Gentrification in Greece | The disappointed heart of Exarchia

Children's playground between demolished houses in the alternative trendy Athens district of Exarchia Photo: imageBROKER/Karl F. Schöfmann Concrete, a high metal fence, police officers with signs and helmets in front of it. This construction site at the Plateia Exarchion in Athens looks a bit like an open-air prison. On the fence, a banner with the words “I want to play football!” calls for entry to the cordoned-off area. Below it is the demand: “No Metro”. Georgia Psarrou-Papalimnaiou explains: »We knew from the start that the choice of place was a political decision. It was never about the public transport network or technical requirements of metro line 4.«

32-year-old Papalimnaiou is an anthropologist and activist. When she was 19, she moved to Exarchia, a neighborhood in central Athens known for its subculture and political tradition. Today she is doing her doctorate on urban displacement. She says: "Exarchia is the most aggressive form of gentrification that can be found not only in Greece, but probably in the Western world."

Papalimnaiou is part of the No Metro alliance. She talks about that day four years ago: »On August 9th, at 4:30 in the morning, around 300 riot police, fully armed with shields, rifles, tear gas grenades and accompanied by construction workers, stormed the streets of Exarchia. After the construction site was set up, the police stationed themselves permanently around the square. Anyone who took to the streets to protest was beaten. The police arrested many. The residents accuse the central government of building on the square as a means of gentrification.

The process of gentrification concentrates private real estate and land in the hands of a few investors and companies. These drive up rents and property prices, so that tenants can no longer afford their apartments. The result is that the old residents of a neighborhood are replaced by higher-income groups.

Papalimnaiou points to an alternative route between the Polytechnic University and the Archaeological Museum. That would be just two blocks from the square and still in Exarchia.

Perhaps one day the Plateia Exarchion will bloom again.

Athens is changing at breakneck speed: more Airbnb apartments, more bars, more consumption. In 2025, Athens hosted eight million tourists, more than twice the local population. Tourism represents 13 percent of Greece’s GDP. The city's infrastructure should be adapted to the increased demand. Metro line 4 is intended to better connect the north of the city with the center. A total of 15 stations are planned. The construction site in Exarchia is the only one that has to be guarded by the police.

In November 2023, the park was cleared and 70 trees, some almost 100 years old, were felled: “It wasn't just about the loss of this part of history. It was also about the loss of a green oasis in the middle of this concrete district," says Papalimnaiou. Athens has almost no green spaces.

Exarchia has traditionally been a thorn in the side of those in power. During the World War, students from this district mobilized against the fascist occupation. In 2008, a police officer shot and killed 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos in Exarchia. Exarchia became the starting point for uprisings and riots that swept across Greece.

When Prime Minister Mitsotakis from the conservative New Democracy took office in 2019, he declared that he wanted to restore law and order in Exarchia. Shortly afterwards, four occupied buildings were evacuated. Activist circles say that at least 20 squats have been violently broken up since then.

Mitsotakis also claimed that the anarchists were abusing the university asylum. Until he abolished this in 2019, the police were not allowed to enter university campuses. Activists in Exarchia always had a place to retreat thanks to the three large university buildings. The law was a response to the oppression of the military dictatorship. At that time, the junta attacked the polytechnic after students protested there. Spaces of knowledge should never again be threatened by state violence.

Papalimnaiou stands in front of the Polytechnic University building. There are now plans for a roof garden for tourists on campus. “Here, too, an attempt is being made to make something a museum and thereby, to a certain extent, suffocate something that is alive,” she criticizes.

Construction work on the planned route of subway line 4, which will include 15 stations, including Exarchia Photo: Aristidis Vafeiadakis But Exarchia has not yet been suffocated. The district pulsates at night. Young people are everywhere and it's not just tourists. One person who knows the night, its music and the cultural scene well is 34-year-old Philipp Sassanis. He's a musician, plays noise rock and is one of those people who brings humor to everything they say. We meet in »Mylos«.

