The island of Tenerife does not stop growing demographically, it overtook Gran Canaria years ago in population growth and is the one that receives the most immigrants but, nevertheless, its capital, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, is losing inhabitants, something possibly related to the difficulty to access a home.
Nueva Canarias proposes that the demographic challenge commission analyze the purchase of homes in the Islands by foreigners
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These are data exposed this Thursday by the professor of Geography of the University of La Laguna Luis Jerez before the parliamentary commission on the demographic challenge and the population balance in the Canary Islands, in which he has indicated that in the archipelago, rather than talking about depopulation, it should be alluded to to “stagnation” of population.
The demographic dynamics in the Canary Islands is similar to that of developed societies, that is, aging and a pronounced phenomenon of “desnatality” that compensates for the contribution of the immigrant population, added Jerez.
But in the archipelago, its complex geographical reality must be taken into account, which leads to 82% of the population being concentrated in the capital islands, Tenerife and Gran Canaria, and then in these, on the outskirts of the capitals, the tourist areas, and in the lower medians.
If the tourist islands (Lanzarote and Fuerteventura) are added to the capital cities, they together concentrate 95% of the population of the archipelago, which counteracts the stagnation of the population in La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro since the 1990s. 70 of the last century.
In fact, there is a contradiction that the spaces that concentrate the largest number of population, the capitals of the Canary Islands, at the same time have a rate of demographic loss that is palpable in the case of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
Luis Jerez has considered in this regard that more precise studies are needed to understand this phenomenon, but the hypothesis suggests that the main cause has to do with the housing market and hence the growth of the peripheries of both cities.
In the Canary Islands, the phenomenon of the real estate bubble continues, which also causes tourist centers such as Arona to lose population because “people go abroad in search of a more affordable housing market”, as is the case, for example, in San Isidro (Granadilla de Abona). , has specified the geographer.
For this reason, he has pointed out that the depopulation of the two capitals and the tourist centers is not problematic, but that of the midlands and the interior of the islands is.
The consequences are a high degree of aging in the “green islands” (La Gomera, La Palma and El Hierro), in which all the municipalities have an average population of more than 44 years, which also occurs in rural areas. of the capital islands.
And the greater the degree of aging, the more dependent population, which is perceptible in rural municipalities compared to urban ones, Luis Jerez has continued.
Likewise, he explained that the immigrant population is concentrated in the capitals, tourist centers and their peripheries, except for elderly European immigrants, who occupy the tourist areas with second homes or permanent homes.
Jerez has pointed out that he does not believe that talking about “islands-city” in terms of population will go to the extreme because a good part of the territory is protected but, he has admitted, the demographic load “does make us go towards this concept, especially in Tenerife”.
“How to reverse this situation?” asked the Geography professor, who answered himself that this is the challenge for the Canary Islands, which “cries out” and urgently needs to review its economic model and diversify, so that it will be necessary to encourage the primary sector in rural areas, something that requires “politics with capital words”.
