All rights reservedWang, ShuZhang, Meng2023-10-092023-10-092017978-989-99801-3-6 (E-Book)https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14235/775Book of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Spaces of Dialog for Places of Dignity, Lisbon, 11-14th July, 2017Venice is the capital city of the Veneto region of northeastern Italy, with its main island isolated from the Adriatic Sea and surrounded by a vast shallow water area called the lagoon. In 1987, the main island of Venice and its lagoon area as a whole was assessed the world's natural and cultural heritage by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). What makes Venice unique is that it is not only a living city built on water with the ancient medieval urban layout, but it also remains plenty of well-preserved gorgeous palaces, brilliant churches as well as a huge number of architecture in different times and different styles. Unique tourism experience on water has brought high reputation to the historic city of Venice, while problems related to the excessive tourism population have occurred at the same time. With the prosperity of the tourism industry, social problems like the inflation of prices, gentrification, depopulation, high rate of vacant dwellings has greatly threatened the living condition for aboriginals and the conservation of historic dwellings in the main island of Venice. What’s worse, these problems could even interact each other to form a vicious circle. During the fifteen years from 1991 to 2005, the industries of Venice were shrinking in all sectors except for construction, hotels, banking and insurance, and academic research, which are all served for the tourism industry more or less Da Mosto, 2009. In this context, the employment rate of local residents has been continuously declining and thus their incomes are not enough to support the purchase of dwellings. As of 2011, the number of residents living in the historic center (main island) has been dropped to less than 60,000 people, nearly One-third of the population of the 1950sEnglishopenAccessconferenceObject2111-2118