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This crane and scaffolding in Piazza Santa Maria Novella are the symbols of a hyper-concentrated wealth that is draining Italy. Florence is an incredibly wealthy city, turned into an endless construction site just to polish a storefront for the exclusive benefit of foreign capital. Yet, this raises a massive civic question: why is the rest of Italy, which treasures towns and cities of breathtaking beauty often superior to Florence, unable to develop organized and sustainable tourism?The result of this short-sighted management is clear to everyone. We have sold out our historical heritage to an actual foreign economic colonization: Americans, Germans, and Northern Europeans arrive with overwhelming purchasing power, occupying our spaces for months and turning our cities into private playgrounds. Meanwhile, the Italian people—the rightful heirs to this immense culture—grow poorer, endure stagnant wages, and can no longer afford to live or vacation in their own homeland.Italy should not be an open construction site for wealthy foreigners only, nor a peninsula split between gold-mines stripped to the bone and forgotten wonders. The wealth generated by art should belong first and foremost to those who inhabit, protect, and work this land every day, restoring dignity to citizens and putting a halt to a mass tourism that is making us strangers in our own home.