NEW INTERNATIONALIST (MARCH 2019)
Tourism is booming in Porto, Portugal’s second largest city, where visitors now outnumber residents 8 to 1 – a higher ratio than Barcelona or London – according to the Institute for Tourism Planning and Development.
Most of Magalhães’ neighbours were evicted by landlords who want to transform their apartments into more lucrative short-term rentals or forced out by inflated rents. Rental prices in the city centre have increased by 88 per cent since 2013, resulting in the forced eviction of over a thousand people from Porto’s historical centre.
‘There are only hotels here now,’ says Magalhães, now 70, who has lived in the neighbourhood her entire life. She will be forced to move out next year, and fears that with her meagre retirement pension she will be unable to find another hom.
The government deregulated Portugal’s property market in 2011, following the country’s international bailout, and started providing ‘golden visas’ to buyers of properties worth $560 million or more. The ensuing influx of foreign investment, and market liberalization, made housing unaffordable and evictions increasingly common.
Housing in Portugal is increasingly seen as an asset from which to profit rather than a right. Last summer, hundreds of residents took to the streets to protest evictions and demand rent-control and tourism regulation. They find themselves pushed to the city’s margins, see local shops closing and public space shrinking.
‘They are forgetting our right to the city,’ says Antonio Dias, a resident who is also facing eviction. He blames local governors and greedy developers for the gentrification that is hollowing out Porto.
