Home Dispossession and Commercial Real Estate Dispossession in Tourist Conurbations. Analyzing the Reconfiguration of Displacement Dynamics in Los Cristianos/Las Américas (Tenerife)

Dennis Hof

doi:10.3390/urbansci5010030

Abstract

Since the onset of the global financial crisis, urban dwellers face an increasing number of obstacles in establishing themselves on the housing market. Against this backdrop, this paper addresses the variegated dynamics of real estate dispossession in the tourist conurbation Los Cristianos/Las Américas on an intra-urban scale. First, I will present the spatio-temporal patterns of dispossession for the period 2001–2015 using the ATLANTE database (CGPJ). Specifically, I analyze mortgage foreclosures and tenant evictions, both for residential and commercial spaces. Second, I delve deeper into local experiences of dispossession of the resident population and their housing and income conditions by means of questionnaires that I conducted in 2018. The data shows that mortgage foreclosures and dispossessions of residential spaces predominate the initial years after the crisis, albeit with varied spatial incidence. However, the increase in tenant evictions from 2014 onwards points to a reconfiguration of displacement dynamics. Indeed, as stated by the interviewees, staggeringly high rent burdens have become the main driver for displacement from both living and working spaces in recent years. Given the ongoing global pandemic, further and more nuanced research is necessary to grasp how these prevailing housing insecurities are shaped during and beyond the coronavirus crisis.

Highlights

More than a decade since the outbreak of the global financial crisis (GFC), financial insecurity and precarious working conditions continue to shape the quotidian life of many urban dwellers in Spain [1,2]
Starting in the 1960s, the Franco dictatorship certainly paved the way for large-scale real estate-based capital accumulation in Spain, promoting both homeownership and tourism development [5,6]
This paper analyzes mortgage foreclosures and tenant evictions on the intra-urban level of Los Cristianos-Las Américas (LC-LA), a tourist conurbation prominently situated in the south of Tenerife

Summary

Introduction

More than a decade since the outbreak of the global financial crisis (GFC), financial insecurity and precarious working conditions continue to shape the quotidian life of many urban dwellers in Spain [1,2]. Official judicial sources do not give details on the number of members in a household, i.e., with this data it is impossible to know how many people are affected by dispossession (see Parreño Castellano et al 2019 for a more profound discussion on the limits and merits of CGPJ data) [22] Following these studies, this paper analyzes mortgage foreclosures and tenant evictions on the intra-urban level of Los Cristianos-Las Américas (LC-LA), a tourist conurbation prominently situated in the south of Tenerife. With exception of case studies from the island capitals Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Santa Cruz de Tenerife, scholars so far have only approached the phenomenon on a regional scale [4,17,23,24,25] As these works already hinted at a particular impact on tourist destinations, the case of LC-LA serves as a relevant research area to trace the reconfiguration of dispossession and displacement dynamics on an intra-urban scale. The paper closes by outlining recommendations for future critical research, against the backdrop of both (yet lacking) insurgent practices and the ongoing pandemic

Housing Financialization and Real Estate Dispossession

Materials and Methods

Real Estate Boom in the South of Tenerife

Temporalities and Spatialities of Dispossession

Findings

Local Experiences of Dispossession and Displacement