Notes on tourist development from down where they really know how to do it.
In the late 1980s, a friend wrote me a letter from Mexico. “Hey, you would love this place.” He and his wife were staying in rustic palapas (rudimentary straw-roofed open air structures) on the Mexican Caribbean beach in a place called Playa Del Carmen, some distance on a precarious road south of Cancun, an established destination resort.
It took me a while to check out his discovery. I didn’t visit Playa del Carmen until about 25 years later, by which time it was a city of around 175,000 and the smattering of huts on the playa replaced by what you would imagine: highrises, mega markets, chain restaurants. It had gone from more-or-less nothing—perhaps it was a tiny fishing village–to larger than Providence, Rhode Island, virtually overnight.
I just recently became aware (by reading the Wikipedia article on the subject) that Cancun itself, which was already, when my friend wrote that letter, some people’s idea of a tourist destination obscenity, had three—count ’em, three—residents until the Mexican government decided to develop that coast—the so-called Mayan Riviera—by planting some hotels there in 1974. Cancun now has a population pushing a million. Its population has doubled since 2000.
It’s astounding to me that roughly half my lifetime ago (which doesn’t seem so very long a time) a city larger than Boston, didn’t even exist!
Welcome to tourist development, Mexican-style. We think that U.S. capitalism does a pretty good job of ruining places by overdevelopment, but compared to Mexico we’re downright incompetent.
The little town we are staying in on this winter sabbatical, located between Cancun and Playa del Carmen, has a mere 12,000. So far. Between 2005 and 2010, according to Wikipedia, it grew from just over 1000 population to over 9000, a factor of nine. No telling, given that trajectory, what percentage it’s grown since we first rented here in 2012.
Most of this growth is in the “colonia” (suburb, barrio) on the far side of the highway, a mile or two from the beach. Growth in the original town on the beach, where we stay, is checked somewhat (as the Outer Cape is protected by the Cape Cod National Seashore) by a wide mangrove swamp (with crocodiles!) which functions as a moat between the two parts of town. This part, the original town, has become a tourist ghetto, while the colonia has become, in part anyway, a worker ghetto where live those who service the tourist ghetto.
Cape Cod is a long-settled place where the natural desire to exploit local charm for tourism has been checked significantly by the equally natural desire to maintain the quality of life for year-round residents. But this part of Mexico had (or was seen to have) nothing but its undeveloped natural beauty to exploit (and, oh yes, a few small communities of Mayan descent with their exploitable ancient history)–and they’ve done a great job of that.
Apparently the Mexican government around 40 years ago took a look at that wild Caribbean coast going to waste and said “Hey, let’s develop the bejesus out of it.” And proceeded to do just that.
It’s not clear just what the message here is for Cape Cod. On the one hand, I suppose we can congratulate ourselves on more restrained development. On the other hand, tourism, long Cape Cod’s main industry and identity, has been a very mixed blessing economically. On the Outer Cape, at least, the year-round population, especially the younger end of the demographic, school population, is on the decline, victim of the secondhome market.
Here in on the Mayan Riviera, where unlike the “narrowland” of the Outer Cape, there is plenty of room to expand away from the beaches and affordable housing doesn’t seem a problem. In fact, in contrast with Cape Cod, this tourist destination seems to be thriving, its population exploding. For better or worse, depending on your priorities.
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