【单选题】
A On a recent fall morning, a large crowd blocked the steps at one of Venice's main tourist sites, the Rialto Bridge. The Rialto Bridge is one of the four bridges spanning the Grand C. It is the oldest bridge across the c, and was the dividing line between the districts of San Marco and San Polo. But on this day, there was a twist： it was filled with Venetians, not tourists.
B People are cheering and holding their carts in the air, says Giovanni Giorgio, who helped organize the march with a grassroots organization called Generazione ’90. The carts he refers to are small shopping carts—the symbol of a true Venetian. “It started as a joke,” he says with a laugh. “The idea was to put blades on the wheels! You know? Like Ben Hur. Precisely like that, you just go around and run people down. ''
C Venice is one of the hottest tourist destinations in the world. But that's a problem. Up to 90,000 tourists crowd its streets and c every day—far outnumbering the 55 ,000 permanent residents. The tourist increase is one key reason the city's population is down from 175,000 in the 1950s. The outnumbered Venetians have been steadily fleeing. And those who stick around are tired of living in a place where they can 't even get to the market without swimming through a sea of picturesnapping tourists. Imagine, navigating through 50,000 people while on the way to school or to work.
D Laura Chigi, a grandmother at the march, says the local and national governments have failed to do anything about the crowds for decades, because they 're only interested in tourism—the primary industry in Venice, worth more than $3 billion in 2015. “Venice is a cash cow,” she says, “and everyone wants a piece.
E ]Just beyond St. Mark’s Square, a cruise ship passes, one of hundreds every year that appear over their medieval (中世纪的） surroundings. Their massive wake creats waves at the bottom of the sea, weakening the foundations of the centuries-old buildings themselves. “ Every time I see a cruise ship, I feel sad,” Chigi says. “You see the mud it drags； the destruction it leaves in its wake? That hurts the ancient wooden poles holding up the city underwater. One day we '11 see Venice break down.”
F For a time, UNESCO, the cultural wing of the United Nations, seemed to agree. Two years ago, it put Italy on notice, saying the government was not protecting Venice. UNESCO considers the entire city a World Heritage Site, a great honor that means Venice, at the cultural level, belongs to all of the world's people. In 2014, UNESCO gave Italy two years to manage Venice, s flourishing tourism or the city would be placed on another list—World Heritage In Danger, joining such sites as Aleppo and Palmyra, destroyed by the war in Syria.
G Venice's deadline passed with barely a murmur (嘟哝)this summer, just as UNESCO was meeting in Istanbul. Only one representative, Jad Tabet from Lebanon, tried to raise the issue. “For several years, the situation of heritage in Venice has been worsening, and it has now reached a dramatic situation,” Tabet told UNESCO. “We have to act quickly, there is not a moment to waste. ''
H But UNESCO didn't even hold a vote. “It's been postponed until 2017，''says Anna Somers, the founder and CEO of The Art Newspaper and the former head of Venice in Peril, a group devoted to restoring Venetian art. She says the main reason the U. N. cultural organization didn 't vote to declare Venice a World Heritage Site In Danger is because UNESCO has become “ intensely politicized. There would have been some back-room negotiations.
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