Can Tourism Save a City or Only Hollow It Out?

Jerusalem is betting big on tourism, targeting ten million annual visitors by 2030. But nearly half its families already live below the poverty line, and the jobs tourism creates — hospitality, retail, guiding — pay below the city average. The hosts explore whether tourism inevitably reorganizes cities around visitors, hollowing out local culture and creating a dual-track economy where residents and tourists barely share space. Then they hunt for counterexamples: Barcelona, which cultivates high-yield professional tourism; Kyoto, which caps volume and protects local crafts through certification; and a third model that proves tourism can be a rising tide — if you design for it. Episode #672988 — open it directly at myweirdprompts.com/672988