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THOUSANDS will be expected to descend on the streets of Malaga in what could turn out to be the biggest protest against housing the city has yet seen.
Pressure group Malaga Para Vivir (Malaga For Living) has announced its third major demonstration for April 5, joining simultaneous protests planned across several Spanish cities under the banner ‘Let’s end the housing business.’
“Housing has become the most important problem for citizens,” explained spokesperson Kike España, who called the city’s economic model ‘a scam’.
He stated that “everything was done over the past decades to transform Malaga’s city centre into a park of tourist attractions, which only benefit a few people while driving out its neighbors.”
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The platform describes government measures to address housing issues as ‘completely insufficient’ and has initiated neighborhood assemblies leading up to the April protest.
Noemi Escobar, another spokesperson for the movement, said the protest will focus on ‘the housing crisis and a city model based on real estate and tourism speculation, which drives out residents, makes employment precarious, and destroys the territory.’
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The platform calls for housing to become a fundamental right and not an opportunity.
Activists point out that in the areas around Plaza de la Merced approximately 80% homes are used for tourist accommodation.
There are 34 466 housing seekers registered in the city. However, there are only 7,496 tourist accommodation with 32 132 places available. “Does anyone think that this is sustainable?” Escobar asked.
On April 5, we will be back on the streets to demand that the housing industry and the city model end. Málaga is for living, not for turning it into an amusement park.”
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In a change from previous protests, organisers have revealed that instead of ending at the traditional gathering point of Plaza de la Constitución, the march will end in a residential neighborhood to symbolise their focus on community impacts.
Malaga is experiencing a housing crisis that has become critical in recent years. It has seen some of Spain’s most dramatic increases in rent in the past five-year period.
Overtourism has affected entire neighborhoods, such as El Soho or the Historic Centre. Long-term residents are being priced out.
A perfect storm has hit the Costa del Sol’s capital: an influx of international investors, a boom of digital nomads who have more purchasing power and a proliferation of short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb.
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The city’s popularity as a cultural destination, following the opening of branches of prominent museums such as the Centre Pompidou Málaga and the Russian State Museum which both opened in 2015, and its emergence as a tech hub with the arrival of Google AI centre in 2023, has accelerated gentrification.
Critics of the movement and local business associations maintain that tourism has revitalized Malaga’s economic situation, created thousands of new jobs, and transformed it into one of Spain’s most vibrant cities.
