83. Digital Nomad's...Are We The Problem?

Embark on a journey with us as we unpack the multifaceted issue of gentrification!

Throughout the episode, we grapple with the duality of our influence; on one hand, we bring prosperity and renovation, yet on the other, we may inadvertently contribute to the displacement and dilution of local charm.

This episode will teach a special focus on how we, as digital nomads, fit into this evolving narrative.

No stone is left unturned as we confront these realities and navigate our responsibility to foster community growth while preserving the essence that drew us there.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:46

Hello and welcome to the profitable Nomad Couple podcast. This is a show where we share all of our secrets about building a sustainable location independent lifestyle.

Speaker 2: 1:55

We are Austin and Monica. We're a digital nomad couple here to help you develop an entrepreneurial mindset, ignite your passions and develop a purpose driven online business.

Speaker 1: 2:05

Get ready for weekly insights and inspiring stories to empower you to live life on your own terms.

Speaker 2: 2:11

So are you ready to unlock the Nomad mindset and embrace a life of limitless possibilities? Let's dive in. Hey everybody, today's episode is an awesome one, and I know we say that every week, but really today's an awesome one. This is going to be maybe a little bit of a heavier topic, would you call it.

Speaker 1: 2:29

I definitely think it's a heavier topic than our normal podcast episodes.

Speaker 2: 2:33

So we're talking about gentrification and there's a good chance you don't know what that is, because this is something that when I first was learning about it, I knew about the issue and I knew about the problems associated with it. I didn't know there was a name to it. I didn't know it was called gentrification. So we're going to talk about what gentrification is, kind of our take on it, and mostly this is just a conversation we want to be bringing up First. Let's define it so. So everyone knows what we're talking about.

Speaker 2: 2:57

So gentrification, what is this?

Speaker 2: 2:59

This is a process where people with more money move into a low income neighborhood and they start changing it.

Speaker 2: 3:06

So if you have been hearing about what's going on like the most prominent example for me is in Lisbon, portugal there's like riots and all sorts of different demonstrations from the local people there who are upset about all the digital nomads and people moving into Lisbon who are raising the prices of housing and now people who have lived there for generations can no longer afford to live there and are frustrated that they have to move out.

Speaker 2: 3:30

That is essentially gentrification and, as you can tell, there's kind of this really strong negative connotation around gentrification. So what we want to do is maybe share a little bit of the other side of the coin, because it's a two sided coin and, although there is a strong negative connotation to this issue, there are some benefits to this process and what we want to do is just start this conversation or, I guess, be a part of the conversation, because the conversation is already happening. But being big into the digital nomad space, being digital nomads ourselves and teaching people how to become digital nomads, we felt like this is a really important issue to bring up and we just want to share that. It's not a black and white issue. There's no clear cut solution, but the more we can talk about this and the more we can bring it up, hopefully we can all start becoming part of a solution and part of making this something better.

Speaker 1: 4:24

Yeah, this is definitely going to be an ongoing conversation that is probably going to be going on for quite some time, and I do think it's important to, like Austin said, just realize that this is not a black and white issue. So many times in the media or different things, you hear people are trying to sell you a black and white issue because the gray space is so tricky to navigate and so you need to be 100% for it or 100% against it. But you can't be in the middle and that's what we're often told and that's just not true. And so, as part of a global community, it's so important to be informed, it's so important to know about these issues, to be joining in the conversation so that together we can come up with a solution, because gentrification has been going on for centuries.

Speaker 1: 5:11

This is not a new thing. That's been happening. This is something that always happens with change and evolving and I think, globalization honestly, I kind of feel like it was inevitable, especially when we started being able to have access to global travel, and it's it's become more of a pattern in recent years. It's become more of an issue as more and more people have been able to embrace this location freedom. So it is something that I want us to continue to talk about and to be part of the solution and to work together, and at the end of this episode we're going to be talking about a lot of different things that we can do individually as digital nomads to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.

Speaker 2: 5:57

So earlier I mentioned that there's two sides to this coin. There are a lot of bad things, but there are a lot of good things. So I wanted to start talking about some of the good things that come from wealthier people moving into a lower income neighborhood, because maybe you've never even heard these talked about and maybe these aren't things that you've taken into consideration. So some of the benefits when wealthier people move into a lower income neighborhood, what happens is a lot more jobs are created and there's a larger diversity in the range of businesses and services that are offered. So this is helpful both for people who are consuming those services and being the recipients of the business, but also people who are business startups and entrepreneurs and creating those businesses to provide those services.

