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ACCORDING IA

Gentrification in Colombia, Brazil, Uruguay, and Belize presents a complex set of challenges, with significant impacts on local economies, social structures, and urban landscapes.

Colombia

In major cities like Bogotá and Medellín, gentrification has accelerated due to tourism, digital nomads, and the popularity of short-term rentals like Airbnb. Between 2020 and 2023, rental prices in certain neighborhoods increased by 40-50%, especially in areas attractive to foreign visitors. This sharp rise has displaced many local residents and transformed the character of historic districts. The Colombian government has responded with Urban Land Use Plans (Planes de Ordenamiento Territorial, POT), which aim to regulate urban development and control the effects of speculation in the housing market . In neighborhoods like El Poblado in Medellín, real estate values have surged, contributing to inequality in housing access.

Brazil

In São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, gentrification intensified following major global events like the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. These events spurred large-scale urban redevelopment projects that displaced marginalized communities, especially in favelas. Real estate prices in central São Paulo rose by 30% between 2019 and 2024, as wealthier residents and investors took advantage of newly developed urban areas. The City Statute (Estatuto da Cidade) attempts to regulate urban growth and protect the right to housing, but its implementation is often inconsistent across regions . Despite these efforts, many low-income residents have been pushed to the peripheries of cities.

Uruguay

In Montevideo, particularly in historic neighborhoods like Ciudad Vieja and the Centro, gentrification has driven a 20% increase in property values over the last two decades. These neighborhoods have been targeted for urban renewal projects, making them attractive for tourism and foreign investment but increasingly unaffordable for middle- and lower-class residents. Uruguay has adopted policies to protect tenants and regulate housing markets, yet the challenge of real estate speculation remains, particularly in areas undergoing rapid development .

Belize

Gentrification in Belize, notably in tourist areas like San Pedro and Caye Ambergris, is less well-documented but has been driven by a rise in foreign investment and tourism. The influx of foreign buyers has caused real estate prices in coastal areas to soar, displacing local communities. Unlike Colombia, Brazil, or Uruguay, Belize has limited regulatory frameworks to control gentrification, making it difficult to address housing affordability challenges. Residents have increasingly been forced to move to inland areas where property prices remain more affordable .

Statistics and Data

In Colombia, property prices in tourist-friendly areas have surged 40-50% since 2020.

In Brazil, São Paulo saw a 30% increase in central property values from 2019 to 2024.

In Uruguay, real estate prices in Montevideo’s gentrifying neighborhoods increased by over 20% in the last two decades.

In Belize, areas like Caye Ambergris have seen dramatic increases in property prices, though precise figures are less commonly tracked.


Policies and Control Measures

In Colombia, Urban Land Use Plans (POT) seek to manage urban expansion and protect affordable housing but face challenges in implementation.

In Brazil, the City Statute (Estatuto da Cidade) regulates land use and seeks to safeguard residents’ right to the city, though enforcement is uneven.

Uruguay has policies aimed at protecting tenants from rent increases, but speculative investments continue to threaten affordability.

Belize lacks comprehensive regulations to address gentrification, contributing to housing affordability issues in tourist-heavy areas.


Conclusion

Gentrification across these countries is creating more socio-economic disparities by favoring wealthier investors and displacing low-income residents. Regulatory frameworks exist in some regions but often struggle to keep up with the pace of speculative investments and real estate development. Strengthening urban policies, increasing affordable housing, and implementing stronger rent control measures will be critical to mitigating these effects in the coming years

