Real estate speculation, which is one of the wildest forms that neoliberalism takes, is winning the battle in the cities; that is, segregating societies and fracturing social cohesion, in the face of the complicity of the right and the enormous inability of the left to intervene coherently. With direct effects on those who cannot afford housing or rent, expelling them from the cities and forcing them to find accommodation in suburban areas that are also being subjected to the dictatorship of land owners. Two recent essays by Jorge Dioni The Spain of Swimming Pools and The Unrest in the Cities expose in detail a reality that threatens to become the biggest problem for citizens in the coming years, if it is not already. Another magnificent article by Manel Pérez in La Vanguardia this weekend also explained the causes of this new speculation, reminiscent of that before the 2008 outbreak.
I focus on young people, those whose possibility of finding housing has become impossible. Except for those who, due to family capacity, have the necessary help to buy a roof or also rent it. This is not the case for the majority, who not only cannot become independent in “their” city, but also renounce national or international mobility; to the possibility of studying in other Spanish cities or even doing an Erasmus in Europe (a situation that the UV has warned about this week). The reason is the spectacular rise in prices in the capitals. Those who find work, with salaries that barely exceed 1,000 euros, will not be able to stabilize their lives either, with terrible consequences for the possibility of creating a family. They abound.
For years, as an example, the Valencia City Council, governed by the left, was incapable of facing the problem, with a miserable balance of creation of officially protected housing. I am also one of those who believes that the Government’s new Housing Law is going to have the opposite effect to that intended: I understand that it is justified to act against the large holders, but it weakens the small owners and discourages them from offering their apartment on the market. I’ll tell you something: in Patraix, a working-class neighborhood in Valencia where I live, it is impossible to find a rental for less than 900 euros; and some people who were thinking of renting their second home have given up and want to sell. They are afraid of the tenants’ lack of commitment and responsibility.
Cities are increasingly thematic territory for tourists, expelling their citizens and forcing the youngest to live in the peripheries, if they can, in a precarious situation. Others will have to share apartments, with prices at 500 euros per room, and destroying all their expectations for the future. In some ways, our cities have sent a disturbing message: “you, young man, leave the city.” Nobody seems able to avoid it.
