The world changes, this has always been the case, with or without human intervention. What is new in recent years is the frequency and intensity of such changes, marked by sudden leaps - or disruptive transformations - that reshape the socio-economic fabric at an increasingly rapid pace. Dubai is perhaps one of the cities that best embodies this acceleration: within just a few decades, a small trading settlement in the desert has emerged as a global metropolis oriented toward the future.

Overtourism has become one of the most publicized issues in contemporary tourism debates in recent years, capturing the attention of international media, local administrations, and researchers. This phenomenon, known by different names since the 1960s, describes situations where the impact of tourism exceeds the sustainability thresholds of a destination. This article focuses on the conceptual evolution of the term - from its first academic formulations to its widespread media use—while examining the various manifestations of the phenomenon and its multidimensional impacts on affected destinations. Through a systemic approach, the text also explores the opposite phenomenon of undertourism, highlighting how the solution does not lie in limiting tourist flows but in managing them intelligently.

A Laboratory of Minorities - The territory of Ticino represents a form of cultural and linguistic minority within the Swiss Confederation: as the only officially monolingual Italian-speaking canton, it embodies a condition of being at the margins of the centre, where the dominant culture is often constructed through dialogue—or tension—with the German- and French-speaking regions.