As tourist flats proliferate in Lisbon, local residents are losing their sense of community. Maria, Alex, Esther, and Joao share their experiences of living in buildings dominated by tourists, highlighting the lack of connection, constant noise, and safety concerns that come with the trade.
When her husband, who had cancer at the time, took a tumble in the couple’s sixth-floor flat last year, Maria frantically wondered who she could call for help to lift him.
The 71-year-old is among those who have been left to grapple with southern Europe’s overtourism problem in the most intimate of ways: trading neighbours for a steady stream of suitcase-totting tourists in their buildings’ elevators, hallways and lobbies.some residents have found themselves living in buildings where tourist flats make up the majority of units. In the most extreme cases, residents have been left on their own, surrounded entirely by tourist flats.
“It’s horrible, absolutely horrible,” said Esther, who asked that her full name not be published. “It’s inhumane – nobody should live like this.” About 700 miles away in Lisbon, the sentiment was echoed by Joao Povoa. “I live sandwiched in between two tourist flats: one below and one above,” the 43-year-old said.
In early December, Lurdes Pinheiro, who lives Lisbon, decided she had had enough. For a decade, neighbours had trickled out of her five-floor building in the city’s Alfama neighbourhood, only to be swiftly replaced by tourists. “We decided to move out to places that still had some community.” Then came news that the building’s owner had been granted permission to convert all the 120 units into tourist flats. With the help of a local housing syndicate, the tenants began fighting back, leading to a halt in the conversion of flats until a court settled the matter.A man ties protest banners to the balcony of a building that was recently converted for tourist use, in the Sants neighbourhood of Barcelona, Spain. One banner reads: ‘No more tourist flats’.
Overtourism Housing Crisis Community Impact Lisbon Spain
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