the joint role of higher economic opportunity costs of land and harsher environmental externalities in urban areas. Tourist flows are a Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 565 good structural control for countries such as Italy. Waste generation can be spurred by tourist flows. However, we would also expect that in the most popular tourist areas diversion might be driven down in favour of incineration or recycling for the same reasons as in the case of population density, that is, high local economic and environmental opportunity costs.