Whiskey bottles are lined up behind the dark wooden counter. Exarchia is considered a cultural center: "The Greek music scene emerged here in the 80s, including Greece's first rock band," says Sassanis. He reports that there used to be more spaces for political groups and cultural workers.

We set off together and walk through the streets. Every bend opens up a view of a new collection of celebrating groups. Sassani doesn't have anything positive to say about these people: "Exarchia means nothing to them. They would go out somewhere else, it doesn't matter to them. They have no contact with the anarcho or music scene." Sassanis seems a bit like the disappointed heart of Exarchia: "I want to leave. The whole thing is totally fucked up. But I think it's like that all over Europe. In any case, here in Exarchia you can no longer find yourself.” He can often no longer identify with the district.

Someone who moved to Exarchia to open a shop and live his dream is Alexandros Gkikopoulos. His dark blonde curls fall over his glasses as he sprays water on the tropical plants. He wears an airy white shirt. "I'm stressed," he says. “I have to prepare 50 bouquets of flowers,” and then he repeats long and slowly: “Fifty!”

Gkikopoulo's shop is called "Polyamory" because, in addition to plants, he sells sex toys and expensive spirits here. On the shelf there is a Foursquare Shibboleth rum for 196 euros. And all this in the middle of a district notorious for its anarchists.

In February 2024, five masked people broke into Gkikopoulos' shop. They threw over the spirits and plants and broke the windows. “Why are you breaking up the store?” Gkikopoulos is said to have asked. “Because you open shops and we can’t find a place to stay,” was the attackers’ answer. Only Gkikopoulos’ perspective is known about the incident. He says that the attackers left behind leaflets that read “Against the gentrification of our neighborhood.”

The “Warehouse” is a chic wine restaurant. Its operator, Giorgos Kanopoulos, talks about the early days when he opened it in Exarchia in 2012 in the midst of the euro crisis. The man, who is in his early 40s, is wearing a polo shirt and sitting at a table that is modeled on a large wine barrel.

At that time the area was primarily a residential area. "There used to be a shop across the street that sold chicken, a hairdresser, a shoe shop, a bookstore." If you look around today, nine times out of ten you'll see cafés or all-day bars, says Kanopoulos and adds: "I don't like saying that because my shop is also one of them." He criticizes over-tourism: "We're slowly developing into a small bed-and-breakfast town."

Kanopoulos welcomes the new stop at Plateia Exarchion: »It will give the square a new lease of life. So we are lucky – this is an important step so that people can stay and work in Athens.«

Back to Philipp Sassani. We have now arrived at the party cellar. He and his band have also played here. The frontman bellows, powerful guitar hits tear through the room and the audience, all dressed in black, drinks Alpha from a can, the standard beer on such occasions.

Demonstration by the No Metro alliance against the construction of the subway station Photo: Imago/Depositphotos When we are back upstairs, the musician says: »Now we are in the “basement”. This is the strictest basement in Exarchia because only small DIY bands are allowed to play here. If a band has played in a commercial bar, then they are no longer allowed to play here. The former owner, a man addicted to drugs, did not charge rent, which is why this paradise was able to flourish here. He has since died, and Sassani believes that the people from the “basement” will have to move in the next few months.

But eviction can also mean more than just moving. The woods creak as the residents run to the first floor. People with many different skin colors and genders, from young to old, sit together. A small dog and a toddler romp among those gathered. This is Prosfygika, the largest cast in Europe and less than a ten minute walk from the “Keller”.

The 400-strong squatter colony has often raised alarms this year. The governor of the Attica region wanted to evict the self-managed housing project. In protest, the two residents, Aristos Chantzis and Suzon Doppagne, went on hunger strike. Only when Chatzis had to be hospitalized after more than 120 days did the authorities relent.

But nothing is certain yet. In early summer, when the residents discussed their actions, the hunger striker Doppagne explained the motivation for her drastic measure: "This place is a mosaic of oppressed people, an eviction of Prosfygika would mean homelessness, prison or deportation for many." Since the threat of eviction has been raised, the residents have also been looking for allies in politically more moderate milieus.

