Americans are obsessed with growth.
More customers.
More houses.
More tourists.
More money.
More.
More.
More.
Then I went back to Barcelona.
The first time I visited was about 15 years ago. Before Airbnb exploded. Before every spare bedroom, apartment, and broom closet became a vacation rental opportunity.
I returned in 2025.
The city was still beautiful.
The architecture was still stunning.
The food was still incredible.
But something felt different.
For the first time, I found myself paying attention to the people who actually lived there.
Not the tourists.
Not the influencers.
Not the travel bloggers.
The residents.
The people trying to afford rent.
The people trying to raise families.
The people watching their neighborhoods slowly transform into destinations rather than communities.
And it got me thinking.
We celebrate growth as if it’s automatically a good thing.
But growth for whom?
At what point does a neighborhood stop being a neighborhood and become a product?
At what point does “economic opportunity” become “you can no longer afford to live where your family has lived for generations”?
Those aren’t just Barcelona questions.
They’re everywhere.
We’ve seen it in cities.
We’ve seen it in small towns.
We’ve seen investors buy homes faster than families can.
We’ve seen communities transformed into assets.
We’ve seen people priced out of places they helped build.
Barcelona just made it impossible to ignore.
The city is still beautiful.
But beauty isn’t enough.
A place isn’t just its buildings.
It’s the people.
The culture.
The history.
The local businesses.
The families.
The community.
And if those things disappear, what exactly are we preserving?
Travel is supposed to broaden your perspective.
Barcelona did exactly that.
I arrived expecting to admire a city.
I left wondering whether we’ve become so obsessed with maximizing profit that we’ve forgotten the purpose of communities in the first place.
Scarlett says no.
Not to tourism.
Not to visitors.
But to the idea that every place on earth should be treated like a commodity.