I feel a bit trepidatious to broach the topic of the dreaded “G” word…
After all, if you mention “gentrification” in one of the myriad of Facebook groups where wannabe expats go for advice and humiliation, you’ll be met with sneers, snickers and anecdotes about how this or that person knows a tico who’s benefiting from it.
Of course, there are ticos in a position to benefit from it. But just because you happen to know a tico builder of homes, or a tico who owns a pool service business who’s raking it in due to the rampant development and soaring costs along Costa Rica’s hot tourist and expat enclaves, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the vast majority of them are as well…
Because, truth be told, they aren’t.
Costa Rica has long been alluring for tourism due to its flora, fauna, two gorgeous coastlines, incredibly hospitable culture and stunning panoramic vistas. Since I started coming here back in 2001 tourism has grown exponentially and now consumes close to 10% of the country’s gross domestic product.
And whenever you have that kind of stunning growth in a sector driven by inviting outsiders into your paradise, what generally follows is growth in the real estate market. Because of course many of those outsiders (or “tourists”) are going to want to actually buy property and live here and become at least part-time expats.
And usually they end up buying and living in areas that they initially experienced while on vacation, sometimes aspiring to a life that looks less like the mundane existence of “back home” than it does a perpetual holiday.
And then along came a virus named Covid…
Covid took what was already a recurring phenomenon of folks who initially experienced the country as tourists and then transitioned to Costa Rica expat retirees and turned it into an invasion of sorts.
Part of that is because Covid added to the mix of foreign invaders, I mean investors, young families who had found out that working in an office was no longer a requisite of gainful employment. The so-called “digital nomad” was birthed by this airborne disease that claimed the lives of millions and continues to change the lives of millions more.
I’ve written about the real estate boom that came in the aftermath of Covid, mainly during the years of 2021 and 2022. That boom has dissipated as of late to some extent, but I believe it is poised to reignite, this time not due to a respiratory disease, but due to an infirmity of the political variety.
Costa Rica stands to benefit from this, but…
In areas where expat growth has been the strongest, prices have been rising and rising. You’ll also read on the aforementioned Facebook expat groups that Costa Rica isn’t “cheap” anymore…
Well, truth is that it hasn’t been “cheap” for a very long time.
It is true that prices in touristic areas, where expats tend to want to invest, have risen to astonishingly high levels. I’m not talking about only eggs and bacon, but also the price for places to live, either for buyers or renters. In many of these tourist and expat enclaves, the typical tico, whose work could be as a construction worker, housekeeper, property caretaker, or in some tourism service business, can’t even afford to pay the soaring costs of living in areas where he or she might have grown up.
While the Costa Rica economy does have socialistic idiosyncrasies, for all intents and purposes it is a “free market.” And gentrification can be and often is a hallmark of a free market economy…
Wait a minute, I keep bandying about this term gentrification and haven’t even stopped to tell readers what the hell I’m talking about…
What is the basic definition of gentrification?
A quick Google search reveals this one:
Gentrification is a process of urban development in which a city neighborhood develops rapidly over a short time, changing from low to high value. A neighborhood’s residents are often displaced by rising rents and living costs brought about by gentrification.
For instance, along our Costa Ballena coastline, this displacement of sorts has definitely occurred. Well, it didn’t occur over such a short time period, but lately the process has greatly accelerated. This displacement might be relished by those benefiting the most from it. However, it is alarming to others who are either experiencing said displacement or observing it with heartfelt concern.
Gentrification not only gives rise to prices, it also gives rise to resentment and that can and often is followed by a rising crime rate…
That is definitely beginning to be the reality along our Costa Ballena and I would venture a guess that it’s happening in other areas of rapid gentrification as well.
Ok, yada, yada yada – so, where are your proposed solutions, Señor Bleeding Heart?
Well, I believe those of us who are promoting this phenomenon and continuing to benefit from it, need to take a step back and ask ourselves, what the hell are we doing?
Are we doing more harm than good?
Do we really need to promote this country as a playground for the rich and famous? I’m talking in particular to myself and my fellow realtors.
And shouldn’t we be trying to seek out those types of clients whose desire is more to immerse in the Costa Rica that already exists, rather than insist that it become something that caters to their tastes?
After all, this is not “our home”, it’s theirs. You would never enter as a guest of someone’s home and start changing things to suit yourself, without any thought as to how your host might be affected negatively, would you?
And neither should we come to Costa Rica as guests and then quickly begin to treat those who welcomed us as foreigners in their own land, insisting that they pony up to our standards of living – socially, culturally and economically.
I’m no “policy wonk”, nor am I smart enough to propose concrete solutions to this very complicated problem. However, burying our heads in the sand and pretending this is not a problem will only make it grow worse. Ticos could always get fed up to the point of settling this matter at the ballot box – by electing someone not so friendly towards expats and their luxurious playgrounds…
This post is to promote awareness of this issue, nothing more, nothing less.
