Is Barcelona at Risk of Becoming a Theme Park?

(Source: Internet)

Foreign tourists are flooding Barcelona and the city is trying to take measures to prevent it from descending into a tourist trap says anarticle in the Christian Science Monitor.

While the money tourists bring in boosts the local economy, residents are overwhelmed by the sheer number of visitors.

“The hardest to bear is that day by day residents keep leaving,” resident Daniel Pardo told the paper. “It is weakening the social fabric of communities.” So his neighborhood is trying to recreate it.

Citizens have started to create organizations to protect and preserve their neighborhoods. Their efforts have helped create a temporary moratorium on construction licenses in the El Raval neighborhood.

“People can say it’s better to get rid of the old and construct new buildings, but that implies that you lose the historic memory of the city,” said Mercedes Tatjer Mir, an urban historian at the University of Barcelona who led the effort. “Barcelona then becomes a theme park.”

How will Barcelona evolve and protect the delicate balance between the visitor and the history of this much-loved city?