For any such place one might miss, there are dozens awaiting discovery.

Haarlem.

The cities profiled below, each of which has had issues with over-tourism, are Amsterdam, Barcelona, Florence and Prague. I've never been to Barcelona. It's been 14 years since my last visit to Prague, and 33 for Florence.

Amsterdam is an interesting case for me. We've been through Schiphol airport so many times I've lost count, but it's been at least 15 years since I've set foot in the city itself. The primary reason for this is the sheer serendipity of having friends in Haarlem, which is a lovely city of 232,000 people just 15 miles from Amsterdam.

Apart from the contents of certain famous museums, there's really nothing to be missed in Amsterdam by someone choosing to spend time instead in Haarlem. A day trip to Amsterdam to visit those museums can be facilitated by frequent and inexpensive public transportation. In addition, these trains and buses run the opposite direction to the North Sea beaches at Zandvoort.

I'll always adore Prague, but if an opportunity comes to return to Czech Republic, there are smaller cities I'd rather explore, like Brno or Olomouc. In recent years, we've enjoyed wonderful stays in Trieste and Catania (Sicily), Italian cities having nowhere the tourist traffic of Florence. Someday, Spain once more; however, having learned from our fine time in Porto (neighboring Portugal) rather than Lisbon, I doubt Barcelona would be on the itinerary.

For any such place one might miss, there are dozens awaiting discovery.

Overtourism in Europe's historic cities sparks backlash, by Jon Henley and Guardian correspondents

Angry protests from residents in popular areas force city hall officials to take action

Across Europe, historic cities are buckling. Mass tourism, encouraged by cash-hungry councils after the 2008 crash and fuelled by the explosion of cheap flights and online room rentals, has become a monster. The backlash, however, has begun ...

Not super duper mayors at all, but "The Life-Saving Benefits of Superblocks."

"Fuck a bunch of Barcelona -- we're Mericans!"

Boy, aren't we.

The Life-Saving Benefits of Barcelona’s Car-Free ‘Superblocks’, by Laura Bliss (CityLab)

A new study estimates that a citywide plan to limit cars and capture nearly 70 percent of street space for bikes and pedestrians could save 667 lives per year.

When Barcelona officials installed a “superblock” in the working-class neighborhood of Poblenou in 2016, it was fiercely controversial. Closing off a three-square-block chunk of the city to vehicle traffic and reserving those streets for pedestrians and cyclists ticked off motorists, who felt attacked by the fast-and-cheap tactic to reduce car use.

But soon Poblenou residents appreciated the nearly doubled amount of space that they now had to walk, play, and socialize. The resistance soon faded, and five more superblocks have since been implemented around the city; Salvador Rueda, the head of the Urban Ecology Agency of Barcelona, envisions creating 503 in total. The ultimate goal is to turn nearly 70 percent of Barcelona’s street space over to people. It’s a project that has attracted a lot of international attention, and some efforts in the United States to replicate the idea.

Fully executing the superblock vision in Barcelona will no doubt face more challenges aplenty. But a new study published in the journal Environment International offers some new evidence supporting the idea: It can deliver vast improvements in urban health. That’s according to a team of Spanish and American scientists who developed a statistical model to measure the potential outcomes of Rueda’s proposed project ...

Superblocks in Barcelona, with a twist.

From the article.

Let's see who is the first to notice why this is a posting atypical of me.

Superblocks: how Barcelona is taking city streets back from cars, updated by David Roberts (Vox)

Modern cities are ruled by cars. Streets are designed for them; bikers, pedestrians, vendors, hangers-out, and all other forms of human life are pushed to the perimeter in narrow lanes or sidewalks. Truly shared spaces are confined to parks and the occasional plaza. This is such a fundamental reality of cities that we barely notice it any more.

Some folks, however, still cling to the old idea that cities are for people, that more common space should be devoted to living in the city rather than getting through it or around it.

But once you’ve got a city that’s mostly composed of street grids, devoted to moving cars around, how do you take it back? How can cities be reclaimed for people?

The city of Barcelona has come up with one incredibly clever solution to that problem.

It’s a bird ... it’s a plane ... it’s SUPERBLOCK

Barcelona: Why not a radical grassroots activist as mayor? Maybe something can be accomplished.

With roots in the Spanish "indignados" movement, Barcelona's mayor has occupied banks and called for a more feminized democracy. Her bio is here, and curiously, nowhere in it does she mention the need for more water parks as the cure for social ills.

Colau simply could not be a "Democrat" in New Albany, could she? If for no other reason, it appears she once read a book that wasn't written about sports.

The New Mayor of Barcelona Tells Us Her Plans for a Radical City; Once an activist, can Ada Colau make her vision a reality?, by Elia Gran (The Nation)

Ada Colau, the first woman mayor of Barcelona, has just marked her first two months in office. Previously an activist, she’s the founder of the Platform for 
People Affected by Mortgages (PAH). In this interview, Colau talks about the challenges of leading one of Spain’s most celebrated cities during the current democratic revolution.

This interview has been translated from Spanish and edited and condensed.

Creeping gentrification, international brands, a "criminal loss of patrimony" ... and Barcelona.

If the business of business is of such significance, then why aren't these small businesses eligible for the Unesco World Heritage List?

Historic Loss May Follow Rise of Rents in Barcelona, by Raphael Minder (NYT)

In the center of Barcelona’s scenic old city, a once-historic bookshop is being turned into a store for Mango, the giant clothing retailer. A maker of combs, founded in 1922, is now a big-name bag store. And a toy store, owned by the same family since the Spanish Civil War, has been converted into an outlet for Geox, the Italian footwear company.

The changes are more than the result of the kind of creeping gentrification that has reshaped so many cities worldwide. Here, and across Spain, historic districts are being transformed as tens of thousands of small, often family-run shops face the end of decades of rent controls this year.

It is not that the establishments did not know the changes were coming — they had 20 years’ warning. But slowly, now suddenly, that time has arrived, provoking 11th-hour resistance as small shops are pushed from historic districts by an inundation of international brands, which are virtually the only ones that can afford the staggering spike in rents.

The rapid turnover has spurred soul-searching and debate about just how far the city should go to protect its distinctive character in the face of the homogenization that accompanies the arrival of multinational chain stores.

The removal of traditional stores from the old city center, known as the Gothic Quarter, is “a criminal loss of patrimony in a city that is getting drowned by big money and international brands and is losing all sense of history, order and proper urban planning,” said Josep Maria Roig, the owner of La Colmena, a pastry shop founded in 1872.