Latest news with #digitalnomads
Al Jazeera
21 hours ago
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
How the gentrification crisis is hitting Mexico City
Mexico City has seen an influx of foreign renters, including those calling themselves digital nomads. This has led to increasing housing prices, displacement of residents, changes to the city's culture – and growing protests. How is Mexico City's fight mirroring a global crisis of gentrification?
Al Jazeera
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Al Jazeera
The Take: How the gentrification crisis is hitting Mexico City
Mexico City has seen an influx of foreign renters, including those calling themselves digital nomads. This has led to increasing housing prices, displacement of residents, changes to the city's culture – and growing protests. How is Mexico City's fight mirroring a global crisis of gentrification? In this episode: Adrián Acevedo Mansour (@acevedomansour), Mexico City urban planner Episode credits: This episode was produced by Marcos Bartolomé, Duha Mosaad, and Chloe K Li, with Phillip Lanos, Spencer Cline, Kisaa Zehra, Marya Khan, Melanie Marich and our guest host, Manuel Rápalo. It was edited by Kylene Kiang. Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad al-Melhem. Alexandra Locke is The Take's executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera's head of audio. Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on Instagram, X, Facebook, Threads and YouTube
Irish Times
4 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Imagine lying on your death bed and thinking - I've had a good run. I went to a lot of meetings
He doesn't use the term himself, but Son Number One is one of those digital nomads : theoretically, he can work from anywhere in the world. Realistically, it's better for him to be in the Americas . He works for a company based in New York , and his working day has to conform to those hours. He's in Ireland at the moment, but because of the time difference, he has to work until 10 or 11 at night. But it's temporary. He'll return to that part of the world soon because he likes living there. The job suits him too – not just because it affords him mobility, but because the company is young with only a handful of employees. It is work, but it has a sense of freedom to it. Or at least, it had. It's a typical story of modern commerce. The small company did well, and eventually the owners were offered irresistible sums to sell. Suddenly, Son Number One found himself as the employee of a much larger corporate entity. Previously, he would communicate with the New York office when it was necessary. Everyone stuck to the point. Now he has to endure the tyranny of regular scheduled online meetings, with as many as 60 people taking part. READ MORE He listens to people he doesn't know, and will never meet, spouting corporate word salads about other businesses that have nothing to do with him. This is not an untypical experience. Most meetings are, at best, a waste of the working day, and at worst, an egregious, soul-sucking waste of life itself; the drone of other voices reflecting the tick-tick-tick of mortality's clock. And it's asking you: what are you doing here? Don't you realise you'll be dead soon? You may have had this experience yourself: there's a regular meeting you have to attend, but it's not clear what the meeting is for. Invariably, there will be one or two people there who will extemporise at length; and not because there is some pressing point they need to make. They just like talking. For them, it's not a functional exchange of information, more like a bit of a chat. Meanwhile, you keep your phone in your lap, and exchange gossipy messages with people at the same meeting. Not that meetings can't be useful, or even necessary. It's just that all too often they are meetings for the sake of it; which can result in a decision to have another meeting. I'm far from the first person to point this out. There's any number of management guru types offering advice on how to make the system more effective. It's become something of a cottage industry, along with studies on how much time and money is wasted going to meetings. According to figures from the US , the majority of employees spend a third of their week at them, which in turn costs the American economy $37 billion (€31.5 billion) a year. [ I was unfazed by a near car crash, so why does a dental visit leave me quivering? Opens in new window ] The higher up the management chain you go, the more meetings you attend: to the point, presumably, when you do nothing but attend meetings. You spend your day discussing work, but you don't actually do any. Management gurus will argue that this is merely the result of dumb habit: all it requires is to take the (supposedly) counterintuitive step of scheduling fewer meetings. You'd wonder why so many large companies, bent on maximising productivity, haven't figured that out already. It could be that meetings have another, unspoken function. Forcing employees to waste their time by attending reminds them who the boss is. And for those bosses, it's a display of status, a function of busyness culture: where being run off your feet is an unquestioned good; a way of marking the worth of a life. Imagine lying on your death bed and thinking: I've had a good run. I went to a lot of meetings.
CNA
4 days ago
- Business
- CNA
Money Mind 2025/2026 - Millionaire Baby?
23:01 Min How to give your child a million dollar headstart. Digital nomads in search of their dream lifestyle – what ticks the right boxes? Plus – meet the Chinese writer who pens stories of ordinary lifetimes. Money Mind 2025/2026 About the show: Money Mind tells you how to make the most of your money with tips for investors, business ideas for businessmen and analysis of the economy, companies, markets, financial products and trends.
The Independent
7 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Mexico City's plan to tackle gentrification after angry protests against overtourism
Mexico City authorities have unveiled a preliminary plan to combat gentrification, following a week of intense protests over soaring housing costs. The rising prices are widely attributed to a surge in mass tourism and the influx of "digital nomads" – foreigners temporarily residing in the capital. Mayor Clara Brugada announced that the strategy includes regulations to prevent landlords from increasing rents beyond inflation. Additionally, officials plan to publish a list of "reasonable rental" proposals to guide the market. Brugada said her government will open a discussion with residents of Mexico's capital about her plan, but that the idea is to work on a bill that includes measures to promote affordable rent. The protest in early July was fueled by government failures and active promotion to attract digital nomads who work remotely often for foreign companies from Mexico City, according to experts. Hundreds of people marched in neighborhoods popular with tourists, but the demonstration turned violent when a small number of people began smashing storefronts and harassing foreigners. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said that the protest was marked by xenophobia. 'The xenophobic displays seen at that protest have to be condemned. No one should be able to say 'any nationality get out of our country' even over a legitimate problem like gentrification,' Sheinbaum said back then. Many Mexicans have complained about being priced out of their neighborhoods — in part because of a move made by Sheinbaum in 2022, when she was the Mexico City mayor and signed an agreement with Airbnb and UNESCO to boost tourism and attract digital nomads despite concern over the impact short-term rentals could have. During the protest, some people marched with signs reading 'Gringo: Stop stealing our home' and 'Housing regulations now!' The Mexico City Anti-Gentrification Front, one of the organizations behind the protest, said it was 'completely against' any acts of physical violence and denied that the protests were xenophobic. Instead, the organization said the protest was a result of years of failures by the local government to address the root of the problems. 'Gentrification isn't just foreigners' fault, it's the fault of the government and these companies that prioritize the money foreigners bring,' the organization said in a statement. Meanwhile 'young people and the working class can't afford to live here.' Some anti-gentrification groups have called for a new protest this weekend.
