It was bound to be explosive: a town of 55,000-odd inhabitants - living along narrow, twisting alleyways; going about their business in transport severely limited by the geography of the place - besieged each day by an influx of 70,000 or more visitors, well over half of whom are day-trippers. "At any time after 9am, the vast majority of the people you see on the streets of Venice are tourists. And everyone's catering to them," says resident Michela Scibilia."Your butcher's selling them water, your grocer's selling them ice creams." Locals, she says, resent feeling like an afterthought.These days, this resentment boils over most visibly in boisterous waterborne protests against massive cruise ships, 521 of which dwarfed the Doge's palace en route to Venice's passenger terminal in 2015. But while 10 monsters per week stirring up the lagoon's fragile ecosystem is a massive environmental problem, they disgorged "just" 1.8 million passengers into Venice's tiny centro - a small proportion of a total greater than 25million, according to local tourist board figures.The roots of bad feeling between Venice and its visitors arguably lie elsewhere, in inadequate infrastructure and lack of strategic planning in the tourism sector.Venetians are riled when their favourite café is packed out by people queuing for the bathroom, not realising that those 70000 daily visitors must make do with just eight public toilets in the centre of Venice, almost all of which close at 7pm. They remonstrate with tourists picnicking on bridges or in squares - something which can get you a à50 fine - but budget-conscious travellers will struggle to find a park bench where they can take the edge off their hunger.With property in Venice being snapped up to swell the current offering of around 30000 beds, housing is another bone of contention. Buy-to-rent purchasers - most of them nonresidents - have pushed already high prices even further skywards.Lax zoning restrictions mean that rooms anywhere can become tourist lodgings. Workers are being priced out of the city, and forced to commute from the mainland."It's quite common now to find you're the only person living in your block," says Scibilia. "All the other doors have codes. These aren't like B&Bs. Guests let themselves in and out. They have no contact with their absentee landlords."The implication is that many Venetians who remain in Venice are becoming more and more estranged from the industry that's driving the economy of their unique home.Scibilia gives the example of restaurants. Chains of sandwich bars and fast-food cafés are proliferating in the city. Comfortingly familiar to international visitors, these places have nothing Venetian about them, and bring nothing to locals.Venetians, especially those who aren't involved in the sector, moan that it's tourists who are ruining the city, according to Luisella Romeo, a registered Venice guide."A colleague of mine was leading a big group down an alley when suddenly an old Venetian lady ran at her, shouting, brandishing an umbrella. She had to fend her off with the stick she was holding aloft to keep her group together. It became a kind of fencing match."Apart from the odd example of uncouth behaviour (pictures of foreign men relieving themselves in rubbish bins feature regularly in local press), it's not the tourists themselves who are creating the problems: it's a combination of lax rules and vested interests.There are, for example, no restrictions on tour group numbers. "If I try to tell a big tour operator that I'm not happy leading a group of 50, that I'll find them another guide and we'll do 25 each, they'll simply drop me and find someone less fussy," Romeo says. "The larger the group, the more they earn."Similarly, the failure to reroute towering cruise ships away from St Mark's can't be put down solely to bickering between national and local authorities. The passenger terminal generates something in the region of ?220-million per year for the city, and employs around 4000 people. Whatever the threat to the environment, politicians are loath to jeopardise this by relocating the terminal and rerouting ships.A 1988 academic study put Venice's maximum visitor tolerance level at 20750 per day, less than one third of its current traffic. Yet despite the overwhelming influx, the city continues to be a unique and truly magical place.For Scibilia, the onus is on locals to make their lives feel less blighted. Twenty years ago, the magnificent Regata Storica along the Grand Canal on the first Sunday of September was a heartfelt Venetian festivity. Now residents can't get near it for tourist groups. But pre-Regata parties for residents in 15 squares around the city this year were a huge success, re-grounding Venetians in their traditions.Off the tourist routes, Venetians are rethinking their role in the city. Scibilia cites the many local artisans, and young people on the island of Sant'Erasmo who are growing organic vegetables and making wine."The city's on the verge of collapse," she says, "and drastic decisions need to be taken. But even to tourists, Venice makes no sense without inhabitants." - ©The Telegraph..