Speaker 1: 6:43

With this infusion of money. Oftentimes we see improved sanitation, improved safety, improved infrastructure and, even though they can't exactly pin this to the process of gentrification, typically you do see a reduced crime rate, and again, there's a big asterisk on this one. Sometimes you see better education. Well, I feel like. Often you see better education. The problem is that not everybody always has access to this education, so whether or not this is actually a positive thing really depends on how it is done. But there are a lot of downsides to be aware of as well. For example, there tends to be a lot more tension, and with this tension comes a huge possibility for a loss of cultural identity or culture altogether.

Speaker 2: 7:27

I think that's one of the big things a lot of people are scared about. These are people who have been living in a neighborhood or a city for generations, for hundreds of years sometimes, and all of a sudden you have all these foreigners, these other people that are moving in and displacing them and changing the culture. And you know, with enough time and with enough new people moving in, that culture of that city, and that people can change, can disappear altogether, and that's a legitimate concern. I believe that that's going to go away altogether, and so I think that's one of the big ones. And I think the other biggest issue is the physical displacement of the local residents, so people having to move out of their homes because they can no longer afford to live there, because the cost of living is rising so rapidly and so high.

Speaker 2: 8:13

Just a little interesting note on this as I was researching more about this, I did come across this study where this this guy last named Lance, he was doing a study on gentrifying neighborhoods and he actually discovered that, at least in this area that he was researching, what he found wasn't that it was the foreigners who were moving in and displacing the locals, but rather there's always change going on and, statistically speaking, lower income families are more likely to be moving out of their homes more regularly and when they do, if you're in a non gentrifying neighborhood, those families are replaced by people of the same socioeconomic status, same culture, same basically same people as them coming in and replacing their homes In a gentrifying neighborhood.

Speaker 2: 8:57

Those lower income families and individuals will leave, but they'll be replaced by someone of a different socioeconomic status, higher income, different culture. So it it wasn't so much that these foreigners were displacing them, but that they were kind of filling in that empty space as they were moving out. And I know that's not the case in every situation in every neighborhood, but I wanted to throw that in there because I thought it was a really interesting study and a really interesting thing that he discovered.

Speaker 1: 9:24

There is such a lack of like really good information and really good studies on this which is part of the reason why I feel like it's presented as such a black and white issue is that we are lacking information to studies like this and other studies on the global scale in each place is so individual and has so many different.

Speaker 1: 9:43

There's so many different factors that go into whether or not this is a positive or a negative thing for the area, and oftentimes it's both, so it's a little bit tricky to like really understand. Other negative things are rising costs of living. It gets really hard for people to continue to afford groceries and afford rent and things like that, as people are raising the costs, knowing that there are people who have more money coming into the area, as well as discrimination and segregation that happens, and as much as we like want to ignore this issue, this is something that sometimes happens a little bit naturally. As we are going especially, there tends to be colonies of digital nomads that kind of congregate together and then it's. It's easy because they speak your same language, they get you and so it's easier to hang out with them, then go out and try to learn a new language and to be part of the community, and that's where that kind of natural segregation starts to happen.

Speaker 2: 10:38

So I do want to put a little, I don't know. I just want to share that Monica and I aren't pro gentrification. We're not anti gentrification. It's not like we feel so strongly about one way or another. We recognize that this is a complex issue and I feel like we've shared that already. But I just want I just want to get across that we fully recognize that these downsides are major concerns for people, especially the local residents. When you can no longer afford to live in a place your families lived for generations, when you're concerned that your culture is being erased and disappearing and like those are major things to be dealing with and I know that those are happening. So we definitely feel for those people who are experiencing that. I guess what we would just want to do is recognize and share that it's. It's not all bad and there are some good things to be looking at it, which is why we wanted to share the pros and the cons.

Speaker 1: 11:27

Again, we just want to open up that gray space and have it be okay for people to recognize that this is a complex issue and there is no one solution and there is no one way to think about this issue, and just for that to be okay. So now we get to the million dollar question Are digital nomads the problem? And the reason we're talking about this is because we have been blamed several times for the problem. We've been blamed from, like, other people who are digital nomads, who are saying that we are the problem as digital nomads, we like we as in digital nomads, the whole, not as personally. We have seen people who have decided to to stop traveling altogether because they feel they're part of the problem. Or we have talked, we have seen people who are blaming digital nomads. We have seen places like Lisbon or Bali, where, where people are really upset about the issues that are happening and they're blaming digital nomads, and I just want to talk about that our digital nomads, the problem.

