Overtourism and habitability crisis in Rome

This chapter describes the touristification process affecting Rome during the last 25 years, a period during which its effects on the city have been particularly intense. We try to answer the question as to how the pressure of several million tourists arriving in Rome each year impacts its habitability. The gradual shift towards a tourism economy, the proliferation of short-term rentals and the increasing unaffordability of housing in Italy’s capital city are approached through qualitative and quantitative methods. We look at the multidimensionality of overtourism, considering the rental market, the economic and socio-spatial implications of tourism and the housing affordability crisis. With reference to the “tourism-led rentierism” perspective, fuelled by new urban imaginaries of cultural development, we discuss how the process of touristification in the past twenty-five years has led to the current situation of overtourism and to the widespread “crisis of habitability” that became striking during the run-up to Jubilee 2025.