THE CONTINENT ISN'T FAR BEHIND:

Mock Funeral for Venice Dramatizes Flight of Residents From City’s Heart (RACHEL DONADIO, 11/15/09, NY Times)

At high noon on Saturday, a gondola bearing a hot-pink plywood coffin decked with yellow flowers made its way down the Grand Canal. Onlookers watched from the shore and shouted greetings from the Rialto Bridge before the boat alighted nearby in front of the Venice city hall.

Part photo opportunity, part political theater, the spectacle was the centerpiece of a fake funeral for the city of Venice. A group of prankster-provocateurs organized it to protest the fact that the number of residents in Venice’s historic center has dropped below 60,000, down from 74,000 in 1993, as rising rents and hordes of tourists have pushed thousands to the mainland.