Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1107757
6 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 21 APRIL 2019 NEWS DAVID HUDSON AS Malta's capital city under- went a facelift with the business ushered in by the European Capital of Culture, its commu- nity has felt the burden of seeing more residents leave Valletta af- ter selling their homes – a wave of gentrification which some feel has 'killed' the city's vener- able and residential character. The people who spoke to the anthropologists who carried out the research on behalf of the V18 Foundation, complained that the city had "lost its soul" after its European accolade, and that they could not afford to live there anymore. Valletta, they said, was doomed to become a necropolis. "What's happening in Valletta is that it is getting depopulated while boutique hotels and other commercial enterprises are opening. You need commerce but you also need residents to keep a city alive. A city is made of its people – we are not talking about a necropolis, a tourist resort or an industrial estate," one resident told the researchers. 'Thobb haga u tobghod ohra' (you love one thing and hate another) and 'il-progress rigress' (progress is regres- sion) seemed to dominate the respond- ents' sentiments as they complained of how Valletta, though bustling and rehabilitated, had become associated with unliveable conditions. While city-dwellers said that Valletta 2018 contributed to the city's revival, they also lamented that the rehabilita- tion process had pushed prices up and consequently made it more difficult, if not impossible, for young people from Valletta to buy property there. The Beltin voiced concern about nightlife in the area, with their main reason being the loss of the city's char- acter. One interviewee criticised the revival of Strait Street as being simply an imposition of the standard nightlife model upon Valletta without regard for context. Specifically, he said that: "Val- letta 2018 should be all about culture but all we are seeing are new arriviste bars and restaurants while the old bars are being forgotten. We are tearing the thin veil of society here. We'll make some money out of it but will it rip the identity of Valletta?" Young respondents lamented that the Old Abattoir and the Covered Market had been "lost" to businesses offering unaffordable merchandise. At the det- riment of the historical aspect of the city, they said commercialisation and business had overtaken the capital's personality. "It's not true that boutique hotels and businesses are only taking up spaces that are not within the budget of the average person because they are buying up even small spaces… foreign and lo- cal investors do not become part of the community. They are in it for profit," a respondent said. Interviewees spoke mostly of afforda- bility, with residents claiming that the emphasis on the en- tertainment industry is symp- tomatic of a "retrograde men- tality" and that regenerating a place doesn't have to mean pushing people out, with rent prices soaring and purchas- ing property becoming near to impossible. "Money which could have helped people, was frittered away and in effect, the lasting legacy has been speeding up the touristification of the city and the expulsion of its peo- ple," one resident said. Another claimed that em- phasis on the businesses in Valletta has contributed to the death of the city's character. "There's a feeling that fi- nancial well-being is the only form of well-being, there is no pursuit of beauty or spiritu- ality, but we need to look beyond this amazing economic growth to which we have all submitted," a 35-year-old male resident said. Residents reported that unless they live in a governmental rental, peo- ple were facing dramatic increases in rent. They referred to elderly residents whom they know and who are being forced out due to increased rents, with property owners professing their desire to rent out to more bankable foreign- Stuff your boutique hotels. The pissed-off residents of Valletta's capital of culture Valletta 2018 triggered unliveable conditions for city residents, an anthropologists' report for the V18 Foundation reveals Glamour in the heart of the city: several boutique hotels have opened in the buzzing capital city, proving to be a drastic contrast to the general expectations of Beltin "There's a feeling that financial well-being is the only form of well-being, there is no pursuit of beauty or spirituality, but we need to look beyond this amazing economic growth" PHOTO CHRIS MANGION "Foreign and local investors do not become part of the community. They are in it for prof it"