Manifesto calls for a city “to live in, and visit”
Six locations in Lisbon today will be the stage of a ‘simultaneous noise protest’ against ‘uncontrolled tourism’ that has already forced many to re-think their lives – either because they have been priced out of their city, or because they cannot stomach the way it is changing any longer.
The protest called through a manifesto which warns of the impact of what it terms the ‘unregulated increase in tourism’, wants ‘an open, clean, organised city that welcomes visitors’, with respect for those who live there.
“For Lisbon, make yourself heard!” is the motto of today’s protest, which echoes the manifesto’s ethos that ’Any city should be a place to live and visit. When the former is forgotten to the almost exclusive detriment of the latter, the imbalances are many and unsustainable’.
Among signatories (the manifesto is still open for more) are various personalities, including former MP Heloísa Apolónia, sociologist and former CGTP leader Manuel Carvalho da Silva, economist Ricardo Paes Mamede, historian Raquel Varela, musicians Filipe Raposo, Cristina Branco and Mitó Mendes and writers Luísa Costa Gomes and Tatiana Salem Levy.
Also signing the document are writer and university professor Fernando Pinto do Amaral, architect Tiago Mota Saraiva, director and playwright Tiago Rodrigues, actresses Ana Brandão and Carla Bolito, directors Fernando Vendrell and Miguel Gonçalves Mendes, cultural programmers Cíntia Gil and Sérgio Machado Letria and cartoonist Nuno Saraiva.
The signatories consider that Lisbon City Council – led by Social Democrat Carlos Moedas – does not recognise the “existence of a problem that urgently needs to be resolved, through measures to contain the tourist load in the city”.
The housing crisis stems from the “unbridled and encouraged expansion of uncontrolled tourism and the property speculation that is one of its first consequences”, they maintain.
Taking place between 9:00 and 13:00, protestors will be in, or outside: Praça do Município, the Lisbon City Council building in Campo Grande, Chiado, São Pedro de Alcântara, Portas do Sol and Avenida da Liberdade.
Source material: LUSA