GOOGLE ARTICULOS

BELICE

The Gentrification of Belize
In Lifestyle, News by Brianna Juliet Lambey03/06/2024
Belize is the home of my ancestors, the place where our culture was founded and fostered. Belizeans, particularly Garifuna Belizeans, who have spent generations on their land are being pushed off their land by foreigners looking for a new vacation home. The ancestral land is now being filled with high-end resorts, pickleball courts, and bars paid for with foreign money. Both my parents are Garifuna people who immigrated to the Occupied Turtle Island (the United States) from the southern coastal towns of Belize. The first time I saw glimpses of my parent’s home country was on an episode of House Hunters International when a white couple was looking for a beachfront home to move to after they retired. The land of my ancestors is being sold to the highest bidder. I didn’t know it at the time, but this episode of House Hunters was a sign of gentrification, another consequence of European colonialism.
The Origins of the Black Caribb:
Garifuna is the main ethnic/cultural group of pan-Afrikan Belizeans. Garifuna culture is thought to have originated in the Caribbean when ships carrying enslaved people landed on the coastal areas of countries like Honduras, St. Vincent, and Belize. Many Garifuna people fled enslavement brought on by oppressive British colonialism in Honduras and settled along the southern coastal parts of Belize. Since then the Garifuna people have largely made up the population of the southern coastal towns like Hopkins, Dangriga, and Punta Gorda.
The Displacement of the Garifuna People
During the period of British colonialism in Belize the southern coastal towns which have been historically predominantly inhabited by the Garifuna people went largely untouched by Europeans. However in recent years as Belize has become more of a tourist destination the beachfront properties and land, particularly in the town of Hopkins, are largely being purchased by white Americans and Europeans. A study conducted by three Belizean scholars found that “75% or more of coastal land has[ve] been purchased by foreigners.” The per capita income of residents in developed countries is roughly “eight or more times that of Belize,” which allows for a “greater disposable income and ability to pay” for the coastal land. The difference in disposable income allows foreigners from developed countries to “drive up prices of Belize land to levels far above what most Belizeans can afford” which shuts the native people of Belize out of the market for land (Cayetano).
The gentrification of Belize has largely gone unnoticed, but with every new purchase of beachfront property, the native people of Belize are being pushed farther inland, and away from the land that has been theirs since they escaped oppression. Gentrification is the new form of European colonialism, the process involves foreigners coming to a country and exploiting the country’s resources for economic gain at the expense of the native people who have spent generations on the land.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines gentrification as “a process in which a poor area (as of a city) experiences an influx of middle-class or wealthy people who renovate and rebuild homes and businesses and which often results in an increase in property values and the displacement of earlier, usually poorer residents.” Similarly the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines colonialism as “the practice of extending and maintaining a nation’s political and economic control over another people or area.” In the case of Belize where the country’s economy is largely dependent on tourism, beachfront properties are incredibly valuable. The town of Hopkins which was formerly known for having one of largest Garifuna populations is now known for its various resorts, tourist attractions, and its growing number of foreign residents. Even Bill Gates purchased land to build a beachfront compound off the coast of Hopkins. By controlling Belize’s land market foreigners are able to control a large portion of the country’s economy which often grants political power within the country.
