This city is and will be the Barcelona of the botiguers, that of Mr. Esteve. But now in 21st century version. This is what emerges from the judge’s ruling against the Eix Verd of Consell de Cent, after the appeal filed by Barcelona Oberta and Foment, even before the affected residents. The judge agrees with them when they denounce the city council for converting a street into a free space, “a covert modification of the general metropolitan plan.” I have consulted on the Barcelona Oberta website who makes up the board of this lobby. At the front are the neighborhood trade associations, and then the members: hoteliers, franchises, shopping centers, restaurant groups. Companies that live above all from tourism. The paradox is that the Barcelona of shopkeepers will soon not have traditional stores. How many ‘historic’ businesses have closed in recent years? We sing their funeral and remember them with a golden plaque on the sidewalk.
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Which What makes me distrustful is that the oversight of the future of public space come from some gentlemen who are moved by private interests. The intervention in Consell de Cent surely has serious defects, but the city is a changing entity and it must be its inhabitants with daily use who define what works and what does not.
Now the ruling opens the door to question other green interventions of the previous council: Pi i Margall, Via Laietana, even Meridiana Avenue. They may be daring and uncomfortable reforms, but they must be evaluated with a future perspective and as a whole, not individually. Going back, as the judge has approved, would not improve the situation, and I am not saying this only because of the months and months of works that will be necessary to undo everything. It will be a reactionary and regressive measure, the European laughing stock in the face of the changes demanded by the climate emergency. Because the reality is that right now Barcelona is already a city drowned by tourism. From the waist down —from Gran Via on down— it is half dead, exhausted by success, and meanwhile the insatiable only seem to want to recover “the best store in the world”.