‘It’s similar to arriving at a Taylor Swift concert, 20 hours a day, 8 months a year’

As tourists flock back to Edinburgh, just how livable is the city centre?

Pic: Nathan Wong on Unsplash

Edinburgh’s magnificent city centre is the magnet that draws millions of visitors to the Capital every year.

They come in their droves, from around the world, and the money they spend supports tens of thousands of jobs, and brings in billions of pounds of investment. Around £1 billion went into building the St James centre, and nearly another billion is going into refurbishing New Town architecture, largely to create new hotels.

No other UK city of comparable size comes close.

But for some city residents, the benefits of the city’s booming tourist industry are outweighed by the impacts on our city centre. Crowded streets, parks closed to set up another ticketed event, and shops catering exclusively to a visitor market, lead many to feel the city centre isn’t for them and avoid it altogether.

Because the truth is that if our city centre, with its World Heritage Status, its iconic buildings and vistas, is to to truly sustain its magic, it needs to be real, dynamic and alive. A place people want to live, the heartbeat of our city; rather than a beautiful but sterile visitor attraction.

Given Edinburgh’s global appeal to travellers, it would be easy to assume that the only people left in the city centre are those who are passing through for a weekend, a fortnight, or potentially a university semester at most. But beneath the waves of transient bodies, Edinburgh continues to have a solid bedrock of city centre population. More than 30,000 people call the broader city centre home.

We tracked some of them down to discover whether they view life in the city centre as “home, sweet home” or whether its wider appeal means our city is being loved to death.