Webster’s dictionary definition of colonialism and gentrification can be easily applied to Belize, as middle-class to wealthy foreigners are seizing economic, and potentially political control, through the country’s land market at the expense of displacing the native residents from their land. When I visited Hopkins the coast largely resembled areas in Los Angeles with large gated beach houses, restaurants, and (in comparison to other parts of Belize) very few pan-Afrikan people. This starkly contrasts with other southern coastal towns in Belize which have very few white people, and have more businesses that cater to the locals rather than the tourists. The Garifuna culture that has generationally inhabited the Belize land is being pushed out with the native residents. An example of the cultural displacement occurring in the town of Hopkins is the Jankunu tradition.
Given the origins of the Garifuna, the culture is largely influenced by the different Afrikan cultures across the diaspora. Garifuna culture has adopted its own traditions and style, with influences from different Afrikan cultures, such as the Jankunu (roughly pronounced John Canoe). Jankunu is a dance that served the original purpose of mocking the white slave owners during colonialism, but has now become a staple of Garifuna culture and is performed every holiday. Traditionally the Jankunu perform their dance in front of local households in exchange for roughly twenty Belize dollars (ten US dollars), however, in recent years places like Hopkins are now charging around four hundred Belize dollars (two hundred US dollars) to watch the dancers perform. By drastically raising the price many of the natives may no longer be able to afford to experience the cultural tradition of seeing the Jankunu dancers perform. Meanwhile, the resorts in the area hire the Jankunu to perform for their guests, so they can get a glimpse into the Garifuna culture which comes at the expense of the native people.
It’s sad to see some of the last few places on this earth that have largely gone untouched by European colonialism and imperialism become gentrified. The Garifuna people spent years escaping the oppression and colonialism brought on by European forces, but years later colonialism has returned under the guise of capitalism.
A potential solution to the cultural and physical displacement of the country’s native people is to follow in the footsteps of Mexico which previously “banned foreigners entirely from directly owning land.” Although this approach may appear drastic it would help preserve the garifuna culture and presence on their native land. It seems more drastic to allow the garifuna people to be displaced from their land, and replaced by foreigners due to wealth disparities. By prohibiting foreigners from directly owning land the garifuna people can continue to occupy and own their ancestral land.
Gentrification advances in Latin American cities
Matheus Gouvea de Andrade
10/24/2023
October 24, 2023
Temporary rental platforms and digital nomads are driving the process of real estate appreciation in urban areas and bringing the problems faced by Europeans and Americans to the region.
Rising rental prices and the disappearance of local businesses are well-known problems in cities in Europe and the United States as a result of so-called gentrification. This process of real estate appreciation in urban areas has recently begun to be observed in Latin America as well, where platforms such as Airbnb and digital nomads are now in the crosshairs of citizens and local authorities, generating protests and demands for restrictions.
According to economist Bram Gallagher, from the AirDNA platform, which monitors the situation of temporary accommodation around the world, Latin American cities have seen an increase in the supply of short-term rentals in recent years. In the case of Sao Paulo, for example, demand for short-term stays increased by 27 percent between August 2022 and the same month in 2023.
The region with the greatest growth
In its most recent report, Airbnb highlighted Latin America as the region with the greatest growth in demand for its services after the pandemic. The company points to Brazil as one of the least explored markets, despite recent progress. In the second quarter of 2023, there was a 110 percent increase in reservations in Brazilian territory compared to the same period in 2019.
"These markets were relatively underdeveloped, from a short-term rental perspective, before the pandemic: in March 2020, Sao Paulo had only 12,700 listings available. Meanwhile, a smaller city, such as Paris, had more than 31,000 and New York reached 31,300," explains Gallagher. Currently, Sao Paulo already has 20,235 listings, but Rio de Janeiro, with 22,775 listings, leads in availability in the region.
