Tourists Welcome, Tenants Evicted: The Cartography of Displacement

It starts with a key in a lockbox. A stranger dragging a suitcase past your door. A bakery turns into a brunch bar. The neighbor you waved to each morning? Gone. What remains is a hollowed-out version of the city, preserved for consumption but no longer for life. It looks like Lisbon, sounds like Lisbon, but it doesn’t breathe like Lisbon anymore.

This isn’t a housing crisis. It’s a cultural erasure—mapped, monetized, and platformed.

From Homes to Hosts

What began as a design conference workaround—three air mattresses in a San Francisco living room—evolved into a multibillion-dollar industry. Airbnb told a seductive story: extra income for homeowners, authentic experiences for travelers. But behind that narrative was a radical reframing of housing. No longer shelter, no longer social infrastructure, a home became an asset in a global marketplace.

In Lisbon, the change was swift and visible. Between 2014 and 2019, the number of short-term rental units more than tripled. By 2023, there were over 15,000 Airbnb listings in the city, with around 10,971 of them active. Santa Maria Maior parish, which includes Alfama and Baixa, became a case study in displacement: over 70% of its housing stock was listed as short-term rentals by 2022. These conversions meant fewer homes for residents and more listings for visitors. Entire buildings flipped from long-term housing to alojamento local. What was once a space for life became a revolving door of five-star reviews.

The so-called “hosts” were rarely residents. More than 73% of listings in Lisbon were managed by multi-property owners. Some hosts operated entire portfolios—one company alone listed over 200 apartments. Airbnb's “sharing” economy masked a shadow industry of professionalized tourist real estate.

Mapping the Machine

The transformation is traceable, if you know where to look. Data maps of Lisbon reveal Airbnb’s density like thermal scans. In central parishes like Santa Maria Maior and Misericórdia, Airbnb saturation reached 24 listings per 100 households—nearly a quarter of all homes. Meanwhile, neighborhoods like Benfica or Lumiar saw almost no short-term rental pressure. The divide was stark: the city center became a hospitality engine, while the periphery remained residential.

This transformation removed thousands of beds from the long-term market. A 2024 analysis estimated that over 106,000 potential resident beds were locked into short-term tourist use. Between 2015 and 2023, rents in Lisbon rose by more than 100%. By mid-2023, average rents exceeded €1,460. For many, it meant displacement—not just from central neighborhoods but from the city altogether.

Signs of relief came in 2024. Following new regulations, the first quarter saw a 21.1% drop in asking rents year-on-year. Still, rents remained high—averaging €1,700—and the damage had been done: neighborhoods were emptied of long-time residents, replaced by a temporary clientele.

The Anatomy of a Dead Zone

When a neighborhood becomes an Airbnb hub, it doesn’t just become more expensive. It becomes less alive.

Local retail shops are replaced by wine bars. Schools lose enrollment. Elderly residents feel surveilled, alienated, or unsafe. Tourists want “authenticity,” but their arrival sterilizes it. What was once a lived-in space becomes a carefully staged tableau—pretty, rentable, and lifeless.

During off-season months, the illusion collapses. Blocks of apartments go dark. Cafés close early. Laundry lines disappear. A neighborhood built for hospitality becomes inhospitable.

Locals describe it as a kind of slow ghosting. You don’t notice the absence all at once. But one day, you realize: the city doesn’t know your name anymore.

Resistance is a Verb

Cities have not been entirely passive. Lisbon enacted early zoning restrictions in 2019, blocking new Airbnb licenses in 20 of its 24 parishes. In 2023, the national “Mais Habitação” law froze new short-term rental licenses altogether. Existing AL registrations were capped at 5 years and became subject to renewal reviews. By 2024, over 1,900 inactive listings were purged from the system.

When a new national government tried to reverse these rules, Lisbon pushed back. In October 2024, the city council unanimously froze all new licenses citywide, overriding national attempts to deregulate. The message was clear: Lisbon could not absorb more tourist rentals without sacrificing its soul.

Resistance didn’t stop at policy. Thousands marched in the streets in 2023 and 2024 under banners like “Casa Para Morar.” Activists launched Lisbon’s first citizen-driven referendum demanding a full ban on Airbnb-style rentals in residential buildings. Over 6,500 signatures were gathered, and by late 2024, the city’s municipal assembly had forwarded the proposal to the Constitutional Court.

What We Could Do

If we are serious about reclaiming the city, we must do more than restrict platforms. We must rebuild what they hollowed out.

Cap the number of short-term rentals per neighborhood—not a blanket ban, but a precise urban planning tool. Require that hosts be full-time residents. Tax short-term rental income into a public housing fund. Create a digital housing observatory where listings are transparent, mappable, and monitored. Buy back buildings. Protect tenancy. Turn tourist profit into public good.

Cities like Amsterdam, New York, and Barcelona are experimenting with these solutions. Lisbon is part of that vanguard. The city has the chance—not yet lost—to redraw its social contract in favor of those who live here, not those who visit.

Future Cartographies

The question isn’t whether tourism and technology belong in cities. The question is: on whose terms?

If Airbnb mapped out a logic of extraction, we must begin to draw a counter-map—one of presence, solidarity, and permanence. A map where rent isn’t measured in profit per night but in possibility per life. Where the best neighborhoods aren’t the most monetizable, but the most livable. Where staying becomes more valued than arriving.

Because the real luxury is not a terrace view. It’s the right to remain.