MEXICO CITY — A fierce protest in Mexico City railing against gentrification and mass tourism was fueled by government failures and active promotion to attract “digital nomads,” according to experts, who said tension had been mounting for years.

The criticism comes after Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum alleged that the July 4 protest derived from xenophobia, reviving a debate over an influx of Americans in the city.

Many Mexicans say they’ve been priced out of their neighborhoods — in part because of a move made by Sheinbaum in 2022, when she was the Mexico City mayor and signed an agreement with Airbnb and UNESCO to boost tourism and attract digital nomads (remote workers) despite concern over the potential impact of short-term rentals.

Last week, that came to a head. Hundreds of demonstrators, in a largely peaceful manner, marched through tourism centers of the city with signs reading (in Spanish) “Gringo: Stop stealing our home” and “Housing regulations now!”

Near the end of the march, a group of protesters turned violent, breaking the windows of storefronts and looting several businesses. One protester slammed a butter knife against the window of a restaurant where people were hiding, and another person painted “kill a gringo” on a nearby wall.

“The xenophobic displays seen at that protest have to be condemned,” Sheinbaum said on Monday. “No one should be able to say ‘any nationality get out of our country’ even over a legitimate problem like gentrification. We’ve always been open, fraternal.”

The frustrations were built upon years of mass tourism and rising rent prices in large swaths of the city. The influx of foreigners began around 2020, when Americans flooded into the Mexico City to work remotely, dodge coronavirus restrictions and take advantage of cheaper living costs.

In the years since, choice neighborhoods like Roma and Condesa, lush central areas dotted with cafes and markets, have grown increasingly populated by foreign tourists and digital nomads. Temporary housing units are increasingly being rented through companies like Airbnb that cater to tourists.

Rents and living prices have soared, and English has been increasingly common on the streets of those areas. Some groups have described the phenomenon as a sort of “neo-colonialism.”

The Mexico City Anti-Gentrification Front, one of the organizations behind the protest, stated it was “completely against” any acts of physical violence and denied that the protests were xenophobic. Instead, the organization cited failures by the local government to address the root of the problems.

“Gentrification isn’t just foreigners’ fault; it’s the fault of the government and these companies that prioritize the money foreigners bring,” the organization stated. Meanwhile “young people and the working class can’t afford to live here.”

The organization, in its list of demands, called for greater rent controls, mandates that locals have a voice in larger development projects in their area, stricter laws making it harder for landlords to throw out residents, and prioritizing Mexican renters over foreigners.

Mexico’s protest comes on the back of a wave of similar protests across Europe railing against mass tourism. Tensions in Mexico have also been compounded by wider inequalities and the Trump administration targeting Latino communities in the U.S. as it ramps up deportations.

Protesters’ cries against government failures were echoed by experts, who said that surging gentrification is a product of both a shortage of affordable housing in the city and longtime government failures to regulate the housing market.

Antonio Azuela, a lawyer and sociologist, and others said that they do see the protest as a xenophobic backlash to digital nomads arriving in the city, but anger boiled over because of lax housing laws.

“What has made this explode is lack of regulation in the market,” Azuela said.

Mexico City’s government over the course of decades has made few efforts to control development and create affordable housing.

Legislators estimated there are about 2.7 million houses and apartments in the city, but about 800,000 more are needed. New affordable housing developments have arrived at the fringes of the city, said Luis Salinas, a National Autonomous University of Mexico researcher who has studied gentrification in Mexico City for years.

Controls, meanwhile, have been marked by lack of enforcement, and companies such as Airbnb have capitalized, he said.

Today, more than 26,000 properties in Mexico City are listed on Airbnb, according to Inside Airbnb, an advocacy organization that tracks the company’s impact on residential communities through data. For comparison, there are more than 36,000 Airbnb properties in New York City and 19,000 in Barcelona, where protests have also broken out.

“The government has treated housing like it’s merchandise,” Salinas said. The government’s actions “are completely insufficient,” he added. “The federal government needs to be intervening far more nowadays.”

Airbnb said it helped contribute more than a billion dollars in “economic impact” to Mexico City last year and that spending by guests has supported 46,000 jobs in the city. “What’s needed is regulation based not on prohibitions, but on respect for rights and transparency of obligations,” it stated.

Last year, Mexico City’s government approved the most ambitious rent control law since the 1940s to moderate prices and set caps on short-term rentals to 180 nights a year, but Salinas said that enforcement of short-term rental legislation is on pause until after the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

And even then, the country’s government will have to take far greater actions to get the situation under control, Azuela said.