According to the economist, the expansion in Latin America is happening as some destinations become more popular. "Cities like Medellín and Buenos Aires have become more sought after by remote workers or digital nomads who have more flexibility to travel and work after the pandemic," he says. The Colombian city experienced a 38 percent increase in housing available for temporary rental in the last year.
Nomads and gentrification
Mexico City is seen as one of the great examples of the progress of the problems caused by gentrification in the region. In neighborhoods such as Condesa and Roma, the rapid increase in rents is largely attributed to the arrival of foreigners and short-term stays.
According to the Inmuebles24 portal, the rental price of apartments in Condesa has increased by 66 percent in the last 24 months. There, the average monthly value paid for a property went from 16,043 Mexican pesos (about 880 dollars) in May 2021 to 26,740 pesos (about 1,460 dollars) in the same month of 2023.
For María Silvia Emanuelli, coordinator of the Latin American office of the International Housing Coalition, what is observed is a significant number of homes that are withdrawn from the traditional rental market to be offered through platforms. In this way, these homes are rented by people who normally have greater purchasing power than the local population.
"Several studies show that, when entire houses are offered, and in the case of Mexico City this occurs in more than 50 percent of cases, price increases are evident in the areas where they are concentrated," says Silvia Emanuelli.
Cost of living, one of the reasons
The cheaper cost of living for Americans, who take advantage of the purchasing power of the dollar, is one of the main factors that attract citizens of that country to the city. Between 2019 and 2020, Mexico experienced an 85 percent increase in the number of Americans who applied for a temporary residence visa in the country, according to the National Migration Institute.
According to expert Silvia Emanuelli, unlike other continents, Latin America still does not have a solid organization to confront this phenomenon. In Mexico, neighborhood groups, organizations and experts have already joined together to organize protests, debates and legislative initiatives. And this movement is bearing fruit.
In September, for example, Congresswoman Frida Guillem proposed in the Mexican Congress to require the payment of a daily tax for all tourists who work remotely and spend more than 20 nights in accommodation in Mexico.
Pressure for regulations
For Raquel Rolnik, professor at the Faculty of Urbanism and Architecture at the University of Sao Paulo, this type of activity has a great impact on properties, and influences precisely the long-term rental market, as has been observed in Mexico and Medellin. "This contributes to destroying the long-term residential market. The effect of this is to greatly increase the rental value of the units," assesses the expert, who was also a special rapporteur for Adequate Housing at the UN.
Faced with this situation, Rolnik recalls that a number of cities around the world have adopted regulations for the sector. "It is very important that measures are defined to preserve a number of rentals for city residents," she stresses. Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam, Lisbon and San Francisco are among the places that have imposed restrictions on such businesses.
Backfire?
Gallanger points out that some studies have found that strict regulations have actually had the opposite effect to the desired one, slowing the creation of new housing, as well as reducing tax revenues, visitor spending and income from related businesses.
Silvia Emanuelli also points to cases where restrictions on platforms had no major effect. "To move forward in controlling gentrification, in addition to these types of measures, there must be a clear explanation of its causes, spaces must be reserved for people who have less, housing prices must be controlled, as with other products, and speculation must be controlled," Emanuelli reiterates.
The Trojan horse of gentrification in Brazil
Urban regeneration projects renew central districts and persecute the poor

