the systemic drought alert in Catalonia has put the use of water and its restrictions at the center of public conversation in the large Catalan cities. The possibility of applying local restrictions has faced Government and mayorswith a very specific spearhead: the pools.
Leaders of prominent municipalities in the metropolitan region of Barcelona, such as Sabadell or Mataróclaim swimming pools as essential equipment to provide service to vulnerable families who cannot afford air conditioning in their home.
Less has been explained, however, that the enjoyment of these valuable ‘climate shelters’ summer depends a lot on the locality in which a metropolitan neighbor lives, since there are big differences between cities of similar sizes. This urban gaze also contrasts with the reality of the small Catalan coastal municipalities, whose pools follow another logic much more linked to tourism and second homes.
The statistics on these pools near the sea are only understood in high season, when the real population on the coast shoots up well above the official number of registered inhabitants throughout the year. Paradigmatic cases such as Begur (4,177 inhabitants) or L’Ametlla de Mar (7,209 inhabitants), with two and three inhabitants -registered- by pool respectively.
Where? The unequal ratio of urban swimming pools
THE NEWSPAPER has analyzed the statistical data of swimming pools -the sum of public, private, covered and uncovered- of the General Directorate of the Cadastredependent on Ministry of Finance and Public Function. The ranking of the large Catalan cities -more than 40,000 inhabitants– reveals a significant ‘water gap’.
The most flagrant difference is the comparison between Sant Cugat del Valles and L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, that open and close the classification. These are extreme cases: while the first is, by far, the Catalan city with the most swimming pools (4,867), the second only has 66.
When calculating the rate of inhabitants that touches by each pool, the ‘urban water gap it is graphic in cities separated by only fifteen kilometers. At the time that in sant cugat they touch 20 inhabitants per pool, in L’Hospitalet -where are the two densest square kilometers in Europe– They have a pool for each 4,022 people.
Another notable difference between cities that share a region (Baix Llobregat): Yeah Castelldefels It has a swimming pool for every 29 inhabitants, El Prat del Llobregat has one for every 1,912 people and Cornella de Llobregat it treasures a swimming pool for every 1,712 residents. In the following table, explore this inequality in the large Catalan cities based on data from how many people play in the pool in each one of them.
After L’Hospitaletthe next cities with the most inhabitants per swimming pool are El Prat de Llobregat, Cornellà de Llobregat, and Barcelona: all three have more than a thousand inhabitants per pool. Even so, they cannot dispute the dry leadership of L’Hospitalet (4,021.98 room/pool)which directly duplicates the second, The Prat (1,912.65 rooms/pool).
And, despite the fact that it has less than 40,000 inhabitants, it deserves a special mention Badia del Valles (13,163 inhabitants), which with 4,388 inhabitants per pool registers the worst data on the ratio of inhabitants to swimming pools in all of Catalonia.
Because? The key factor of urbanism
Beyond strictly the household income by municipalitiesan area in which there is a correlation between cities that register few inhabitants per swimming pool and that in turn enjoy high incomes (sant cugat, Sant Just Desvern either matadepera are paradigmatic examples), experts point to another key factor: the type of urbanism.
In the opinion of Alberto de Palo, architect specialized in environmental intervention, “The municipalities that have more swimming pools are those that are governed by a dispersed and horizontal urbanismhow is he obvious case of Sant Cugat“.
However, de Palo details that this urbanism contrasts with the compact model of most metropolitan cities: “That is why L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Cornellà del Llobregat or Barcelona they have fewer swimming pools, because they have very little space but at the same time they have many inhabitants [es decir, mucha densidad de población]”, he concludes.
The lower part of the table of the big cities, that is to say, that of the towns with fewer inhabitants per pool, is starring Sant Cugat del Vallès, Castelldefels, Rubí, Blanes and Vilanova i la GeltrúCatalan municipalities with less than sixty inhabitants per swimming pool.
How many? The map of the pools
Apart from the proportion of inhabitants per pool, the map is also graphic of cities with the largest number of swimming pools in absolute numbers. In this case, as the following graph shows, the table is once again led by sant cugat (4,867 pools), followed by Castelldefels (2,313), Ruby (1967), Sabadell (1,689) and Terrassa (1,539).
As for the lower part of the table, the cities that stand out for the fewest number of swimming pools are The Prat of Llobregat (17 pools); Cornella de Llobregat (52); and L’Hospitalet de Llobregat (66).
Even so, George Dioni, journalist and book author The Spain of swimming pools (Arpa, 2021), details that it is not the same to have a pool in Sant Cugat del Valles what in Lloret de Mar.
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“The pool is not a inaccessible item. It becomes less accessible the closer it is to the city,” says Dioni. In this sense, Dioni says that having a swimming pool in a municipality near the big city adds “an exponential value” to it. “The value of the land is variable, so it is not the same to have a pool in Tortosa than in Sant Just Desvern”, concludes Dioni.
It also underlines who enjoys the large number of pools on the coast. “It is not always the inhabitants of a municipality who enjoy their swimming pools: the tourist municipalities distort the data”, he assures. In addition to the case of Begur, Dioni also highlights in his book Lloret de Mar, with 2,790 swimming pools: “It is a very high absolute figure that responds to the construction of second residences of houses single-family homes and community pools“, ditch.