Speaker 2: 12:22

So here's my opinion on it. I think digital nomads are easy scapegoats for this issue because we travel so often, we travel to so many places, and so I do think that we're easy scapegoats and it's easy to place the blame on digital nomads as being the cause of these gentrifying neighborhoods, the cause of these high costs of living and rising housing costs and things like that. So I will say that, as digital nomads, we aren't solely to blame. We do contribute to the issue because we are traveling to these lower income places. We are moving to culturally different, social, socioeconomically different places than where we're from. So we are contributing to it, but I don't think it's solely us. I think globalization as a whole, the whole phenomenon of being able to travel all over the place, was going to lead to this. No matter what, I think any travelers, tourists, travelers of any length duration are going to be part of a contributing factor to gentrification. Just the ease of modern day mobility is all going to be a factor here.

Speaker 1: 13:23

Yeah, I definitely think digital nomads aren't excellent scapegoat for this, especially when we kind of look at and I'm not trying to knock anybody here, okay, but when you look at some of the the way that digital nomads are portrayed on social media is very much a consumer mentality that we're just going and we're, you know, sitting on the beach in our bikinis and we're drinking coconuts, and it's very much like we're congregating together, we're going to certain places, and it's a very different mentality than actually any digital nomad I've ever met in real life has. Where it's, it's more like look how great my life is on the beach, whereas a lot of the digital nomads in fact, all of the digital nomads I have ever met are here to integrate in the culture. They want to, to just soak it in. They want to learn so much, they want to participate, they want to be part of the culture, where that's not always how we're portrayed.

Speaker 1: 14:15

And a lot, of, a lot of travelers, a lot of people who go on vacation vacationers, I guess, instead of travelers are going with this consumer mindset that they want to go, they want to sit on the beach, they want to drink out of coconuts and they want to just consume what there is there, and I do feel like Even if digital nomads were not even a thing, gentrification would be happening. This would be happening. In fact, it has been happening before global travel was even a possibility that people could think was what's possible. Gentrification has always been part of our history, which I think is really cool that we're here now and we're here talking about it and we have people who care about it enough to be part of these conversations, because before in history it wasn't something that anyone ever cared about. It just was. It was just part of who we were and how Society evolved so here's the reality is, change is going to happen.

Speaker 2: 15:05

Neighborhoods are going to change and evolve. Cities and whole countries they're all going to change, they're all going to evolve, they're all going to become different. So I think the question that we should be asking really is how can we Accentuate the good things that are happening in these neighborhoods and do our best to mitigate the bad that comes with it? And then, with these changes, how can we make sure that we create equity between all the different groups of people involved, the locals as well as the foreigners and the newcomers? So really, the question is like what can be done? How can we accentuate the good, mitigate the bad? So, monica and I Monica and I have put together a few things that we believe Can help contribute to making this issue less of an issue. The first one is to make sure that we are connecting the residents, the local residents, to the benefits of Gentrification. So we talked about new jobs, new businesses, new education and things like that. So I think we need to take responsibility and helping get those benefits to everybody and not just our group of people.

Speaker 1: 16:07

Yeah. So what does that look like as a digital nomad? For us, it could be if you're gonna go on a tour, make sure you are paying a local guide. If you're gonna go to a restaurant, go to a small restaurant, not the big chain restaurants. If you're going to rent an apartment, make sure you're renting from a local. Make sure you're going to a local hostel. You're gonna buy groceries, maybe, go to the local market instead of going to the big chain grocery store.

Speaker 1: 16:30

You have tons of options here to really make sure that you are supporting and that your money is Going back into the community instead of into bigger businesses and bigger entities. Other things you can do here are Contributing to the community through volunteering or skills-based initiatives. You're bringing skills into a community that maybe they don't have. So this could look like volunteering to teach English classes. This could look like growing a community garden. Actually, when we were in Guatemala, we so we are part of an organization in Guatemala that brings medical services to people who don't have access to medical care for free up in the, the Mayan Highlands and and as part of this initiative. At well, at first, it's kind of evolved since, since we started working with them, it was connected to an orphanage and in this orphanage there was I don't know who started it to be honest, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 17:24

I don't know how it began, but I, a group of people, put together a little community garden and it was taken care of and maintained by the orphanage but also several local families all around that neighborhood, and they would come down and they would make sure the plants were weeded or that the garden boxes were weeded, they were watered and taken care of, and then everyone would receive the benefits of the fruits and vegetables and herbs that were grown from this garden. It was really incredible.

