Lanzarote: Design to live, not just to pose

Not many decades ago, Lanzarote exported a revolutionary lesson to the world: tourism did not have to destroy a place's identity; on the contrary, it should adapt to it. We learned that the visitor came looking for our authenticity, our landscape, and our way of life. Today, unfortunately, it seems we have reversed the formula. We have begun to design an island exclusively for those who spend a week here, forgetting those of us who sustain this territory 365 days a year.

There is an urban planning maxim that is more urgent than ever to remember on our island: A city designed for the resident is a city that visitors also enjoy. However, when we design solely and exclusively for the tourist, the resident is left without space.

Anyone who has traveled through Northern Europe feels a healthy envy when seeing their cities. Places where the sun barely appears for a few months a year, but which are structured by imposing public parks, large open spaces, lively squares, and green areas designed for family gatherings, sports, and relaxation.

In Lanzarote, blessed with the best climate in the world, we suffer the paradox of having a privileged natural environment but impoverished urban public spaces, focused on the concrete of tourist avenues.

The disconnect between the showcase and the local reality

The problem is not tourism; tourism is our economic engine. The problem is the management of our rulers' priorities. While Tourism Modernization Plans advance with enviable administrative agility to renovate hotels, apartments, and shopping centers, the General Plans of our municipalities—the tools that should regulate housing for our youth, schools, health centers, and green areas—move at a snail's pace, remaining in institutional drawers for decades.

Focusing on our municipality, Tías, it is the most flagrant example of this imbalance.

In the last seven years, local urban planning management has had only one monologue: the Puerto del Carmen Modernization Plan.

We have seen how procedures have been streamlined to give tourist use to the residential land of the town of La Tiñosa, favoring future new constructions such as the boutique hotel on Salinas street or even urban changes to favor the construction of a new hotel on the beachfront in the Matagorda area.

Meanwhile, the real social urgency remains buried: the Tías General Urban Planning Plan turns 21 years old this year since its approval in 2005. Twenty-one years in which residential housing development has been practically blocked, being unable to develop a single action unit or partial plan that responds to the families and young people of the municipality.

We suffer this distortion of priorities on a daily basis, in the politics of small details that are taking away what is common from us. We see it when the space of the old Minigolf of the Hotel San Antonio, instead of being recovered as a large open space or a green lung for the rest of the neighbors, is put out to tender to house a luxury bar. Or with future plans that threaten to privatize the paddle tennis courts of Puerto del Carmen, a public sports service that should be sacred for the well-being of residents. Private business and leisure focused on the visitor's pocket are prioritized over the resident's right to have first-class public infrastructure.

The paradox of the sidewalk and the generational gap

 Our elders, with that generosity and hospitality that has always characterized the people of Lanzarote, sometimes look at a broken or dirty sidewalk in our towns and lament: "What will the tourist think if they fall?", "What a dirty image we will give!". They forget, in their infinite kindness and culture of caring for the tourist, that it is we, who walk on those sidewalks 365 days a year, who have more chances of tripping.

For them, tourism was salvation from an island of shortages, hunger, and much sacrifice, and that is why they learned to protect the visitor sometimes more than themselves.

But this same political inertia that always prioritizes the showcase over the inside of the house is causing a painful fracture. By stretching the rope so much, the younger generations are beginning to see tourism as a problem and not as the solution it once was. We are losing our hospitable essence because the resident feels like a stranger in their own land. We cannot allow poor management to turn the gratitude of our elders into the rejection of our children.

Towards balanced prosperity

 It is not about going against tourist investments; it is about demanding symmetry. For every euro of public money allocated to streamline holiday urban development or beautify a commercial area, the same political and economic effort must be invested in unlocking residential land and creating the large urban parks that our children need.

We want a prosperous Lanzarote, of course, but the prosperity of an island is not measured by the number of occupied beds, but by the quality of life of the people who make those beds, who drive the taxis, who work in the shops, and who educate our children.

For Lanzarote to remain the pride of our elders and the future of our children, let's start designing the island with those of us who live here in mind, and everything will turn out well.

Making the well-being of all of us cease to be the eternal pending issue and become the absolute priority; this is and will always be my commitment. But to achieve this, I need the help of all of you, because this work belongs to all of us and only together will we be able to do it.