The political debate of these last months left behind the economic future of Venice. The habit to the extensive exploitment of revenues, not just in the historical centre, broke the habit of reasoning about possible alternatives. What is most striking, is that the problem was not advanced at a regional level, on the so-called mainland. Maybe that is because we took the habit of thinking about how to save Venice and we broke the habit of imagining how to capitalize Venice. But the city appears now as never before as a resource to exploit: we have never needed it as now, not just for a Sunday walk, but also and mostly as a handle in order to start an enourmously urgent path towards the internationalization of our economy and, more generally, of our society. In the city and in the region, the debate on Venetian economy focused around the differences with the mainland and with the model of industrial development which marked its success in the last twenty years. The model of the small and medium-sized industry, and of industrial districts, characterized the whole north-east region without directly involving Venice, the capital of Veneto, stuck into a specialization of big enterprises and of public administration. These differences made difficult a consideration on its possible part in the regional economic model and on its potential as union between local system and international markets. The current phase of switch from the Venetian economic model suggests a turning point. The change from an extensive production model, to a development model with a higher intensity of knowledge allows/enforces to rethink the city’s functions inside a process of integration with the north-east system. It is not simply a matter of creating scientific laboratories and attracting research and development centres of some multinational company. Nowadays, to translate the basic scientific research in products and processes, does not represent anymore the only legitimate way to innovate and compete. Innovative enterprises are becoming more and more enterprises that manage to combine in an original way technologies, design abilities, communication skills, new forms of organizing labour. This “creativity” is a growth factor that the north-east economy has already proved having, and today it deserves to be developed and renewed in a perspective more open towards internationalization.

The city has all resources necessary to develop a path in this direction. It has a Scientific and Technologic Park inside an area with a strong development of the services industry. It has a university and several research centres which represent some key sciences in the themes of innovation and creativity (Economy, Sciences, Literature, Foreign Languages, Architecture and Design, Computer Sciences). It has enourmously prestigious cultural institutions, in the artistic field most of all (Cini, Biennale, Guggenheim, Candiani). Today, the activity of these institutions does not seem to be integrated inside a shared proposal or plan, nor linked in any way to a wider general project of a regional kind. Obviously, each one of these bodies has the possibility and the duty to develop autonomous growth routes, but it is also true that today, these strategies seem like the engine of a costly centrifugal power. What can Venice do for the Veneto region? Many things, some of them really substantial.

Venice can elaborate and spread new forms of innovation through artistic creativity and communication. Venetian companies are looking for designers, communicators, and original spaces of experimentation. The north-east manufacturing tradition is quickly leaving space to new professions and company functions, without which it is impossible to compete. Venice can use a long tradition of creativity at the service of companies through forms of international traineeships or workshops to develop partly in the city, partly in the companies. These activities must be started mainly from research and education institutions, but must also be encouraged by the city council, by means of allotment of spaces and contribution to events. Venice can become the laboratory of a new culture of tourism, based on the planning of refined experiences. Tourism, in Venice, is basically exploitment of revenues.

Local contractors still have not managed to start innovation mechanisms. The city can launch a program of experimentation for a new services’offer for the fruition of the city (video, multimediality, new technologies), favouring the birth and strenghtening of innovative operators. The Venetian economy is based more and more on tourism. To have at disposal a laboratory of experimentation as prestigious as Venice, could be a strong point for the whole regional system. Venice can become a reference point for the creation of new systems of cultural and linguistic intermediation relatively to strategic areas such as China and India. The economies of China and India are perceived mostly as a threat and, in spite of many statements, they are hardly seen as opportunities. Many foreign language students at the university of Ca’ Foscari, Venice, cover now important roles in these countries (particularly in China), and could become a reference point in order to start research and diffusion activities on the specificity of those developing countries. At the same time, those research centres could become spaces for the handling of communication means, in order to give the best possible value to our cultural, artistic and industrial tradition.

Venice can propose itself to study and talk about the Veneto region in the world. Nowadays the Veneto model, rightly or not, represents one of the world reference points for big universities (for example MIT), and for international development agencies (for example IJNJDO, United Nation for Industrial Development).

Venice can stand for developing a specialization of study and cultural and scientific proposal for these subjects, promoting innovative ways of education and exchange of experiences at international level. This role as attraction would allow to the Veneto system to gain new points of view and new interlocutors, to involve in important initiatives in a more stable and structured way.

Venice can stand for hosting international agencies committed in important themes for the future of Venetian economy. The internationalization of the regional economic system goes through the ability to attract famous international agencies. These institutions cannot simply be “hosted”, nor their contribution can be calculated just in relation to the number of officials and chiefs who will go to live in the city. Their role in relation to a more general context must be strategical, because the knowledge they represent is essential for the region’s future. A really good example of planning is the creation in Venice of an agency for Intellectual Property, in collaboration with the European Patent Office. The theme of patents is strategical for the whole national productive system. The list could go on, with examples that reflect common sense but that to be realized demand a less conservative attitude towards the city and more determination. The energies needed for a change in quality in this perspective must necessarily come from an extended metropolitan space and from a project shared on a regional scale. In Venice, both in the historical centre and in the mainland, the potential makers or those who profit of this transformation are a new generation of professionals and entrepreneurs, which took the path of innovation and services. They are many, often very qualified and really professional. But until now, they are few represented.