Speaker 1: 17:48

Yeah, anyone in the community could go and get food if they needed it and it was a. It was a really big garden. Like you said, a little garden. It was a big garden. It was a big undertaking and there was all kinds of variety of healthy vegetables and herbs and all all kinds of things for people to go in there and eat and everybody in this community was taking care of it and it was. It was an amazing thing to see just how everyone came together and while we were there, there were two members of our team who were plant fanatics. What's a good word for that?

Speaker 2: 18:21

Basically. I mean, they were horticulturalists, I guess they were. They were PT students, physical therapy students, so this isn't what they study. This wasn't their profession. It was a hobby of theirs. They just really enjoyed horticulture. They enjoyed learning about plants and how did they grow, and they were just passionate about it. It was a little side project and they took it on themselves to help make that garden even better and they shared their knowledge with the people there and taught them how to take up better care of the plants and how to grow different things. Yeah, it was just a passion project to theirs.

Speaker 1: 18:52

Yeah, as well as they, they were able to learn from the locals too. There were plants that they had never seen, so it was a really beautiful exchange of knowledge. It was a really cool. It was a really cool thing to witness.

Speaker 2: 19:03

Yeah, and I just think that's a really good example of what Monica said about using your skills, your background and volunteering to contribute to the local community, wherever you are, whatever that looks like. I think that's one example. There's probably infinite ways if you get creative with who you are and what skills you have and just play into things that you enjoy and get creative with how you can contribute and how you can share what you have with other people in the local community.

Speaker 1: 19:29

Yeah, I think if you just kind of go into every new place with this mentality of how can I make this a better place? How can I leave every place better than I found it? How can I contribute some way, how can I respect the local culture, how can I, how can I add to what is already here and, along with that, just making that conscious effort to integrate into local communities that you visit so learn about local customs and traditions and and where, clothes that are appropriate for the area, and learn how to say basic phrases, to be polite, and learn about the different foods and ask questions and be curious and and don't just go to the popular touristy neighborhoods but maybe go a little bit outside those touristy neighborhoods and and rent there and live in a more local, authentic community.

Speaker 2: 20:13

This one really gets Monica and I going because, again, in person, everyone we've met has been really good about this, but we've been part of some conversations online that have really kind of boiled their blood a little bit, because we've had conversations with people who want to move into an area, specifically the one that I'm thinking of.

Speaker 2: 20:30

This this man wanted to move into a city in in Columbia in South America, and he was unwilling to learn Spanish, unwilling to learn anything about the people there, the music, the food. He basically wanted to create his own little pocket Europe in South America and and totally was disregarding the culture of the people there, all of all these aspects of the, the culture. So we feel very strongly that if you're going to go live somewhere new, like, you need to respect and appreciate and learn as much as you can about the culture of the people there. The music, the food, the activities, the holidays they celebrate all of those things are part of who those people are and that should be respected and that should be maintained and you should be contributing to that maintenance.

Speaker 1: 21:16

Yeah, yes, this is a soapbox that we can get on for quite a long time. The whole point of being a digital nomad in our minds is to learn and to grow and to to appreciate what the world has to offer and there are so many cool things that you can learn if you just open. Open your mind and make an effort along these same lines is to not congregate with other digital nomads. You guys, we love digital nomads. We love hanging out with our people, their people we feel like get us or people we feel like we can be friends with for a long time. They're really good at being online friends. We're really good at meeting up with them in other places sometimes, Like we love digital nomads.

Speaker 1: 21:55

That being said, it is so important to not create digital nomad colonies within other countries.

Speaker 1: 22:03

It is so important to to avoid creating a pocket of your culture where you're not forced to go out and appreciate the culture, where you're not forced to go out and learn the language. You guys, it is so comfortable and so easy to be around people like us. It is uncomfortable, it is hard to stretch yourself, to go out and to learn other cultures and customs If you are putting yourself in a situation where you do not have to go outside yourself to to try new things and to learn languages and to learn customs. You never will. Now I'm not saying that you can't ever hang out with digital nomads. There are definitely times where where we spend a lot of time with digital nomads and we go to digital nomad events and we go find local pockets of the digital nomads and we have digital nomad friends, but the majority of your time should be spent living like a local. I don't know how to say this well, but just don't, like Austin said, don't try to recreate home everywhere you go.

