Real Estate Speculation Has Made Lisbon One of the World’s Most Unlivable Cities
Housing costs in Lisbon are so high that it’s ranked even more unviable for renters than New York. Attempts to solve the issue through “market efficiency” have made the problem worse.
This March, Lisbon, Portugal, ranked the world’s third-least viable city to live in based on local wages and rents. (Pedro Szekely / Flickr)
It’s Tuesday morning, and Manuela, a second-year student at the University of Lisbon (ULisboa), wakes up on her friends’ floor in the city center, gets ready, and walks to class. But she’s not crashing after a night out: she tells me she’s “been living on the floor Monday-Friday after nearly two months of searching for a room.”
Manuela’s story is not unique. Leston, a Portuguese-Angolan resident, told me that his cousin “struggled to move to Lisbon from South Africa after being asked to provide three months’ rent upfront.”
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