“This is a place to stay,” says a tall man with gray curls as he laughs as he steps out of Prosfygika’s self-managed bakery. It is Konstantinos Arvanitis, MEP from Greek Syriza. He visits the project together with a delegation of Spanish and Greek EU politicians. »Housing is not something you can buy or sell. It’s a human right,” he says. That's what Prosfygika stands for. "This place belongs to the people who live here." The housing shortage in Athens corresponds to a capitalist policy that treats living space as a commodity everywhere.

According to his group in the EU Parliament, The Left, the housing crisis has affected the entire EU. Their MPs cite financialization, i.e. housing as an investment, as a main driver. They are calling for an EU law that takes action against short-term rentals like Airbnb and enables rent regulation.

In June, Arvanitis submitted a request about prosfygics to the EU Commission with MPs from the Left, Greens and Social Democrats. Official documents listed the inhabited complex as “vacant,” they criticized. The Commission should examine whether EU money can flow into a project that could lead to displacement.

Snacks on the table, maps of Athens on the wall and rolled-up banners in a corner: Exarchia's counter-mapping group meets in a small meeting room on Strefi Hill. They introduce themselves as residents who document the changes in their neighborhood.

In counter-mapping, residents of places create maps based on their knowledge. This practice goes back to indigenous communities and is intended to help them appropriate space. The creation of knowledge by those affected by a change thus becomes a method of resistance.

The group began its work in 2023. Nefeli (name changed by the editors), one of the activists, says: »In the beginning it was about the Airbnbs. But then we started looking at more and more changes.” They use data from platforms like Airbnb to record short-term rentals in their neighborhood.

»We found 85 buildings that were completely converted from residential or commercial use to tourist use. Every day we see another building being renovated,” says Nefeli. They also measure the noise level in streets that have become hotspots for tourists and partygoers at night. They also note when everyday shops become expensive restaurants. By mapping the changes, they want to draw attention to the problem. To do this, they go public with their knowledge: at meetings, at conferences and with leaflets on which their maps are printed.

The central government was responsible for the evictions in Exarchia, not the city, says Nefeli. »The municipalities in Greece are historically weak. The city has neither the resources nor the legal responsibility for social housing. Athens, for example, cannot reduce the number of its Airbnbs, as Barcelona is doing. Part of the solution would also be an administrative reform aimed at strengthening the competences of the municipalities.

At the Plateia Exarchion, Papalimnaiou looks at the metro construction site. She shows a place where the footpath is the width of the street and tells how her alliance fought back. "When the construction site was expanded in 2024, the metal fences along Themistokleous Street reached up to about 1.70 meters from the facade."

»If the construction site's metal fences are so close to the buildings, it means that fire engines and ambulances cannot drive past. This put people's lives at real risk every day that it was like this." So 110 residents decided to sue against the fence. The courts agreed with them. The fence must maintain a minimum distance for emergencies. But Avax, the construction company leading the consortium for the tunnel and station work, made no move to reset the fence. In November 2024, the alliance used its own funds and moved the fence backwards so that there are now five meters between it and the buildings.

With their lawsuit, the residents could actually win the place back. »This distance makes it impossible for them to carry out construction work and implement the project based on the available studies. So the company is now in a situation in which it either has to abandon the plan for the subway station here or carry out a new study, which it doesn't know whether construction will still be possible, and that will cost a lot of time and a lot of money," says the activist happily.

So far, the main work on the site has been to fell trees, lay cables and recover archaeological finds. But no hole has been dug yet. The place still exists. Papalimnaiou shows photos of the construction site that the residents took from the neighboring roofs: "Everything is green again." Because they have won this legal dispute and see that construction work has come to a standstill for more than a year, the residents are now calling for the square to be reopened: "Give it back to the people, let us live there and use it, and end this construction project."

The fight for the place has not yet been decided. Maybe the residents will be successful and the Plateia Exarchion will bloom again one day. Maybe the banner that calls for entry: “I want to play football!” will then hang over a football goal instead of on the construction fence.

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