Overurism: on June 15 in different cities of Europe manifests itself. The Italian activist: “Tourism will not save us, on the contrary, puts the right to live in our cities at risk”

For Sunday June 15th have been called throughout Europe Events against Overurism. It is a organized international mobilization day of the network Set, southern Europe in the face of tourism Which in Italy will bring the demonstrators to Venice, Naples, Genoa, and other large and small cities where this theme is heard.

We got in touch with an activist from a collective in Genoa, who is organizing the Italian participation. Born in 2018 in Spain, Set has faced the since then effects of the extension of the tourist industry on urban territory: right to use, proliferation of tourist leasesselling out of public heritage, saturation of transport, gentrification of historic centers and hyper -production of precarious work.

Why do you want to remain anonymous?
«It is not that we do not want to be visible, but some of us participated in the summit organized by the set in Barcelona on 27 April, in which 24 people were stopped and identified by the Catalan police for delaying the departure of a tourist bus for 10 minutes. AND
When we returned to Italy we started to meet with other people who were not in Barcelona to start planning what we would have done on June 15 and as soon as they left the first meeting, three of us were stopped and identified in Digos and it was the day on which the Security Decree was approved “.

What will happen on June 15 in Italian cities?
«It depends a lot on the level of Outmotourism of each city. In the sense that there are places like Venice and Florence where you have to speak by force of decrease. While in other cities, like mine, the situation is different: in Genoa, the changes deriving from the impact of tourism have been visible for less time and “minors” ».

So, what have you organized in Genoa?
«We will take a noisy walk through the alleys of the historic center of the city to bring to attention the two main problems he suffers from. The first is naval traffic and the pollution that follows and which in this season increases exponentially because most of the ferries to Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily and North Africa start from here. Polar is a big problem, which has not been solved in previous years, when there was the possibility of starting a process of electrification of the docks. A few days the detected levels of nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide – which are by -products of the combustion of the fuel of the ships – go far beyond the limits established by WHO “.

And what is the second problem of Genoa?
«In Genoa we also begin to see an increase in short rents with a lower availability of residential apartments. If you want to buy home the prices are to the stars, especially in some areas where the apartments for sale are promoted with the wording “excellent for tourist use investment” “.

Sarah Gabinsforh: «Tourism? It is an industry that extracts wealth rather than producing it “

What happens when the territories become products to sell? A conversation with Sarah Gabinsforh on the end of the owner model, on the power of annuities and on the need for new urban policies, in view of his intervention to Dialogues on man of Pistoia

In Genoa a new junta has just settled. Are you facing the problem? And how?
«The mayor intends to make sure that even the areas that are more in tourist vocation still remain places for the Genoese and Genoese. On the other hand, however, our new councilor for tourism and trade speaks of “quality tourism”, which we know that it means “people with money”, and said they were against Limits and prohibitions. The problem is that if there is no sensible management of tourist flows in a territory, even the best individual choices leave a little the time they find ».

And what would be a sensible management of tourist flows in your opinion?
«One of the first issues to be addressed and resolved concerns the housing crisis. Some cities – also in Europe – have made precise choices and have imposed limits on the concessions of licenses for short rents, at least in the areas that suffer the most. I think of Amsterdam or Barcelona. We should take them as a model. But it must be said that it is a “new” phenomenon so there is no ready solution and above all that there can be no unique recipe that is good for all places ».

What pushes her to intervene firsthand on these issues?
“This is a question of social justice, or the right to live, to have a home”.

What is criticized for some activists are the actions against tourists, as happened last July in Barcelona, ​​when some people at the bar had been bathed with water pistols. Why make such a gesture?
«Meanwhile, I think this has been done not completely organized. When calling an event, everything that will happen is not planned and if some singles choose to do certain things is not necessarily attributable to the people who organized the event. This is something that I think must be clarified. Having said that, we are talking about splashing water. This episode was told in a somewhat sensationalistic way and became viral, bringing attention to a theme that has existed for years, but of which no one has been dealing with ».

The neuroscientist on our holidays: how we choose them, what gratifies us and the traps to avoid

How do we choose our travels? What do you attract us when we book? How can we make more accurate choices? We talked about it with Lorenzo Dornetti, psychologist expert in neuroscience

So if you bring attention to the topic is it acceptable as a gesture?
“It is a questionable gesture, yes, but we overturn the perspective: it is worse to be afraid of being wet by a splash of water or being afraid of losing the house because you can no longer allow you to pay the rent or be afraid of losing the right to live in your city, to lose your own way of life, etc …? This in my opinion is a much bigger fear. But surely less stirring click ».

What are the objectives of this organized international mobilization day of the set network?
«The day of June 15 was born from a will to coordinate also to bring attention to European level on this problem, or the current tourist model that is creating problems for more and more European cities. Set is a network, it is not a centralized organization, with a board, it is a way that the various cities have given themselves to work together, to communicate on what are the various problems, the critical issues in the various territories. So: right to accommodation, increase in prices, disappearance of services, pollution, saturation of means of transport, privatization of public places … ».

The network was founded in 2018, since then the problems are the same?
“The” more “thing compared to then is that Covid has clearly put us in front of the problem of tourist monoculture, that is, the danger of having cities and territories that depend primarily on tourism. It is not sustainable from an economic point of view, because when tourism is missing, everything collapses, people find themselves without work. We did not understand anything and we continue to think of tourism as to this manna that will save us from the fact that the economy in many areas of Italy, not only from the South, also of the North, languishes. And to “compensate” we extract value from what is there, that is, cultural and environmental heritage. But tourism cannot grow indefinitely. “

And then George (Clooney) arrived: that is, how tourism transformed Lake Como

The Hollywood star launched Lake Como as a luxury resort of international tourism, bringing wealth but many contradictions: how do you live where everyone wants to go to Cvacanza?