Waking up in the heart of the SerranÃa de Cuenca is like being in another world. At sunrise the only thing you can hear is the earth stretching and, if you tune your ears, in the distance, you can hear the water falling from the Chorrera del Molino, because Tragacete is the birthplace of rivers, streams and springs. That tranquility that nature gives and “something that we lacked in our lives” is what Emilio and Elena were looking for.
The place chosen by this Valencian and this woman from Cuenca who lived in Madrid was a small municipality with less than 300 inhabitants from which, not long ago, people left in search of opportunities for the city. An industrial engineer, he, and a psychologist, she, had a hobby that they combined with her work, a store specializing in items for historical re-enactment. This online business really began to grow and in Madrid it was impossible to find a workshop at an affordable price.
They signed up for a program to repopulate the rural environment for entrepreneurs and ended up in Tragacete: for the same cost in the city for a 12-square-meter store, here they had a huge space for a workshop, warehouse, and a home. “And also, at the end of the work day, you could go for a walk in nature,” says Emilio. But there was an essential requirement: having a minimum and stable internet connection.
Thanks to the fact that since they have been in Tragacete they have been able to focus on their business, to this day, Northern Traders, their shop for archaeological pieces -specializing in the High Middle Ages- is one of the most recognized in the country and has carved a niche for itself also abroad. It is not the result of a miracle because miracles do not exist: “in the rural world, basic services are needed for the economy to continue; among them, one of the most important is connectivityâ€, they affirm in unison. “No more business depending on a territory, with technology you can work from anywhere.”
Tragacete has been the first town in the SerranÃa de Cuenca to have fiber optics in what is one of Telefónica’s initiatives to prevent the depopulation of rural areas and which happens to offer one of the largest fiber and 5G networks in the world, with coverage to more than 80% of the population. All this with the aim of facilitating everyone’s access to the opportunities offered by technology so that as a society we can progress collectively. In the last half century, the countryside has been depopulating at a dizzying rate and today, according to data from the latest Annual Report of the Bank of Spain, there are 3,403 municipalities at risk of depopulation in Spain, 42% of the total. 1,379 towns have fewer than 100 inhabitants, according to the National Institute of Statistics.
The objective of rural repopulation, which largely depends on actions such as that of Telefónica that guarantee its connectivity, is to generate social change and sustainable economic growth so that the rural community achieves permanent progress and, therefore, an increase in their quality of life.
Between 2009 and 2019, Tragacete lost 100 inhabitants, 10 per year. In 2023, not only has this trend stopped, but new inhabitants are arriving. Emilio and Elena were, a little over three years ago, the spearhead of this new sap for the town. The person most responsible for this change is Diego, a young 31-year-old mayor who was born and has always lived in the town and who could not continue watching how the streets were deserted and voices were only heard on weekends, due to tourism, “When here, before there were two schools -and now only one- and more than 600 people,” he blurts out.
To reverse the situation, he went to the mayor’s office and, together with his friends, drew up a plan that began by rehabilitating the town’s public housing, to later contact entrepreneurs through rural repopulation projects. And, of course, “optic fiber has been essential for this, because most families came with an online business or wanted to set it up. Each one should be able to choose the life project they wanted, without worrying about whether they were going to have internetâ€.
The coworking space offered by the town hall has also boosted the economy of the place, since it allows visitors to extend their tourist stay in Tragacete, by being able to work without connectivity problems from there. And that affects the bars, the pharmacy, the butcher shop and the rest of the services. “If young people leave the towns it is because of the lack of work, services and opportunities. A student in a town should have the right to train remotely like any other, a worker to telework… What fiber does is equalize opportunitiesâ€.
This is the purpose of Telefónica when installing fiber optics in rural areas, since “only when everyone has more opportunities, when no one is left behind, can we progress as a society”, they recall from the company.
In this equalizing opportunities, the fiber also modifies the usual trades so that they do not disappear. Thus, the farmer can consult the weather forecast to take care of his orchard, the shepherd can control his sheep by GPS and the shoemaker can buy his raw material and sell his product online, as is the case of Mercedes and Esteban, who own a store of handmade footwear, Cardosanto, and an archery school.
The couple arrived with their two children directly from Santa Fe, Argentina, as soon as the airports opened after the pandemic. They needed a change of life away from the big city and signed up for a repopulation program from an NGO. “They showed us 70 towns and we toured them through the internet. We were clear that ours should have nature and basic services. The Tragacete thing was love at first sightâ€, says Mercedes.
One of the advantages that they have found here is to save time on trips to get around the big city. The absence of noise is, without a doubt, another, “accustomed to the bustle of the city where we lived, since dawn.” And then there are human relationships: “we didn’t want to end up in a building where you don’t even know your neighborsâ€. But they also did not want to lose the benefits of living in the city, such as connectivity.
One of the advantages that they have found here is to save time on trips to get around the big city. The absence of noise is, without a doubt, another, “accustomed to the bustle of the city where we lived, since dawn.” And then there are human relationships: “we didn’t want to end up in a building where you don’t even know your neighborsâ€. But they also did not want to lose the benefits of living in the city, such as connectivity.