There is a smell of café latte in São Paulo. Like Mariahilf or Karmeliter in Vienna, Le Marais and Bastille in Paris, or Kreuzberg in Berlin, formerly desolate neighbourhoods are once again attracting the interest of property developers.
The Santa Cecília district in the heart of São Paulo exemplifies the process of gentrification. This central neighbourhood concentrated economic and political power until the second half of the twentieth century and has lost momentum since then.
Santa Cecilia was a central enclave for the working class because of its low rent prices – 9 euros per square metre compared to 12 or 13 euros in the neighbouring Bela Vista and Consolacão. “It was like a village,” says Mario, a retired restaurant owner who has lived in the neighbourhood since his childhood.
This is about to come to an end. Everywhere in the megacity, rent prices are rising relentlessly. In 2010, they rose by almost 8%.
Cheap rents and an ideal location attracted the first newcomers – designers or middle-class families – to Santa Cecília. Real estate developers also saw the opportunity.

Gentrification through urban regeneration
In the heart of Santa Cecília, the city began a wide-ranging urban regeneration project in 2014, planned seven years earlier, Vale do Anhangabaú. An investigation by Repórter Brasil, a group of journalists, showed that while the €59 million project was almost entirely publicly funded, it was largely led by a private bank, Itáu Unibanco.
The Danish architectural firm strongly recommended by Itáu Unibanco promotes Vale do Anhangabaú as a project “for the people.” Various public space improvements are planned in the historic center of São Paulo. The project also includes the construction of 57 shops, restaurants and nares, the construction of a new shopping mall and a hotel. It is worth noting that construction and real estate companies donated more than half of the contributions to candidates in the 2012 municipal elections in São Paulo.
Gentrification is not new. Since at least the 1960s, rising rents have pushed workers and employees to the periphery. High-income and highly educated residents take their place. For all their commitments to benefit the people, urban regeneration projects benefit the newcomers. Neil Smith, a geographer at the City University of New York, wrote in 2002 that “the appeal of bringing people back to the city is always a self-interested appeal for middle- and upper-middle-class whites to regain control of the political and cultural economy and, in turn, the geography of larger cities.”

