Housing dispossession and gentrification in the tourist city. the case of puerto de la cruz (Canary islands, Spain)

The global economic and financial crisis of 2008 was linked to the collapse of the real estate bub-ble, which was inflated during the previous decades by massive capital flows. The crisis provoked high unemployment rates and high numbers of evictions. This article approaches these phenome-na from the perspective of accumulation by dispossession and explores a case study to examine the urban distribution of housing dispossessions in the tourist city of Puerto de la Cruz. Drawing on the Atlante database, statistical data, and several interviews, we show that the crisis intensified housing dispossessions. This is particularly the case in the city center, where the number of visi-tors, european residents and tourist infrastructures have increased.