Creating a New City-Identity: How a Culture-Led Regeneration of Mestre Could Help Venice’s Overtourism Effect

The paper discusses how an urban regeneration process, with culture as an economic asset proposed for the city of Mestre, could contribute in creating a city-brand and identity for the latter, a new habitat and economic opportunities for the local community, as well as helping Venice to tackle its overtourism effect. The cities and regions who suffered the effects of post-industrial economic decline after the Seventies, had to go through a process of “reimagining” their “urban brand”, while tried to find new “functions”, in order to survive economically and socially. This effort, towards transforming industrial cities into service-oriented economies, was accompanied by a growing interest in using culture and tourism as tools for regeneration. Our case-study, Mestre, is one of those cities in struggle to create an identity of its own, as the city suffered a deindustrialization process in the last years. Mestre’s urban identity and services were always related directly to Venice and to the industrial district of Marghera. As a result, the city never really gained a personal urban identity, a city-brand of its own. However, we believe that Mestre could play a key-role in tackling Venice’s overtourism effect and in offering itself a new future. Very often, contexts located close to ones characterized by overtourism, suffer undertourism effects, like deterioration and abandonment, even though the latters could contribute immensely in helping to regulate the touristic flows for their neighbouring cities characterized by overtourism, by creating a differentiated touristic offer for themselves. Studies show that contexts suffering from undertourism are the majority compared to the ones suffering from overtourism, in other words, it’s a phenomenon constituting a significant threat for numerous places around the world. On the other hand, brilliant case studies around the world, which envisioned and applied a culture-led regeneration process, showed us that abandoned and deteriorated areas were revived, offering a new life for the latters, economically and socially. This process generated new professional networks, spaces of contamination, a new residentiality and multiple services for residents and visitors to enjoy; as a result, they became with time an interesting place to visit and a to live in. The paper reports the results of a research concerning the Piave district in Mestre, an important transit zone between the railway station and the city center, but also a degraded one. We envision and propose a culture-led regeneration process, based on the local strengths and on the local socio-cultural profile; profile characterized historically by culture, craftsmanship and art. We believe this process would strengthen local identity, self-confidence and local economy. As seen in other succeeded cases in the past, creative businesses are able to transform degraded areas, creating a vibrant ecology made by small micro businesses, young artists, new start-ups, professional aggregations and consume-oriented activities; the long-term result is not only a great place to visit but also a great place to live. The paper aims in highlighting that urban regeneration policies driven by culture, for contexts suffering from undertourism, which very often are located closely to those suffering from overtourism, could be a key-solution for both contexts, for their needs: for the first ones, in creating a new future, identity and economic opportunities for its community and for the second ones, in regulating and managing their touristic flows.