How Tourism Changes the Face of Cities: Bologna and Palermo between Transformation and Touristification.
Letizia Montalbano
Keywords: Over-tourism; Common; Gentrification, Right to the city.
In recent years, the debate around over tourism has intensified, touching on a variety of issues, such as ownership, governance, local identity, resource extraction and consumption, social fragmentation, the depopulation of city centers, the privatization of urban spaces, capital accumulation dynamics, pollution, and more.
While tourism can bring economic benefits to cities, it is crucial to find a balance between tourism development and the preservation of local communities' identity and quality of life. Local authorities must implement urban and tourism policies that promote the diversity and authenticity of cities while safeguarding their communities and urban environments.
What is needed is a collective vision of a city that guarantees both residents and visitors the right to citizenship (Lefebvre, 1968).
The rise of the "tourist city," which inevitably promotes an iconic, branded model, must be met with greater awareness of the risks posed by Digital Urban Gentrification and the inequality effects of over tourism. This includes the growing disparity in quality of life between urban spaces and public spaces, especially when the latter is no longer considered a common good. The urgency of considering all parts and bodies of the city becomes clear, including the need for the integration of spaces, policies, and generations, as well as the shift from mono functional to multifunctional use of places.
The aim of the paper is to examine the need to balance transformation with the risks of "touristification" by analyzing the dynamics of two Italian cities that have recently experienced significant tourism influx: Bologna and Palermo.