A few succeed in reversing the trend of gentrification. After 15 years of struggle, the association Frente de Luta por Moradia (Front of Struggle for Housing) succeeded in having Prestes Maia, a high-rise building squatted by 2,000 people in the city centre, converted by the municipality into a social housing complex. In Paris, projects such as Clichy-Batignolles, with half the amount of social housing, seek to maintain a less wealthy population in the heart of the city. However, these projects are too small to counteract the process of gentrification.

URUGUAY

Plaza Italia: a case to think about gentrification in Montevideo

Walks, shopping and cooperative housing against gentrification
The reconstruction of the Mercado Agrícola de Montevideo and its surroundings turns a red-light district of the Uruguayan capital into a commercial reference

The perimeter of the Mercado Agrícola de Montevideo (MAM) was in the nineties a well-known point of sale of drugs, a focus of violence and looting. A red-light district nestled in a forgotten supply of fruits, vegetables and meats in decline that was kept alive by a handful of merchants. The enclosure, which condenses the aesthetic and functional tradition of the European neighborhood markets of the late nineteenth century, was on the verge of disappearing. But a determined urban intervention renovated it along with all its surroundings. The Goes neighborhood, where the market is located, was mortally wounded. Today it is a tourist spot, a meeting place and a shopping place for Uruguayans.
Its skeleton is now adorned with modernist filigree, fine balustrades, bovine figures, mosaics and stained glass. But until eight years ago, that market, opened in 1913, was dilapidated, it looked like a shabby warehouse in the middle of three blocks of vacant land with dilapidated houses and crammed-in occupants.
Goes: a booming red light district
Adriana Berdía joined the Montevideo mayor's office at the end of the 1980s. She is a social worker and, at that time, she was ordered to renovate the dilapidated houses that crowned the three blocks around the agricultural market. She remembers dilapidated houses, occupants crowded together, without light or water, living in basements, improvising roofs and walls with waste materials. They lived among the skeletons of the houses expropriated in 1974 by the dictatorship, which promised to expand the market, houses and places of recreation, although it never carried out its actions.
The overcrowding “was the unfinished consequence of the state’s inaction. It was expropriated for the market, but nothing was done and the three blocks became slums,” laments Berdía, today an advisor to the Urban Development Department at the Montevideo City Hall.
“From the outside it looked like an abandoned warehouse in ruins, you had to go inside to see that something was working here and the interior was not in good condition either,” recalls Antonio Bianco. In 1983 he managed to set up his fruit and vegetable stand in the market. The rain came in through the roof. The thieves gave him no respite. They stole several vehicles from the market door. They even stole cars inside the premises. They also stole several scales. The moments of crisis, when sales were down, did not make him doubt as much whether he should abandon his business as the robberies did.
The first day we entered it was hard to believe. Today the MAM is a good example of territory appropriated by the community
There were more and more abandoned, boarded-up houses. Nobody wanted to live there. Bars, warehouses, shops, small factories, everything ended up closing. Partly because of the increasingly hostile environment, partly because of successive economic crises. In the nineties, when supermarkets advanced in the Uruguayan capital and the stores that supplied the market began to close, the environment was decadent and some merchants resisted, crouching.
Fabricio Canto has had a butcher shop in front of the MAM for 40 years. He lived in fear. “We went through it. And we went through it badly,” he remembers. He recalls with regret the day when they robbed his cash register and hit him in the head with the butt of a revolver. Now he sees Brazilian tourists coming down on excursions. According to its authorities, the MAM received more than three million visitors in 2015. For this reason, Canto expanded his business hours, remodeled the façade, changed the interior lights, the marquee, has new products on the shelves and plans to hire more employees if the movement grows. “The entire environment of the market changed. It revolutionized the neighborhood,” he exaggerates.
From red zone to habitable zone
In 2007, the municipal administration announced the restoration of the MAM and the intervention in housing, prioritizing the eight blocks surrounding the market. Efforts were concentrated on the most precarious and on renovating the more than 5,000 square meters of the market with fresh products, as a shopping place and cultural center.
The Intendancy wanted to “give a clear signal.” “Recover the territory for society,” says Berdía. The goal was to densify the sprawl, make the neighborhood attractive for young families, finish freeing up the land and build apartments.
“It was not easy,” admits Verónica Adler, an economist and specialist in urban development at the IDB. Strong coordination was needed: to improve and build housing, as well as to change the face of the market and its surroundings to make it a place for shopping and meeting. “It made no sense to recover the market if the surroundings continued to be a red zone,” adds Berdía.
