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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