campos

Interesting short documentary
https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/107194-056-A/re-sold-out-lisbon/

philat98

The Portuguese sent Columbus to America. Now the Americans are returning the favour.

Midgo

'Mass Tourism is Human Pollution' was a great bit of graffiti I saw in the Baixa 15 or so years ago
A few Portuguese will get very rich, most will get displaced, as happened in London long ago, and pretty much all other capitol and larger cities.
I went to Carnaby St yesterday, was like going to Colombo Shopping on a very small scale
Lisbon already sold its soul about 10 years ago, but it was a nice time bubble at the end of the last century, till it burst. Now it's pretty sterile
Its not just Americans tho, and I bet that poor Alfama lady was only paying under €50 a month rent for years, nothing is black and white
A majority of 'expat' websites and forums are geared up to the big sell too, under the image of 'helping people make a new life'
I am a miserable old sod

campos

I was surprised at the number of AL holiday flats in Alfama when I walked around.

philat98

There was no mention of learning Portuguese and the difficulty involved. The kids were going to a local school presumably taught in Portuguese.
$6k per month to the US relocation agency!

Midgo

Almost certainly an international school, St Julians or more probably the American School (cant remember name right now) there are plenty around Lisbon area. Big business.
Actually, expats are big business - 'we are so happy that you foreigners have moved into our poor little dirty run down city and helped us make it better' so false - Puuuuke! LOL

campos

Yes, I found that rather sick-making too. Still I suppose if they're paying such a fee every month, they'll tell them what they want to hear.

nigel.b

Lisbon was an amazing place in the 1980s. I don't need to be told about the poverty then. Wonderful tascas and restaurants. Times move on - for most Lisboetas the present must be a great improvement.

A marvelous book about even earlier Lisbon is : Lisbon, by David Wright and Patrick Swift.

Midgo

Will have a look at that book, thanks or the 'dica'!

'for most Lisboetas the present must be a great improvement.' is probably true, since the Lisboetas of today dont have those horrible poor Lisboetas bringing the tone down any more as they have pretty much been driven out of the city

Its not just the centre anymore either, places like Campo de Ourique and now Alvalade have been / are being gobbled up at a scary rate too.

nigel.b

I think the big change is that 40 years ago large numbers of people in Lisbon were paying tiny rents in controlled tenancies. At some point I'm sure that all changed.
Swift and Wright also wrote great books about Algarve and Minho. Late 1950s, and marvellously politically incorrect by our standards. Driving down to the Algarve they'll stop for lunch "and the bill for four of us, including three litres of wine and a bottle of brandy was £3." They then jump in the car and carry on south. (Not an exact quote - just the flavour of it.)
Another world.

MilkyMilky

Oof, difficult to watch.

I get the feeling there will be a lot of these people hitting that "end of the honeymoon period", and have faced the reality of life in Portugal.

I can imagine the husband has already given up finding work, and has started the usual YouTube channel / blog trying to make a living out of encouraging more people to follow them.

This hype is not good for anyone except a tiny minority who are basically selling their own country, and speculators.-Certainly bad for the Portuguese who cannot compete and are being pushed out of the cities / emigrating, bad for false expectations raised among migrants, and ultimately destructive to the reason was Portugal was a nice place to visit in the first place.

Moses2013

Unfortunately not just an issue in Portugal and Spain and other countries have been struggling with this for years. With direct flights from the US to Palma de Mallorca, residents are already worried that the next wave of wealthy foreigners will come. Good news for Portugal and posted today that the Golden Visa is coming to an end, but unfortunately it won't really help the areas that are already so expensive and you still have the D7 Visa like here in the video. Golden Visas

MilkyMilky

There is another very good video, which covers the reality in depth. The comments from Portuguese citizens are quite telling...

macliam

Shame it's narrated by, and from the point of view of, a Brazilian.....

Red Eric

The resurgence of this thread coincides with an announcement from the Prime Minister on Thursday about a range of proposals for tackling the problems created by very loose regulation in the holiday rentals sector, which is creating far more chaos for residential lettings than new residents.

There are initiatives for increasing the amount of public housing stock, for creating an affordable rents sector, for making residential lettings more attractive for landlords, and for curbs on new AL licenses plus ongoing reviews of existing.

They are, at present, merely draft proposals but they'll be being discussed more widely and brought before Parliament / taken through the rest of the legislative process in due course. Naturally, they haven't been greeted with universal enthusiasm and there's a lot of distortion in the framing of responses around the AL proposals and about public acquisition of derelict property for renovation and letting at affordable rates.

No doubt they will be knocked about a good deal and suffer significant losses along the way but it's interesting that the government is making a very plain acknowledgement that what is a basic right has become unaffordable for many and is causing significant social problems which need addressing with bold solutions, as opposed to just letting market forces rip.