Abstract
Santa Cruz Verde 2030 is an inner-city megaproject that will transform the local oil refinery into an urban neighborhood in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain. The project is expected to reconfigure Santa Cruz’s tourism model significantly, while applying rather undemocratic planning practices. This paper explores Santa Cruz Verde 2030, focusing on the perception of local stakeholders. My research builds on 18 qualitative interviews with planning authorities, the city’s mayor, political parties, experts from the real estate sector and residents. I identify a large perception gap among the interviewees. While the project’s initiators praise the participatory process, other stakeholders feel neither informed nor integrated. In particular, the “behind closed doors” planning approach has provoked resentment among citizens. In contrast, the possible impact on tourism of the project has given rise to less discussion. This contributes to the “stealthy” touristification strategy that has already transformed large areas of Santa Cruz’s waterfront in past decades. Hence, this paper adds to the ongoing discussion on how to design megaprojects in a more sustainable way, for example, by ensuring political consensus and learning from former megaprojects.
Highlights
IntroductionTouristifying undiscovered areas is a highly conflictive process
This paper focuses on Santa Cruz Verde 2030 in Tenerife, known as Spain’s “largest urbanistic operation” [17]
The objective of this paper is to explore how Santa Cruz Verde 2030 is perceived by local stakeholders
Summary
Touristifying undiscovered areas is a highly conflictive process. This goes for landscapes close to nature [1,2], as well as for urban spaces [3,4]. The reasons for the recent “wave of touristification” [5] 1) are manifold, but neoliberalism in general [6] and the emergence of platform economies in particular [7] are some of the main drivers. Many countries have (re)discovered tourism as an economic growth strategy, after 20080 s financial and economic crisis [5] This was the case in Spain, which is the world’s second largest tourist destination, with 83 million arrivals in 2018 [8]. In Spain, international visitor numbers grew by about 60% between
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