Contribution short abstract

A comparative study of Naples and Barcelona analysing how housing and anti-touristification struggles shape class composition under rentier urbanism and open space for degrowth-aligned claims.

Contribution long abstract

This paper examines how anti-touristification and housing struggles in Naples and Barcelona intersect with processes of class composition under rentier urbanism. Drawing on ongoing comparative ethnographic research, it analyses how movements connect tourism growth with rent extraction, displacement, and pressures on social reproduction. Rather than treating touristification and housing as separate fields, the paper explores how activists weave them together as manifestations of a broader rentier regime that concentrates gains while externalising socio-ecological costs. The comparison highlights distinct political cultures and repertoires, yet in both cities conflicts around short-term rentals, tenants’ rights, and neighbourhood change offer a strategic lens on emerging post-growth agents of change. These mobilisations articulate limits to speculative expansion, demands for redistribution, and forms of collective organisation that resonate with degrowth debates but remain grounded in situated material struggles. By focusing on class interests and alliances—tenants, service workers, informal residents, and municipal actors—the paper contributes to political ecology discussions on who drives transitions beyond growth. It shows how classed grievances and organising practices shape contestations of tourism-led development and open pathways toward more socially and ecologically viable urban futures.