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0 pointszemvpferreira1y ago0 comments

As a Lisbon native, please don't feel like you're part of the problem. We've painted ourselves into a corner by failing to build more than a couple of thousand homes per year for a decade. I'm not even exaggerating, a few thousand new units per year is our current rate of building as a mega-popular European capital, home to 3 million people.

At the same time as we've completely failed to expand housing stock, we invented a new visa to allow wealthy foreigners to immigrate without a hitch. Then later a new visa to allow anyone who wanted to immigrate without a hitch (which about 600k people from developing economies took advantage of in the last five years).

There is nothing about our situation that has been worsened by tourism. It's the one economic sector driving the country forwards and I'm personally very grateful it has developed so much. A large part of my extended network can only make ends meet because of jobs created by tourism.

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galfarragem1y ago

A large part of my extended network can only make ends meet because of jobs created by tourism.

Also true: the amount of money needed to make ends meet doubled because of the large influx of people…

The real question is: did the majority of natives improved their life with it?

zemvpferreiraOP1y ago

Not a lie, but not globally true. The price of milk and bread hasn't gone up because of extra people. Neither has the pice of gas. I know plenty of people who own their homes or have old bulletproof rental contracts that have felt the crunch of rising prices.

I finished college right at the beginning of the financial crisis. I can't overstate how bad of a state Portugal was in around 2010. There have been no jobs and no money for a long time. Since I can remember we have been the third world of the first world. Tourism and outside investment in real estate have been the one thing that's capitalised Portugal in a decade. There's been nothing else for decades.

Of course you're right that there have been economic losers from this recent large influx of people. The poorer segment especially has been betrayed by a government who opened the doors to functionally slave labour from Pakistan. There's no competing with half a million people who will pay to work if they're given a contract that allows them to stay in the EU. But that's not tourism's fault. We created our own reality.

secondcoming1y ago

The exact same conversations about lack of housing supply is happening in Ireland and the UK. The problem is highlighted now because the rate of immigration has increased sharply.

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