Witt and Bernzen reposition degrowth as a spatial governance problem rather than an abstract macroeconomic doctrine. Their study examines tourism-dependent island economies where housing scarcity, second-home ownership, seasonal labour and visitor infrastructures produce conflicts between growth-oriented development and resident wellbeing. The theoretical contribution lies in joining housing degrowth to tourism degrowth, thereby treating land and dwelling not as passive containers of economic activity but as contested resources whose distribution structures everyday life. Methodologically, the paper combines qualitative content analysis of regional planning documents with forty-eight semi-structured interviews across four East Frisian islands, using peripheral island conditions as analytically concentrated environments in which growth pressures become unusually legible. Its wider significance lies in showing that degrowth becomes operational when translated into spatial priorities: decent housing, social equity, long-term quality of life and limits to touristification. It therefore connects political ecology to housing studies, regional planning and the geography of tourism.