SEVILLA, Spain – On a very narrow street in the center of Seville, Spain, there was an old house that I used to stop and look at as a teenager in the early 90s. I dreamed of owning it one day, or at least one similar to it in the neighborhood, which had a decent number of locals at the time.
I say “back then” because today this neighborhood, the Barrio de Santa Cruz, has lost its soul. That's not me saying it, it's what you hear from almost everyone who lives or works in the neighborhood.
Many long-time residents have left the country, saying they were buoyed by a wave of tourism that has returned with a vengeance after the pandemic.
This is good news for the city and its economy. But it's mixed news for almost anyone whose memories are tied to these narrow streets, now filled with souvenir shops, boutique hotels and restaurants where locals no longer feel entirely welcome.
This is the story of how a city tries to honor its past while securing its future.
Students are being replaced by selfies
There is still a public school in the heart of the Barrio de Santa Cruz. It almost seems like a relic from another time, when this area hadn't yet turned into a museum of sorts.
Ana Palacio is the principal of San Isidoro School. She joined seven years ago, when student admissions were still competitive.
“When we started receiving applications, people were camping outside the door and staying overnight to get a place for their children,” she tells me.
Now she has free spaces in her classrooms, and the reason is simple. Palacio looks up and points to the beautiful old houses in front of the school on Mateos Gago Street.
“All these houses where families used to live and send their children to our school – all these houses are now apartments for tourists,” she says.
For Palacio, this isn't just a minor inconvenience.
“I have real problems here. When kids come in and out of school, there are a lot of tourists at the door,” she says. “Since the school building is a beautiful old monastery, tourists want to take photos and videos.”
The tourism boom is leading to a kind of migration. Locals have left the historic center and migrated to other parts of the city, driving up rents across the city. Palacio gets emotional when he talks about how Sevilla is changing.
“We have the largest historic city center in Europe. Let’s not ruin it,” she says. “If there are no neighbors who care personally – neighbors who are hurt when they see this tree disrespected, when they see a glass bottle thrown on the ground – then we need those neighbors, and We’re losing them.”
This change is not limited to the city center. Palacio lives in Triana, a neighborhood overlooking the Guadalquivir River, which has also become a tourist attraction in recent years.
She says it affects the way locals enjoy the city and that in areas where tourists flock, locals sometimes don't even feel welcome in tapas bars and restaurants.
“In Seville you order your first beer at the bar. Then you sit down and chat with your friends. Then maybe you order a tapa. And after a while you order another one. And before you know it, there are 5 or 6 in the evening,” she says.
That would be the Sevillian way. But many restaurants are no longer owned by the locals or simply prefer to serve tourists who sit for an hour, order quickly and generously and then move on.
These days it's not uncommon for restaurants to stop serving tapas and not let you sit at a table if you're not ready to order a meal.
There are those who benefit from it
However, there are some restaurants that are still locally owned and try to maintain a balance between capitalizing on the tourism boom and serving local customers.
On Mateos Gago Street, a short walk from San Isidoro School, I stand in front of a small restaurant called La Azotea. I know this place well; More than two decades ago it was called Campanario. I worked here when I was in my early twenties.
I meet Juan Antonio Gómez, the chef and owner of La Azotea, outside his restaurant, where the view from the tables is simply breathtaking. The tower of Seville Cathedral, La Giralda, is the symbol of the city. If you come to Seville, chances are you will walk down this street and visit it.
When Gómez opened his first location, his customers were mostly locals.
“But soon – about three months – we will start receiving our first tourist. And a year later, we have lines at the door every day at opening time for 30 people, mostly tourists,” says Gómez. His story confirms a truth now well known in Seville: if a restaurant is good, tourists will find it.
Gómez says he wishes he could see more locals on Mateos Gago Street – an area he has known since attending the same San Isidoro school as a child, which is now struggling to find students.
Tourism is a driver of the Spanish economy. In 2022, it accounted for more than 11% of the national GDP. Things are even worse in Seville, where tourism accounts for an estimated 20% of the city's economy.
This southern region of Spain, where Seville is located, has also long suffered from unemployment, which currently stands at just over 18% – around 5 points above the national average. So you can understand how service sector jobs are a lifeline for the city, which welcomed nearly 2 million visitors in the first eight months of 2023 alone – 14% more than last year.
Gómez is of course benefiting from this tourism boom, but he has mixed feelings: “What I'm seeing in Seville is something I've never seen before. It's huge. And I think, one way or another, we have to stop a little bit.”
The year changed everything
Sevillians point to the year 1992, which brought about a change for the city. It was the year in which Seville hosted the International Expo, which became a kind of presentation party and celebrated the 500th anniversary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas.
Seville presented itself to the world as a place full of beauty and historical landmarks. Hundreds of acres of unused land were transformed into a sort of international theme park, with more than 100 nations represented in pavilions.
