of Venice, but rightly Cacciari does not want to do it. It will be possible to end this game without a winner only by realizing that Venice is, together with Florence and Rome, a door to the system-country inside global tourism. The three mayors have met and they asked to recognize this strategic quality of the three world-cities that represent us in the global competition.