[michaelteter]

It’s ridiculous to blame digital nomads. If there is a primary source to blame, it would be Airbnb.

This gentrification and tourist problem began well before Lisbon became a DN favorite.

Also it’s a global problem as wealth accumulation means individuals and companies can’t find enough places to “safely” put cash. Real estate, especially when it can generate good income, is an obvious choice.

Plus, Portugal attracts wealthy Brazilians who want a comfortable, safe, and European home.

[presentation]

If Airbnb is the problem then just sounds like supply is out of whack with demand. Sounds like they ought to be building more homes and transport infrastructure to cope with the demand. Though based on other comments also sounds like it’s not the most competent local government.

[michaelteter]

It's not so simple. For one thing, it's a very old city that is already full of buildings. Unless you want to raze buildings and rebuild (the most extreme form of gentrification, and also the way to ruin the historical charm), there's really not place to build new housing. You have to go quite some distance from the city center to find space. And then you need a lot of new transportation infrastructure to make it attractive/possible to get from the new available housing to the city center.

And just as it is difficult to build more housing in an already full city, upgrading or building new transportation infrastructure is very difficult and costly (and disruptive for years to the people currently living there).

There's really little that can be done to balance things. When "everyone" decides that Lisbon is cool (and it is!), they all want to visit. So naturally any apartment or building owner who can convert from local long term rentals to tourist short term rentals (at many X the price) will just based on the profit potential.

And when property companies realized this, they began buying whatever they could - both as a good long term investment in the real estate itself, and for pretty great tourist income.

Many places in the US and elsewhere in the world have the same problem.

[presentation]

That’s all fine and good but if old established cities—which by definition are desirable else they wouldn’t be so established—just cannot change like you’re describing, then they’re doomed no matter what. Never said it’s simple, just stating a fact, and even if some people don’t like it then they have to choose what they value more. Seems like most of these cities just refuse to choose, which is a choice in itself, and then default to the status quo.

Personally if you don’t want to change the physical form of the city too much, the least disruptive approach is to build a lot of efficient transit towards the outskirts. It’s what Tokyo does and it scales to 40m people mostly living in low rise homes, no out of place towers necessary.