"Daitoshiken Venezia' ni kansuru giron ni okeru mizu to wōtāfuronto moshikuwa kakete iru ronten"

The image of Venice as a unique, fragile and endangered city contributes to nurture an evaluation approach to its problems, resources and opportunities for socio-economic development that tends to emphasize diversity, uniqueness, and specificity. However, the Venice system is constituted by three different sub-systems of waterfronts: the historic city and the system of lagoon islands, the “internal lagoon” and the “upper Adriatic coastal” ones. The evolution of this complex coastal region has not governed properly so far: administrative fragmentation, very poor vertical and horizontal coordination and the lacking of a strategic vision regarding its evolution have resulted in an “incremental” approach to planning and management. This in turn has not contributed to address effectively the most important economic, social and environmental problems that affect Venice coastal region as a whole. Against this background, the Delrio established in 2014 the Metropolitan City of Venice. While it is correct to frame the problem of governing Venice within a metropolitan governance perspective, the first steps taken in the implementation process of the just mentioned metropolitan reform show very relevant weaknesses. In particular, water and the waterfront(s), not only as a problem to be managed but also as an asset for future development, do not receive the attention it deserves. This is a paradox, since what really characterizes Venice compared to other Italian metropolitan cities is the complexity of the relation the territorial system maintains with water and the system of waterfronts.