ABSTRACT
In Europe, the economic revaluation as well as the cultural, spatial and social revalorisation of the historic downtown quarters of many cities carried out since the mid-1980s have strongly contributed to transform the city center into a leisure-oriented consumption arena. This chapter shows that a critical approach oriented towards the urban social movements that are struggling for an inclusive urban coexistence of diverse social groups in the ‘Tourist City’. It focuses on two case studies, Madrid and Barcelona, where tensions between different social actors resulting from the rapid and intense touristification of the city center have emerged as part of a global phenomenon affecting both well-established and emerging world tourism destinations. The middle-class-oriented reformist agenda facing touristification in Lisbon is also quite evident in explicit left-wing social association movements and even among local scholars researching in the field of urban studies.
