Our parents' generation has explained to us that they discovered places where no one went back then, that they slept in the middle of nowhere or in very simple and very cheap hostels, that they rented the first houses for vacationers at ridiculous prices, and that they always went in search of that tranquility that paradise offered before it was given to them before paradise. This generation is going brand new It changed the economy of many areas that saw the goose that laid the golden eggs and stopped what they were doing to dedicate themselves to tourism. Of course. Let's see if some should get rich and others should not escape poverty. We can still remember some of those places that filled our childhood, and if you traveled even a little there (always by car), cities and museums where today you must make an appointment were practically empty. In those years, the seed of a change that has been unstoppable began to be planted. Was it avoidable?

When Asunción Blanco began researching tourism at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, it was 1996. At that time, if you wanted to see tourists in Barcelona, you had to go to La Pedrera, Camp Nou, or the Sagrada Família. Three decades later, Barcelona is not so much a city as a global brand, and tourists are everywhere. This means that while in 1996 Asunción was seen as a pioneer, because she was researching a world that was beginning to gain importance, today her work is at the center of the country's economic and social gravity.

With a click on a mobile phone or tablet, pieces of Mallorca or Catalonia pass from the hands of a South African investment fund to another with its headquarters in Boston. Or in Liverpool, or in Frankfurt, or in Singapore. Real estate speculation has gone global, and land, whether still rural or already housing developments, complete with a shopping center and amusement park, is bought and sold without ever having set foot there. Or with mansions with helipads inhabited by mega-millionaires, also from the most unlikely places in the world, who one day grow tired of their corner of the Mediterranean and decide to put it up for sale on the international luxury mansion market. Other investment funds do send personnel to investigate the land, and thus identify properties belonging to residents, or neighborhoods, which they buy up entirely to evict the residents and put them back on the market at a price five or six times their value. These forms of speculation are directly linked to mass tourism, a concept that perfectly illustrates what we are talking about when we talk about turbocapitalism: a so-called "traditional" economic activity injected with the urgency of an almost completely deregulated market, which does not consider the consequences of the vines.It's the market, my friend.", he said. But that's not exactly it: it's the hyperbole of the market, it's the market with myxomatosis that was born from the toxic ashes of the 2008 crisis, that of the mortgage scams endorsed by the supposedly regulatory bodies. A healthier capitalism didn't emerge from that: if anything, there's more to healthier capitalism, if anything, there's more to healthier capitalism; led by none other than Sarkozy. The pandemic crisis in 2020, and then the war in Ukraine, and now the genocide in Gaza and the West's rearmament policy, must be read in the yellowish light of this cynicism without further exception.

Cadaqués, with its idyllic village charm of whitewashed houses at the foot of Cap de Creus and the birthplace of Salvador Dalí, is one of the most attractive and popular spots for sun and beach tourism on the Costa Brava. In winter, the town is home to around 2,800 people, but in summer, the population increases exponentially to nearly 30,000, multiplying its usual population by ten. During the tourist season, long lines form on the only winding road leading to the town from Roses, and parking is almost impossible to find.

"For the locals it's great, but for businesses it's a load of rubbish. We are a tourist town, whether we like it or not, and if we don't let people come... I don't know what they will live on!" This is how Cisco, a resident of Cadaqués, sums up the new restrictions on access to Cap de Creus by car or motorbike. Since 11 June, you can only enter on foot, by bike or with the shuttle bus, about which there have already been many complaints about the service: the timetables are not clear and it costs 8 euros per adult. The town council admits that there are aspects that need to be improved, such as signposting, but they believe that the measure is essential to preserve the natural park and avoid images like those of last year, with peaks of 1,500 cars parked in every corner of the area.