From squatter to owner
The occupants let the municipal bulldozers knock down their roof and formed a cooperative. In Uruguay, the system of access to cooperative housing can be through mutual aid or prior savings. These apartments cannot be rented and their sale, although possible, must be approved by an assembly and has strict conditions.
There were also soft loans to refurbish 120 homes in the surrounding area. The occupants of the blocks in dispute received a rental subsidy during the almost three years that it took to build their own apartments, with their own hands. Most of the cooperatives were inaugurated in 2012.
Another two cooperatives, which will be inaugurated next year, are being built in another block opposite the MAM. An old espadrille factory, which saw the birth of the old market, was completed to be converted into apartments built by private investors. When everything is inaugurated, there will be 900 new homes in those four blocks.
In the free block, a square was created with children's games, trees and a basketball court. And two more housing cooperatives will be built. A sports plaza a few blocks away was remodeled, as well as a daycare center, and even a bowling alley that the neighbors asked not to be demolished.
After the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (Aecid), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Government of the Uruguayan capital and the national government joined forces to remodel the neighborhood, the market is the same, but it is different.
They replaced the century-old metal beams, changed the ceilings and braces respecting and enhancing the French modernism of the nineteenth century. The facades, the stained glass windows, the wood, everything, were rebuilt. The market had lattices that were replaced by glass. Heating was installed. The architects replicated ornamental pieces that were missing, balusters, baseboards, cornices and every piece of that modernist puzzle were restored.
Neither shopping mall nor mall
In 2013, the MAM opened with 107 stores. In addition to fresh fruit and vegetables, there is now a chic butcher shop, chocolate shop, cafeteria, food court, convenience stores, a nursery for native species, supermarket, ice cream parlor, brewery, grill, pizzeria and dozens of stores with gourmet aspirations.
In four years, the MAM became a commercial epicenter for thousands of Uruguayans, while consumer spending has grown non-stop for fifteen years in the country. It is a meeting and shopping point for neighbors and Montevideo residents, as well as attracting tourists. Nine out of ten citizens of the capital know where it is and what it offers.
Although it is still under construction, the atmosphere has already changed in Goes. The MAM is more than a neighborhood market. In addition to paying a bill, buying a book, a blender, nuts or hazelnuts, dancing or whistling a tango, eating a barbecue or having an ice cream; the MAM “is a whole, it does not lose its essence,” summarizes Elisa Areán, director of the figurehead of the revitalization of Goes. A neighborhood in the central area of Montevideo, 20 minutes walk from the city center and one kilometer from the capital's port.
The intervention in Goes tried to find the delicate balance between market and commerce, maintaining a place of public use in the city
“For the better, everything changed,” says Bianco, the greengrocer who went from six to 14 employees. “I've already gone through all the green ones, now that the ripe ones are coming, it's time to harvest,” he says confidently. The market could have become a shopping center or a mall, but it preferred to remain a neighborhood market with the capacity to attract other neighbors.
The Montevideo City Hall manages land use in the Uruguayan capital. “Cooperative projects guarantee more the value of use than the value of exchange. The way to guarantee that an area is not gentrified or transformed into a place of sale is that the destination is housing. These cooperatives guarantee that. In addition, we are looking for a middle- and lower-middle-income public,” explains Berdía. The intervention in Goes tried to find the “delicate balance between the market and commerce, maintaining a place of public use in the city,” summarizes the social worker who in the eighties saw overcrowding and today goes shopping at the MAM.
While the market builds its image as an emblematic place in Montevideo, an attempt is born against gentrification that inevitably occurs in remodeled areas that gain value and reputation. It occurs in Montevideo and in any capital of America or Europe.
The MAM, “without being a shopping mall, is a recognized place for shopping, for meeting. Taking advantage of public spaces is an increasing need. “We need to go back on that,” says Adler, referring to the crisis of large commercial areas due to online sales.
A police officer who patrols the area says that “things” happen, but they are incomparable to the past. “Walking down the street at any time is like reclaiming the city for its citizens. People were quite incredulous. The first day we entered it was hard to believe. Today the MAM is a good example of territory appropriated by the community,” says Berdía.
100 years after its creation, the MAM feeds the city with something more than vegetables, fruit and meat. Goes reinvents its identity. The project still has the possibility of showing that it is feasible to improve coexistence by integrating the usual neighbors, bringing in others and making reasonable use of public space.

