Progress for Tourists. Displacement for Everyone Else.

They keep building.
Always building.
Always promising.

On Bali, the rice paddies are paved. Locals lose land and gain debt.
On the Canary Islands, hotel profits rise while nurses can’t pay rent.
On Mallorca, homes are turned into assets, just not for the people who live there.
In Zanzibar, the beachfront is gated.
In Portugal’s Algarve, fishers are now bartenders.
And in Jamaica, locals have access to just 1% of the coastline. The rest is for the guests.

They say it's legal.
They say it creates jobs.
They say it's sustainable.

But in place after place, wealth isn’t rising for locals.
Wages stay flat. Housing costs soar. Generational land is lost.
Decade after decade, tourism grows, and locals get poorer.

People are done waiting politely.
On Tenerife, angry residents set fire to construction machines.
From Hawaii to Oaxaca, from the Balearics to Barbados, protests are rising.
Locals are drawing the line.
Not against visitors, but against being erased.

Because what do 70 years of tourism really leave behind?

Locals renting homes they used to own.
Working two jobs to survive in the place they grew up.
Watching their children leave, or serve cocktails to those who never left home.

The paradox is loud:
The more that’s built, the less locals own.
The more that’s promised, the less that’s delivered.
The more tourists arrive, the fewer locals can stay.

This isn’t development.
It’s displacement.
Wrapped in PR and painted green.

Progress that makes communities poorer isn't progress.
It's erosion.

So maybe it's time to stop asking, “Is it legal?”
And start asking, “Is it right?”