“This isn’t going to end by just reining in Airbnb,” he said. “They’re going to have to do a whole lot more.”

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MADRID — Spain’s government wanted to send a message last month with its crackdown on vacation rental company Airbnb, a minister told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The message was that the Spanish economy and its housing market are not a “free-for-all” that value profits over the rule of law.

The government ordered Airbnb to remove from its platform almost 66,000 holiday rentals identified as violating local rules by failing to list license numbers, listing the wrong license number, or not specifying the apartment’s owner. Airbnb is appealing the move.

Spain is one of the world’s most visited countries. It has approximately 49 million residents but last year received a record 94 million international visitors.

Meanwhile a housing affordability problem that is particularly acute in cities such as Madrid and Barcelona has led to growing antagonism against short-term holiday rentals. Airbnb is perhaps the best-known and most visible facilitator of such business.

The rise of Airbnb and other short-term rental companies is related to rising rents and housing costs, according to Spanish officials.

“Obviously there is a correlation between these two facts,” Consumer Rights Minister Pablo Bustinduy told the AP. “It’s not a linear relation. It’s not the only factor affecting it; there are many others. But it is obviously one of the elements that is contributing.”

The country has a shortfall of 450,000 homes, a recent Bank of Spain report stated. In the tourist hot spots of the Canary Islands and Balearic Islands, half the housing stock is tourist accommodations or properties owned by nonresidents, according to the report.

“Tourism is for sure a vital part of the Spanish economy; it’s a strategic and very important sector,” Bustinduy said. “But as in every other economic activity, it must be conducted in a sustainable way. It cannot jeopardize the constitutional rights of the Spanish people — their right to housing, but also their right to well-being.”

The country has seen several large protests that have drawn tens of thousands of people to demand more government action on housing. Homemade signs, including one that read “Get Airbnb out of our neighborhoods,” at a recent march in Madrid point to the growing anger.

“A balance must be found between the constitutional rights of the Spanish people and economic activities in general,” Bustinduy said.

Regional governments in Spain are also tackling the issue. Last year, Barcelona announced a plan to not renew licenses for any apartments in the city as short-term rentals (approximately 10,000 are currently licensed) by 2028 to safeguard the housing supply for full-time residents.

Airbnb said that while its appeal goes through the courts, no holiday rentals would be immediately taken down from the site.

In response to Spain’s order, Airbnb has said the platform connects property owners with renters, but it doesn’t have oversight obligations, even though it requires hosts to show that they are compliant with local laws.

Tech companies like Airbnb must be held accountable, Bustinduy said.

“There is a battle going on about accountability and about responsibility,” he said. “The digital nature of these extraordinarily powerful multinational corporations must not be an excuse to fail to comply with democratically established regulations.”

Bustinduy, who belongs to the governing coalition’s left-wing Sumar party, dismissed the idea that the Spanish government‘s action toward Airbnb could discourage some tourists from visiting.

“It will encourage longer stays, it will encourage responsible tourism, and it will preserve everything that we have in this wonderful country,” he said, “which is the reason why so many people want to come here.”

The minister also took a shot at low-cost airlines. Spain has pushed against allowing such airlines to charge passengers for hand baggage. Last year, it fined five budget airlines, including RyanAir and easyJet, a total of $179 million for charging for hand luggage.

“The principle behind these actions is always the same: preserving consumer rights,” Bustinduy said. “Powerful corporations, no matter how large, have to adapt their business models to existing regulations.”

Editor’s note: AP reporter Joseph Wilson contributed to this report from Barcelona.

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Washington County has launched an online open house as county officials move toward imposing licensing requirements on short-term rentals.

Washington County has seen a sharp rise in short-term rentals, defined as those offering stays of less than 30 days. Websites such as Airbnb, Vacasa and Vrbo have made it easy for homeowners to rent out their properties to visitors for days at a time. That’s drawn the ire of some neighbors, who complain about over-parked streets, parties and other nuisances.

“We did have a lot of community members who had concerns about short-term rentals in their neighborhoods,” said Melissa de Lyser, communications manager for the county’s Department of Land Use and Transportation.

Washington County has identified 560 short-term rental homes as of February 2020. Many of the complaints arose from urban, unincorporated areas of the county, de Lyser said.

According to proposed rules, short-term rental owners would be required to get a license. Maximum occupancies would be set based on the number of bedrooms. The maximum occupancy is as drafted two people per “sleeping area,” plus two additional people.

Operators must also provide contact information to all neighbors within 300 feet and quiet hours would be enforced. Operators who do not meet these requirements would risk license revocation.

