Venice has had too many tourists for the last fifty years. And fifty years ago the tourists were pretty much as you describe, there for St Marks Square. The bi

Venice has had too many tourists for the last fifty years. And fifty years ago the tourists were pretty much as you describe, there for St Marks Square. The bigger change in recent times is the decline in industry. Globalisation makes a big difference. If you had a factory in Venice needing new plant and machinery, what would you do? You would sell up and move to Croatia or China. Tourism and an industry can be made to work, for instance London's West End has been the place for television post production for many decades. That is an industry that anchors a wider set of services and then on the periphery of that you get your tourist sites, e.g. Carnaby Street, Regent Street, Oxford Street. There is still this working core that is also served by different cafe's and bars to what the tourists go to, although there is some overlap. Underground trains and buses enable people to commute in and the core industry that is there cannot survive elsewhere. Try opening a post production edit suite in Leeds and see if any broadcasters come your way. Leeds is actually where Channel 4 are relocating to, but the gravitational pull of London's West End makes that difficult, something like 80% of the staff are leaving rather than moving up North. Venice is stuck in that the proper industry, e.g. the metal bashing stuff, just does not need to be there. It can't survive there and the transport links in for commuters are not what you get in most cities. The era of city states and mankind being mostly travelling by sea or river are not coming back. Venice can't monopolise silk, fancy things made of glass, lace or anything else that has to be made. They should have built some services fifty years ago to replace these specialisations with new specialisations. It is a tourist attraction now, that is not going to change. The people able to sell up and move should be lucky there is some AirBnB property tycoon willing to pay top dollar for their property.