About 8 million tourists came to Prague last year. But those numbers, published by the Czech statistical office, only reflect travelers staying in official accommodation establishments. The real figures are likely to be about a third higher – meaning that a city like Berlin, three times bigger than Prague, attracts less tourists than our capital city. For local inhabitants who live in Prague, and shape it, tourism has become a serious problem.
This uncontrolled business has changed Prague’s character and identity. It chased away local residents and replaced the local atmosphere built on community life and neighbourly relations with a soulless “Disneyland”, unaffordable housing and business or development projects only intended for a restricted group of people. Essential daily life services disappear, while those catering to tourists skyrocket.
When we see, today, streets without tourists and overpriced souvenir shops closed down, it also reminds us of other things: the extent to which the city centre has grown apart from people who actually shape Prague – its inhabitants. At an ever-accelerating pace, life is disappearing from Prague and, along with its residents, the city’s own memory is fading away. Average citizens have trouble living in Prague, and the fundamental pillar of neighbourly life and social relations are being replaced by the illusion of quick profits.
A sustainable city is one that manages to take care of the needs of its residents, to protect them and to plan the future alongside them.
This is why we ask for the launch of a public debate (in the form of public discussions or round-tables, for instance) to discuss the following points:
The limitation of short-term rentals to flat-sharing only. Under the pretext of “sharing” and “renting”, 14,000 flats are being run as accommodation services, of which hundreds are owned by large firms and corporations. Of these, 80% are rented as entire flats as if they were standard hotel rooms. Those flats could serve to house about 30,000 Prague residents, and pave the way for the come-back of a more neighbour-friendly, community-driven local life. Sharing should be limited to own’s own flat, in which one really lives.
The emphasis on affordable quality housing. Housing prices have been rising twice as fast as wages and Prague is, simply put, quickly becoming unaffordable for large parts of the middle class, as well as many families with children, students or pensioners. And while the construction of flats has also increased in the last several years, luxury and investment-driven projects are no guarantee of a strong housing accessibility. On the contrary, they often contribute to gentrification, a spike in housing prices in the neighbourhood and the eviction of poorer population groups and households. We urgently need to start focusing on municipal and cooperative housing projects, and require from private developers a certain share of affordable rental housing to safeguard the city’s diversity. Municipalities should also support Housing First programmes which have been successful in eliminating homelessness. If anything, the coronavirus crisis has shown us the fundamental role of housing for our safety.
The non-expansion of the airport. More and more people are flying into Prague every year. Most of them do not even stay for three days, while many only use short-term rentals and disrupt, in one way or another, the every-day life of people who live in buildings with illegal accommodation offers. The expansion of Prague’s Vaclav Havel Airport aims to double the airport’s capacity by 2028: with almost 17 million passengers in 2019, the airport’s expansion would allow to cater to 30 million passengers every year. This investment is in contradiction with the ecological concerns and the existing environmental impact study. Prague should draw inspiration from cities like Barcelona, which announced it won’t expand its airport, or from the U.K., where a court declared an airport’s enlargement illegal considering the climate crisis. Moreover, the budget of 55 billion Kc (more than €2 billion) earmarked by the state to expand Prague airport’s capacity could serve for the construction of around 20,000 affordable housing units. In the face of an unprecedented housing crisis and the worsening climate emergency, this investment would make much greater sense.
The support to local businesses and everyday services for residents. Services that are essential to daily life are being replaced by tourist shops. In Prague’s centre, you can barely find any domestic, every-day life products, and won’t be able to spot a quality hardware store anywhere. Ordinary and essential shops are disappearing, replaced on every street corner by people selling cannabis ice cream for 50 Kc (about €2, more than half the minimum hourly wage), or a “traditional” trdelník pastry. Russian dolls, fake crystal or Thai massages have absolutely nothing to do with Prague or the Czech Republic, and the city is already drowning in visual smog. Even shops and businesses catering to tourists could be more elegant, ecological and abide by higher standards of quality.
Greater emphasis on public spaces. Let’s enlarge parks and green spaces, quiet down the streets and truly start inhabiting and seizing what the public space has to offer. People must not only feel safe and welcome in it, but it should be as accessible as possible, both physically and financially. Greater accessibility for pedestrians and cyclists instead of shared electric scooters scattered everywhere. Well-maintained resting areas and spacious streets instead of inaccessible and ubiquitous terraces reserved for touristic bars and restaurants, unpleasant beer bikes and other alcohol-touristic activities – this should be the vision for Prague in the next few years. Otherwise, Prague residents will feel increasingly frustrated and alienated from their own city.
Greater civic involvement in decisions on Prague’s development. The construction site starting next to the Masaryk train station is a text-book example of the way the lack of transparency is used by public authorities to side with developers while treating the participation and involvement of citizens and residents as a mere formality. Do Prague inhabitants need another luxury office and a hotel in the centre that will only increase car traffic? Don’t they need a park or a kindergarten, a library or affordable housing instead? Even when residents do take part in Prague urban projects, private developers come out on top and the project’s profitability remains its priority. But this approach tragically ignores two of the biggest crises today: housing and the environment. Prague’s Institute for Urban Planning and Development (IPR) should start working as a critical platform to defend public interests, promote civic debates and facilitate the involvement of residents and citizens.
The resident-friendly protection of Prague’s cultural heritage. Permits should not be delivered for construction and real-estate plans changing the architectural identity and urban structure of Prague while failing to enrich it and only serving, ultimately, developers and investors.For instance, the monitoring report of the UNESCO and ICOMOS mission, whose inspectors visited Prague in March 2019, expressed concerns regarding the city’s ability to protect its cultural and architectural heritage due to the pressure from developers and the private sector.
A healthy environment, a reduction in urban heat islands and in car traffic. For any big construction projects within the city, we should therefore require that green spaces be included to compensate for the formation of urban heat islands, that dimensions are not excessive and that they do not lead to a deterioration in air quality as a result of increased car traffic.We must accelerate transport infrastructure projects meant to lower the number of cars in the inner city by turning to non-polluting alternatives like new tramway lines, the expansion of the metro and suburban railways, or safe bike lanes.
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