Any new rules must be approved by the Board of Commissioners. De Lyser said commissioners would consider the rules in 2021, but the exact timing is unclear.

The online open house is posted at . A Spanish-language version is available at .

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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Portland’s mayor is planning to introduce an ordinance that would force online short-term rental companies like Airbnb to take down unpermitted rentals.

Oregon Public Broadcasting reports the proposed crackdown in Oregon’s largest city follows a federal court ruling in March that dealt a legal blow to Airbnb’s long-held position that it is not responsible for policing unpermitted listings on its site.

Portland’s revenue division has been trying to reach a voluntary agreement with the company for more than a year over unpermitted rentals.

The city says Airbnb’s latest offer represented a step backward, so it is preparing to try a tougher tactic: an ordinance that goes after Airbnb’s profits.

The draft ordinance would prevent Airbnb from collecting booking fees on unpermitted rentals in Portland.

It’s modeled after a similar ordinance in Santa Monica, California, that was recently upheld by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Four out of five short-term rental properties in Portland are operating illegally and there is not much the city can do about them yet since it doesn’t have complete information, according to a recent report by city officials.

Portland requires hosts of Airbnb-style bookings to apply for a permit, be the primary resident of the rental, live in the home nine months out of the year and limit each booking to a maximum of 30 days, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.

It’s hard enforce these rules since companies like Airbnb or Vacasa don’t regularly share rental information about each listing, their hosts and frequency of rentals with the city, citing privacy reasons, auditors said in a report released Wednesday.

Public data on Airbnb’s website showed it had more than 4,600 listings in Portland in October 2017, according to the audit. At that time, the city had only issued 1,638 permits.

One possible reason why hosts may not be applying for a permit is the cost. The permit fee for hosts renting one or two bedrooms is $178. If hosts advertise three to five bedrooms, the cost goes up to $5,000 and requires a land use review.

However, most short-term rental hosts do pay the required city taxes on each night’s stay, the auditors found.

The city hopes to finalize data sharing agreements with booking companies, said Mayor Ted Wheeler and Commissioner Chloe Eudaly in a response letter to auditors.

They are confident the data will help the city better regulate these types of rentals.

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Taped to the walls and doorframes throughout an Old Town space being modified for Airbnb are the corresponding elevation sheets.

For a project with so many unique finishes and special materials – 15 species of wood, numerous shades of gray and white, etc. – this old-school step has helped keep crews confusion-free, according to Fortis Construction project engineer Kevin Kelly.

“It’s a part of our quality control process when we do these high-end TIs,” he said. “You want to make sure people are cross-referencing and always looking at the right finishes.”

Airbnb established its Portland foothold in the 129-year-old Blagen Block three years ago with 160 employees – customer service representatives, information technology staffers, trainers and managers. By adding personnel in product development and engineering, the North American operations hub now has approximately 330 employees. The improvements under way will give the firm 38,500 square feet – enough space to accommodate up to 690 people.

Airbnb is expanding its space on the first floor and taking over the fourth floor (formerly occupied by Dell); the online room rental giant now completely occupies the four-story building.

Where employees sit throughout the day will be largely up to them. The open-office design allows staffers to work where they want among nooks, petite “caves,” conference tables and living rooms over four floors. Many spaces will be equipped for videoconferencing – an important feature for an international company with 19 offices around the world.

The theme of the project is “belong anywhere.” About three dozen workers are following intricate floorplans from around the world. A number of true-to-life mock-ups of Airbnb spaces are being created. For instance, a spare server room with blacked-out windows is being transformed into a replica of a Maltese living room including in a listing on the website.

Other spaces include a “Portland,” a “Moscow” and a brightly colored “Mexico.” All of these conference room designs are replicas of Airbnb spaces considered exemplary by staffers. A freestanding accessory unit is awaiting rough-in, and a geodesic dome is in the works. While the Airbnb listing with the dome has a small fireplace, the Blagen Block version will feature a salvaged fireplace that hides an air vent.

Even a few original aspects of the 1888 building are being preserved, including some column hardware (with strict historical guidelines, little could be done to the exterior). The unreinforced masonry building has yet to receive a seismic upgrade.

“The level of finish is very high, and as a builder, that’s fun,” Kelly said.

He added that he’s proud the project team has diverted for reuse 78 percent of materials that otherwise would’ve ended up in a landfill. A spiral staircase, for instance, was purchased within a week.

Blagan Block tenant improvement

Cost: $1 million

Size: 20,250 square feet

Project manager: Specht Development

Contractor: Fortis Construction

Designer: Bora Architects

Expected completion: May 2017

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