This Barcelona that Bruce Springsteen likes enough to book a couple of concerts here without going through Madrid is the same one that has become prohibitive for natural or adopted Barcelonans, those “of a lifetime”. The reader will think what does one thing have to do with the other. Well, a lot, and I’ll clarify it for you. That Springsteen returns or that those Barcelonans who assume the high cost of residing in the city do not leave responds to something unquestionable: Barcelona has and retains that I don’t know what of places that seduce and that is hard to leave.
It is written by someone who came from a town that appears on international lists of ideal as well as beautiful places to enjoy a good quality of life. One settled in Barcelona in the happy post-Olympic period and the crush was immediate despite all the drawbacks of a large city with a strong identity.
This is relevant because I suspect that the idyll may be broken. At times, the Barcelona of my love is unpleasant to me. When we talk about the cost of living, we talk about housing and services; also of the sense of well-being, of how comfortable we feel in the city.
Where I live, in the Eixample, reality is jungle in that sense. Private business is unleashed, as in other areas such as Poblenou, which not only evicts people without the luck of a stable economic situation, but also citizens graced with average salaries who until now could pay rent and now no longer because the The landlord asks for triple or more than when they entered. Young people deserve a special mention, since they can’t find a bad affordable shack that allows them to emancipate themselves.
The problem comes from afar, with Hereu, with Trias and in the last eight years with Colau. And I very much doubt that the new housing law or the promises of flats in bulk that Pedro Sánchez has been pulling out of his sleeve in the last two weeks are going to solve anything.
The piped music of speculation has been heard for a long time, although at this moment it is raising decibels. This is where the pedestrianization of Consell de Cent street would come in, a political decision taken with its back to market circumstances. I’m not saying that walking across some sections of that street is not pleasant. The newly released pavement looks good in the photos. Perhaps the alleged transformation into a “green axis” (I do not share that definition) feeds the dream of a city where grandparents sit on benches reading the newspaper, children play ball and dogs dance on two legs. Well, and have the consequences been measured?
The first, in the front. The immediate repercussion of the changes in Consell de Cent has been a wave of speculation that has triggered rental prices. In real estate portals there is nothing below 1,800 euros per month and there are plenty of 2,000 and 5,000. Those of more than 7,000 are only for foreigners with international salaries or for tourist uses. The Barcelona of gentrification.
The other effect of the transformation of Consell de Cent is not suffered by the residents of this revamped street, but by those of the adjoining streets, who are forced to ‘stand in solidarity’ by carrying all the diverted traffic. The volume of cars can be made up in the statistics, not on the asphalt.
Hell is paved with good intentions. But Barcelona cannot and should not be a town. In the end it will end up being true that ruralist fantasies will deter. Indeed, they will dissuade natural or adopted Barcelonans to pack their bags and go to a place where they can live in spite of themselves.