COLOMBIA

Starting the path to confront gentrification and touristification

• Faced with these urban phenomena, related to the use of digital lodging platforms, EAFIT analysts explain the importance of creating an observatory that allows for informed decisions.
• In Brazil, Mexico and Spain, proposals and policies have already been created that contribute to the regulation of the displacement of traditional city dwellers and that facilitate the identification of the main social and environmental impacts.

The creation of an observatory and rigorous data would be the first step to confront the challenges that gentrification and touristification are presenting for the region. This is the opinion of analysts from the Center for Urban and Environmental Studies (Urbam) and the specialization in Urban Law at EAFIT. Gentrification —defined as a process of urban rehabilitation that causes the displacement of residents from a neighborhood— and touristification —the consequences for a population due to the massive influx of tourists— are complicating access to housing in the metropolitan area of Aburrá. The pressures are related to the increase in property prices for both purchase and rental.
Faced with alternatives to these challenges, Nataly Montoya Restrepo, head of the Urban Law specialization at EAFIT, considers having an observatory as a priority action. “We need tools to measure what is happening, to understand how housing processes are changing, which areas are in greatest demand and where the State needs to take action.”
Juliana Gómez Aristizábal, Urbam project coordinator, agrees with the proposal and warns that there is still no rigorous data that would allow us to anticipate the dynamics and respond in an intelligent and innovative way to this phenomenon since, from her perspective, this information would help enrich habitat programs and projects in terms of inclusion and territorial equity, and not so much of expulsion as has been happening.
“We see some examples such as the Barcelona Habitat Observatory, which has been a very important tool for the city to make informed decisions, for example, in relation to establishing Airbnb apartment limits or being much stricter with the conditions that must be met to be offered on these types of platforms,” adds Juliana.
The Urbam researcher also mentions among the references to have a starting point the Observatory of Cities of the TEC of Monterrey, an intersectoral platform for integrating information that has allowed identifying areas with greater or lesser access to certain services and generating improvement offers.
Medellín has already taken some steps
The city has the Strategic Housing Plan (PEHMED) 2030, presented in 2019 by the Social Institute of Housing and Habitat of Medellín (Isvimed) and the School of Habitat of the Faculty of Architecture of the National University, Medellín campus.
The document already pointed out that in the city "real estate pressure and speculative property prices in sectors undergoing urban renewal and in some sectors undergoing consolidation and recycling of consolidated land, lead to the departure of residents, depriving them of potential added value."
Among the strategies contemplated in the Plan is the creation of the Municipal Advisory Council on Housing Policy, a collegiate body for the articulation, coordination and agreement of public habitat policy with the concurrence of the various actors.
However, for Fernando Zapata, professor of the master's degree in Urban and Environmental Processes at EAFIT and current coordinator of the Right to the City and Territory program of the Regional Corporation, the level of execution of this Plan is minimal, a symptom of institutional weakness and low interest in properly addressing the issue.
“The execution is very little, but it is due to the fact that it is a very recent policy. What the communities say is that they are not satisfied with the process, however, it must be recognized that it has already started and that there is a normative possibility to claim this right and the obligation to attend to it, even if its level of application is minimal,” says Fernando.
Another precedent has to do with the inspiration that the Brazilian experience of protecting residents - which protects original inhabitants of popular areas from being expelled from their territory - meant for some sectors of Medellín to mobilize in 2014 and embody this intention in the Territorial Planning Plan. Although it was not until 2021, after different processes and conversations, that the regulations were achieved so that the city had a Public Policy for the Protection of Residents.
EAFIT analysts conclude that this phenomenon, its observation and the construction of urban policies, calls on multiple actors: public and private sectors, community actors, social leaders and inhabitants, not only to point out the problem, but also from the call to keep alive and not put at risk the social fabric that characterizes the neighborhoods of Medellín.
While the high increase in foreign visitors - which includes digital nomads and remote workers - has been a visible face of the gentrification process in Medellín, which forces the displacement of traditional inhabitants and generates new dynamics in the territory due to the change in land use, there are different causes to cover it.
The city's position as one of Colombia's main tourist destinations, the use of digital platforms for leasing, the reduction in the housing supply - in strata 4, 5 and 6 it has been reduced by 50% according to a study by La Lonja, inflation, the absence of habitat programs and the loss of participation in the supply of new housing are some of the points pointed out by researcher Juliana Gómez, who expresses that in order to propose solutions it is necessary to frame this phenomenon of expulsion in a broad and systemic perspective.
The problem also manifests itself from different sides: increased costs in relation to renting, buying housing, informal growth of the city and its associated risks, congestion of the transport system, among others.
Gentrification in Medellin: The problem that affects the cost of living of the paisas
This is the problem that the paisas face and that generates concern
Gentrification in Medellin is a problem that is affecting the inhabitants of the city, since, although the tenants benefit from the high costs charged to foreigners, the Medellin residents are forced to pay very expensive rents for which they must migrate to other sectors.
At a global level, Medellin has become a very attractive tourist destination especially for Americans, which is why this situation can be explained and is that the general increase in the cost of living has increased and short-term rentals are very sought after by tourists, which in turn are very easy to get on Airbnb and lodging platforms.
Foreigners are able to assume these high costs, and in some neighborhoods rent increases of up to 50% are becoming normal, therefore, the inhabitants of these sectors are forced to move to other neighborhoods with lower costs and quality of life.
Oscar Manco, economist, mentions that “the phenomenon of internal displacement has generated several quite complex things, one of them is that today with the latest known data a middle-class person in Medellin lives with more than 5 million pesos, which is a fairly high value, precisely to have a standard of living within that middle-class level, and that in some way will continue to increase, deepening, because this phenomenon of gentrification that in some way has not yet found its total peak.”
The phenomenon of gentrification is characterized by worsening or improving the quality of life of a sector, because there are sectors that have changed their commercial vocation.
“The effects in general terms are directly focused on the issue of commerce, hotels and tourism, which has been suffering a significant incremental phenomenon. Jobs are growing, but the cost of living of local inhabitants is also increasing, directly generating a loss in people's purchasing power,” concludes economist Oscar Manco.
Another problem that gentrification has brought to the city is the increase in homicides of tourists, as well as the sexual exploitation of minors in Medellín, since several cases have recently been known in which Americans have rented properties in Medellín to abuse minors.

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