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Tens of millions of people visited Seville this year. Billions of dollars were invested in the city: bridges were built across the Guadalquivir River; Dozens of new hotels opened; A high-speed train between Madrid and Seville has been inaugurated. and the city viewed the historic center as its crown jewel. A gem that desperately needed care.
Miguel López was 10 years old at the time and lived in the Alameda neighborhood – a huge open space full of restaurants. Like the city center back then, his neighborhood was falling apart, he tells me, and many houses needed drastic renovation.
Crime was common in central areas, and it was not uncommon to go out onto the streets and find yourself alone and vulnerable to theft or worse.
Before the wave of trade fair investment, the Andalusia region had a staggering unemployment rate of 30%, rising to over 50% among young people.
López was fascinated by the Expo with all its promise of change and progress as a child and visited the site many times that year. On the way home he had to cross the Alameda, an area then known for drugs, crime and sex workers.
“Now my son, who is 12, plays soccer at Alameda,” says López. “The only problem he encounters is the complaints from customers in restaurants who might get hit by a soccer ball here and there.”
Investment led to increasing tourist flows, which led to gentrification and beautiful new pedestrian streets and well-preserved buildings.
This also meant high – and still rising – rental prices. López still lives in the neighborhood today and has tried to access subsidized housing in the area, but to no avail.
When he was recently checking out Airbnb properties in his neighborhood, he got a surprise: a subsidized semi-detached home in the area was listed on the website.
“I was so angry that I notified the city,” López said.
It's not uncommon for locals to try to make money off tourist demand for accommodation, but for López this was crossing the line. Someone lucky enough to win the bid on a house in the city center turned around and listed it as a tourist apartment.
And yet López also admits to renting his apartment through Airbnb for a few months while he was away.
“When I made it, it was more about survival, not about a business,” López says. “We have to resort to shared apartments in order to be able to afford them. We will have to share an apartment at the end of our lives.”
Housing is becoming a hot topic
In December, the council voted against a proposed “tourist tax” that would have charged visitors staying overnight in Seville after Mayor José Luis Sanz and his conservative party opposed it.
The mayor had previously stated that in some areas of the city, such as the Barrio de Santa Cruz, there was an oversaturation of accommodation for tourists and that there was a certain phobia of tourism among locals.
However, he also says tourists have brought economic benefits to the city that should not be overlooked.
“Many belong to Sevillian companies and have brought wealth and contributed to the city’s economic growth,” he says. “Without them, many blocks and old houses would have disappeared.”
A 2022 study found that more than 60% of properties in Barrio de Santa Cruz are used to accommodate tourists. In other districts in the historic center it is more than 20%, and overall the concentration of hotels and accommodation for tourists in the center of Seville is the highest of any city in Spain.
Just outside the Barrio de Santa Cruz you will find another central neighborhood, the San Bartolomé neighborhood, where Ana Álvarez-Ossorio was born and raised. She now lives there with her husband and daughter, who attends San Isidoro School.
She tells a well-known story: When she was little, the neighborhood wasn't necessarily a desirable place to live for the locals. Many houses urgently needed to be renovated or completely demolished. This is one of the reasons her parents were able to afford an entire house in what is now a prime location.
“It was a working class area back then. The families didn’t have a lot of money,” says Álvarez-Ossorio. The 1992 Expo changed that.
“A city plan was implemented that was intended to bring the entire historic center back to life. Wealthy people moved in and started buying properties. Prices rose and the working class left the city center,” says Álvarez-Ossorio.
Today the center is experiencing another period of profound change. And this time it's not wealthy locals, but tourists.
“Seville hosts everything from the Latin Grammys to international football events. Anything to attract tourists,” says Álvarez-Ossorio. “And so all the apartments are fully booked. The historic center is transformed into an amusement park.”
Álvarez-Ossorio represents the tension at play – she feels uncomfortable with the change, but also benefits from it by becoming an Airbnb host herself. After she and her sister moved out of the family home, they decided to renovate it and rent out most of it to tourists. Ana's father still lives in the building, in a smaller apartment that was available to him.
When I ask her about possibly restricting the use of apartments for tourists, she has mixed feelings.
“What worries me most is that long-term rental apartments are disappearing in the city center. Because anyone who has a free apartment asks themselves: Do I rent it for 600 euros a month, or do I turn it into an apartment for tourists and rent it out.” 3500 euros? But we need boundaries because our city center will turn into a huge hotel.”
My dream of owning my own house in the city center has long been over.
Instead, I now live just around the corner from a small construction site where my new house is being built. The district is just outside the city center. Many consider this area to be the “new center” of Seville, where the locals live and where businesses still thrive. But things can change quickly.
I noticed that there are more and more groups of tourists walking around. Here you live in apartments that are cheaper than those within the old town walls. And I wonder: How long will it take for my neighborhood to change?