Airbnb adds 770 listings in six months in Mexico City; the Urban Memorial Project documents the eviction and displacement processes that make this possible.
Yes: every two days, at least three entire homes disappear from the traditional rental market in the capital to become temporary accommodations. In just six months, and on the eve of the World Cup, the Airbnb platform added 770 new listings in Mexico City, according to a review of available data by the Urban Memorial Project, a citizen initiative that has been documenting the effects of gentrification, mass tourism, and real estate violence over the last decade in the city.
Although evictions and rising rental prices affect every corner of the city, it is no coincidence that they are more frequent in the Cuauhtémoc borough: 46% of Airbnb’s accommodation offerings—12,514 listings—are concentrated in this tourist area.
But homes don’t magically transform into Airbnbs.
In 2022, when the city was just beginning to recover from the shock of the Covid-19 pandemic, a billboard took over half the block at the corner of Cuauhtémoc and Colima streets in the Roma Norte neighborhood. “Pre-sale,” it read, “invest in rental apartments for travelers.”
The ad promoted the sale of small apartments—”as an investment or for living”—in a historic building that would be remodeled by architect Alfonso López Velarde and furnished by interior designer Jonathan Vizcarra, “inspired by 20th-century Mexican architecture and contemporary Japanese design.”
What the banner didn’t show was that, to build those apartments, the building first had to be emptied: an old housing complex on Colima Street, comprising numbers 11, 13, 15, and 17.
Right at number 17, a 42-year-old woman, accompanied by her 15-year-old daughter, barricaded herself inside for a month after hundreds of thugs—led by lawyers and court officials, and accompanied by police—evicted dozens of families living in the four units with crowbars, hammers, and threats.
It happened on April 26, 2019. Alejandrina lived in one of the apartments at the back of the building, number 17. Although she heard some commotion, she decided not to go outside. The thugs didn’t break down her door or smash her windows; no one took her furniture out into the street.
The swarm of violent men who were clearing the building didn’t intimidate her, nor did they make lewd comments to her daughter—who was at home, sick—as they did to the rest of her frightened neighbors.
Her eldest son was working that day in Santa Rosa Xochiac, in the Álvaro Obregón borough. Her husband was far away, who knows where. At that time, they were considering separating, and the family situation was complicated.
Perhaps that’s why, because domestic worries had her so distracted, she took so long to find out what was happening outside. She didn’t know that all her neighbors had already been evicted and that, to make sure no one returned, a real estate company was placing a huge chain with an equally large padlock on the entrance gate. Someone else was hurrying to weld the lock shut.
Alejandrina’s case is one of the hundreds of evictions and displacements that the Urban Memorial Project has documented in recent months. This is a coordinated effort among several groups—including Fábrica de Periodismo—that seeks to build a public record of evictions and forced displacements in the capital.
In addition to firsthand accounts gathered through interviews and online forms, the participating organizations are collecting data from various sources to understand how real estate greed is transforming the city.
Sergio Olguín, the son of Alejandrina, speaks: the woman who was trapped for a month inside Colima 17. They are together this afternoon. We are in Pushkin Park, across from the building from which they were evicted. Alejandrina and Sergio want their case documented by the Urban Memorial Project: the eviction caused them severe emotional trauma from which they have not yet recovered.
Source: fabricadeperiodismo
