Mexico City (AP) – A fierce protest in Mexico City’s director against genetration and mass tourism was fueled by the rules of the government and the active promotion to attract digital nomads, according to experts who have stated that tension has been increasing for years.
The criticism comes after Mexican President Claudia Shainbaum claims that the protest on Friday is marked by xenophobia, reviving a debate on the influx of Americans in the city.
Many Mexicans say they were priced at their neighborhoods because of a move made by Shainbaum in 2022, when she was mayor of Mexico City and signed an agreement with Airbnb and UNESCO to strengthen tourism and attract digital nomads, despite the concern for having short-term rents.
“Gringo: Stop stealing our home”
On Friday, it reached the head. To a large extent, a peaceful protest of hundreds of demonstrators went through the city tourist centers with signs that read “Gringo: Stop stealing our home” and “Housing provisions now!”
At the end of the march, a group of protesters became violence, breaking the windows of the windows and looting a number of businesses. In one case, the protesters hit a knife for oil on the window of a restaurant where people were hiding, and another person draws “Kill Gringo” on a nearby wall.
“The xenophobic displays observed in this protest must be condemned. No one should be able to say” every nationality to get out of our country “even above a legitimate problem such as Gentification,” Sheyinbaum said on Monday. “We have always been open, fraternal.”
The powerless were built in years of mass tourism and raising the prices of rents in large parts of the city. The influx of foreigners began around 2020, when the Americans flooded in Mexico to work remotely, give up coronavirus restrictions, and benefit from the more cheaper costs of life.
In the years afterwards, neighborhoods such as Roma and Condes, lush central regions, full of cafes and markets, have become more and more populated by foreign tourists and remote workers known as digital nomads, and have more timely housing units hired through companies such as Airbnb.
As they have, rent and life prices are rising and English is increasingly common on the streets of these areas. Some groups have described the phenomenon as something like “neo -colonialism”.
Installation voltage
Mexico City’s anti -aging front, one of the organizations behind the protest, was “completely against” all acts of physical violence, and denied that the protests were xenophobic. Instead, the organization said the protest was the result of years of failures by local authorities to deal with the root of problems.
“Gentification is not just the fault of foreigners, it is the guilt of the government and those companies that give priority to the money that foreigners carry,” said the organization. Meanwhile, “Young people and the working class cannot afford to live here.”
In its list of requests, the organization calls for a greater control of the rent, mandates, that the locals have a voice in bigger projects for development in their field, the larger laws make it difficult for landlords to throw away residents and prioritize Mexican tenants over foreigners.
Mexico’s protest comes on the back of a wave of similar protests across Europe, which is facing mass tourism. The tension in Mexico is also complicated by the broader inequalities and the Trump administration aimed at Latin American communities in the United States as it increases deportations.
The US Department of Interior Security has hit the protesters on Sunday, writing in a publication on the social media platform X: “If you are illegally and want to join the next protest in Mexico City, use the CBP home app to make it easier.”
The rules of the government
The shouts of protesters against the failures of the government were voiced by experts who stated that increasing genetration was a product of both a shortage of affordable housing in the city and the long -standing failures in the government to regulate the housing market.
Antonio Azuela, a lawyer and sociologist and others said they saw the protest as a xenophobic reaction, and around 2020 the nucleus of the problem was the influx of “digital nomads” in the city, but it grew of use due to weak housing laws.
“What this blast has done is the lack of market regulation,” Azuela said.
The government of Mexico City has made several efforts to control development and create homes at affordable prices over decades.
The legislators have considered that there are about 2.7 million houses and apartments in the city, but it needs about 800,000 more. But similar residential developments that appear are often pushed to the city’s border, said Luis Salinas, a researcher at the National Autonomous University in Mexico, who has been studying genetration in Mexico City for years.
By taking advantage of “insufficient” laws
Meanwhile, the controls were marked by the lack of implementation, of which companies for tourist services for developers like Airbnb take advantage, he said.
Today, over 26,000 properties in Mexico City are currently listed in Airbnb, according to Inside Airbnb, an advocacy organization that traces the company’s influence on residential communities through data. This is compared to 36,000 properties in New York and 19,000 in Barcelona, where protests also exploded.
“The government was treated with homes like goods,” Salinas said. The actions that the government is taking “are completely insufficient. The federal government should interfere a lot more nowadays.”
Airbnb said this helped bring more than a billion dollars to the “economic impact” to Mexico City last year and that the guests’ costs supported 46,000 jobs in the city. “Regulation is needed not on prohibitions, but on respect for the rights and transparency of obligations,” a statement said.
Last year, the Government of Mexico City approved the most ambitious rents control law of the 1940s in an attempt to control prices and also set restrictions on short-term rents up to 180 nights a year, but Salinas said the application of short-term lease legislation by 2026 at the World Cup.
And even then, the government of the country will have to take much more actions to get the situation under control, Azuela said.
“It won’t end, just reigning in Airbnb,” he said. “They will have to do a lot more.”