Speaker 2: 23:04

I guess maybe, if I were to try to amend what you said, I would say don't spend your time exclusively with other travelers. There's nothing wrong with spending time with other travelers, with other digital nomads, but if you aren't taking time to get to know other people who are from there, then you are just creating your own little pocket United States, or pocket Germany or pocket wherever it is you're from. And I fully recognize that if you don't speak the language there, you're not going to learn it fast enough to like just to have conversations with everyone down the street as you walk by, and if you don't understand the culture, that can be uncomfortable. If you are traveling by yourself, especially, you are going to want to be around people that you can communicate with. That's natural, that's normal and I think that's great.

Speaker 2: 23:51

But maybe find a group of people that you do get along with or can communicate with and, together with them, go out and join some initiative, join some program, volunteer in something, go on a group excursion where you are integrating and like mingling with the people there and doing your best to even if you're not going to learn the language even close to fluently, learn some phrases, be polite in that language, learn how to cook some of their food, learn about their artwork and the things that have influenced their neighborhoods and learn about the history, even if it's just on Netflix. At the very least there's documentaries on Netflix from all the different places that will teach you the history of places. Go find some documentaries and learn about what the people that you're living around have been through historically and the trials they've been through and the successes and just learn like, get curious and just learn about the people there.

Speaker 1: 24:48

Yeah, well said, that was really well said. Thanks, babe. If anybody is feeling overwhelmed about learning languages or not understanding, maybe, the importance of it, please go back to listen to our episode with David. David, first of all, is a language coach and he is hilarious. It's probably one of my favorite episodes that we've ever done. I don't play favorites, but if I did, it'd probably be that one. We absolutely adore David. He's so so much fun to be around. But anyway, he talks about how you can learn language in a way that feels sustainable, why it even makes sense for digital nomads and all of the cool benefits. Plus, he has so many fun stories. He's just really fun to listen to. So shameless plug. Go back and listen to that episode if you're like, yeah, wow, I really need to learn the language now. You've totally convinced me. I just don't know where to start. That's overwhelming. I'm not here for that long. Go back and listen to that episode.

Speaker 1: 25:36

Okay, so the moral of this whole podcast episode is that gentrification is a real issue, but it is so complex. There is no easy, straightforward solution. But together, by working together, we can find ways to ensure that gentrification is benefiting people, it's not displacing people as much as humanly possible and it can be. It can be a really beautiful part of our evolution as society, as humans, and it can be done in a good and correct way. And digital nomads are in the perfect position to make this issue better and to make it be a place where we can be advocates for these communities and we can be part of the solution instead of part of the problem. And we can go back and we can teach other vacationers, other people who travel just occasionally. We can go back and teach them how to travel better, how to be more responsible, and we can be ambassadors for the traveling community.

Speaker 2: 26:40

So, if you have opinions on this, if you have learned something new, if you want to be a part of this conversation with us, send us a message and share with us your thoughts on this issue and how you think we can help make it better and contribute to making this a more positive thing. This is something that Monica and I are always curious about. We always want to make sure that we are learning as much about this as we can. So send us a message, let us know your thoughts, share with us your opinions Honestly, genuinely. We want to hear about it.

Speaker 1: 27:09

Yeah, it'd be nice though we're sensitive, just kidding, but definitely send us a message. You can reach out to us at hello at AustinAmonicacom or Facebook and Instagram, austinamonica. We're pretty easy to find, so definitely reach out to us. We cannot wait to hear your takeaways from this episode.

Speaker 2: 27:25

All right guys. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for joining us here on the profitable Nomad Couple podcast. We appreciate you listening to us today.

Speaker 1: 27:35

If you enjoyed this episode, share it on Instagram and be sure to tag us. At Austin and Monica, together, we can inspire others to embrace a location independent lifestyle.

Speaker 2: 27:44

And while you're there, we'd love to connect with you, so make sure you follow us for more tips and inspiration on living your dream location independent lifestyle.

Speaker 1: 27:52

Until next week. Remember that you have the power to shape your own path. So stay curious, stay adventures and stay connected.