This street in Lisbon is a minute’s walk from the Arroios parish council and less than a minute from Largo do Intendente. There is a building collapsing on the street, unstable, awaiting work, there is open sewage, stable, awaiting work. There are people selling and consuming crack 24 hours a day, every day of the year, growing. There has also been no electricity for years, the CML knows everything, the council knows everything and nothing happens. Complaints in app naminharua fall on deaf ears and appear as “resolved”. It is not safe to walk on this street, no child can go in and out alone because it is dangerous. There are groups of four, sometimes 15 people consuming, even at 7am or 2am, permanently, on the steps and entrances of our homes. When there were neighbors there was some protection, but that is over, now it seems like I live under house arrest. Nobody wants to visit us, the children don’t want to visit us.
Arguments, aggression and shouting are continuous, paving stones and beer bottles are thrown. In fact, the only nearby grocery store sells beer until the early hours of the morning so the street is an unlicensed bar with music from cell phones blaring. The litter of broken bottles, the use of the street as a bathroom and the continuous spit from those who consume crack they have been almost the same for three years, but they are getting worse. The mountain of rubbish that accumulates. The robberies, one of which was filmed – when I realize that the police are not coming, I decide to question the young man to let him drop the crowbar and he ends up running away. The trips to the police station to be told that, as they only have one computer, they cannot register my complaint. When I think it can’t get any worse, it does. They murdered a woman last month. But the terraces are full, in some streets in Graça it is even difficult to pass, all with different chairs (ugly), different cords (horrible), menus very typical (bad). Lisbon is horrible and, in some places, very dangerous.
For Lisbon City Council, as for almost all councils in this country, everything is fine as long as there is tourism. The retail country, the unprotected coast of southwest Alentejo and Costa Vicentina, the neighborhoods of Lisbon, it doesn’t matter, as long as there is tourism. And there is: on my street, despite all this, the Local Accommodation (AL) is full, always full. In fact, hardly anyone lives here anymore, so it’s so easy to make this the unlicensed bar, the unattended kick room, the open sewer slum, happily coexisting with the AL. For those who think tourism is regulated, be disappointed, it isn’t: as long as there is cheap beer, sun and a train to the beach it will remain crowded. In fact, the only measure for this neighborhood is to create a social hotel, not a student residence, not rent-controlled houses, just a hostel for homeless people. Maybe because they think scorched earth politics fits this neighborhood. The hostel for homeless people next to the grocery store crack and prostitution. So how can you organize knock knock to the favela, to see the city’s abandoned people.
When the entire country is like my street and tourism continues to vomit, perhaps it will be too late, but, however, as Fernando Medina says “there are no such things as too many tourists, that concept does not exist”. The Secretary of State for Tourism, Nuno Fazenda, said that 2023 was the best tourist year, describing it as “the best year ever”. They run Lisbon like a grocery store.
In the Canary Islands, they go on hunger strikes against this type of tourism, in Krakow they sue the city council for uncontrolled tourism. But in Barcelona, which has fewer tourists per inhabitant than Lisbon, they protect those who live in the city, limit AL and take away cruises. In Lisbon? In Portugal? Zero. The few timid measures to limit AL are being withdrawn. Who will stay in the city? Those who were born poor and have no dreams other than making beds, driving the tuk tuk and serve at the table.
