Who does the Historic Centre Belong to?: A Critical Walk through Touristified Málaga

This urban route aims to show attendees the impact that tourist gentrification has on the historic centre of Málaga.

CONTEXT. The conversion of the city into a theme park to meet visitor demands generates a series of problems that affect coexistence and habitability in the neighbourhoods. This set of problems can be summarised into three major types of displacement: (i) population, (ii) commercial and (iii) symbolic or pressure-related. Indeed, Málaga is one of the Spanish cities where the effects of tourism are most evident in its historic centre and surrounding neighbourhoods.

OBJECTIVE. This proposal takes as its reference the Jane's Walk initiative. It involves walking routes carried out by residents of the very city where these walks take place. The aim of the route is to take a critical look at specific problems that affect the daily life of local residents. In this particular case, the focus is placed on the processes of gentrification and touristification affecting specific areas of Málaga, and especially its historic centre. From an interdisciplinary perspective involving a lawyer, an architect and a criminologist, a route through these tourism-tensioned areas is proposed. By making several stops at representative points of the touristic transformation, participants in these walks will be shown the manifestations of these processes and their implications. To make the walk a more participatory experience, people registered for the activity will be able to use an app on their mobile phone. Through this tool, they will be able to record all those points in the urban space, as well as their users, that they consider related to the impacts of tourism. Photographs taken during the walk by participants can be attached to these points for discussion.

TOPICS. The points where we will make the stops will be previously selected by the organisers of this activity according to the following criteria:
· Concentration of tourist housing and loss of local population
· Streets where local shops have been replaced by franchises and other commercial activities associated with tourism (lockers, for example)
· Streets with a high circulation of personal mobility vehicles (electric scooters, bicycles, etc.)
· Streets with high occupation of terraces and other services linked to tourism
· Stretches where substantial changes have occurred in façades and heritage surroundings
· Areas where tourism negatively impacts the safety and social fabric of the local community, among others