Spain's fix for a lonely planet
The key to understanding Spain isn't the F-word.
She’s wearing a winter coat in the depths of the Spanish summer. A silver-haired man pushes her along the periphery of our local playground as she stares at nothing. Until there’s something. She looks at the wriggling ball of energy in my arms with the same awe in her eyes as yesterday. My daughter knows the drill.
The wheelchair-bound lady doesn’t have the strength to return the wave. “Gracias,” says her carer before shuffling onwards. Tomorrow she won’t remember who we are.
This daily ritual costs me nothing, but it’s a transaction that benefits many. Even the onlookers who unexpectedly happen upon an interaction that joins the dots from the cradle to the grave. They, too, subconsciously absorb the warm and fuzzy oxytocin that radiates.
This isn’t my good deed for the day – it’s a contribution to the upkeep of the most enriching aspect of daily life in Spain: the humanity.
I am exposed to daily doses of selflessness and generosity and have found myself conditioned by the invisible influence of community that permeates through the fabric of Spanish society. The Covid-19 pandemic made us forget that a good kind of contagion exists, but life in Spain’s bustling cities shows that kindness is infectious.
While some international reporters are unable to explain this land without finding some link to a man who died in 1975, the key to understanding Spaniards and the social health of a country that is on course to have the longest life expectancy in the world is not the F-word.
It’s the B-word.
The barrio.
The neighbourhood.
A propensity for density
“A Spaniard’s social agility is superior to their fierce feelings of personal independence.” Giles Tremlett, Ghosts of Spain.
Spaniards are good at living close together – with around 90% of the population now squashed into less than 30% of the country’s territory, they’ve little choice. What’s more, 65% live in flats – almost half of all pisos measure between 60 and 90 metres squared.
The barrio is a pinball machine of cultures and characters. It can feel frenetic and claustrophobic. But barrio life is a series of trade-offs: With the shuddering bottle bank collection at midnight, there are freshly-washed streets at dawn. With drunken revellers announcing their arrival home as others begin their day, there is 24/7 foot traffic and a sense of security. With the random sofas, mattresses, and tables discarded on sidewalks, there are well-maintained shared spaces like plazas and parks. With the sound of someone’s radio blaring across your building’s internal patio, there are unexpected gifts from neighbours to welcome your newborn.
If you can’t handle the barrio at its worst, you don’t deserve its best. You either get stuck into the messiness of it all with the other vecinos or you don’t. Spain doesn’t wait.
Author and activist Jane Jacobs argued that cities thrive when they mingle “everyday diversity of uses and users in its everyday streets.” With Spain’s propensity for density, the trade-offs pay off. Living in a high-rise apartment block in a multi-service barrio makes it possible to have nice things and essential amenities close to home: markets and medical centres, cinemas and schools. Because of density, those living in cities such as Madrid, Seville, Barcelona, and Bilbao, have some of the world’s most iconic restaurants, art galleries, theatres, football stadiums, and architecture within walking distance. With public transport that works, Spain has shown me that a car-free life is possible.
When I arrived at the first of the many neighbourhoods that I would call “my barrio,” I was able to leverage proximity to quickly integrate into the local community with a level of Spanish that was enough to be able to make an effort. I took advantage of the low social barriers to entry. With a wealth of meeting places on my doorstep, I was able to scale up my social network in a matter of months, building relationships that would have taken years to nurture in other countries. I lapped up the daily dividends, absorbing the endorphins from something so mundane as a neighbour remembering my name or the barman reaching for the lactose-free milk without me having to ask.
The barrio is a living and breathing social experiment. There are no algorithms funnelling like-minded people down echo chambers. It’s organic. It’s both routine and spontaneity. It’s a series of daily negotiations where people must learn to co-exist. “The ability to shed, for a moment, their personal, liberal agenda and instinctively incorporate themselves into a social group is, perhaps, the secret to Spanish communal living,” wrote Giles Tremlett in Ghosts of Spain. “Perhaps that is why they work at it so hard at school.”
During meetings in la comunidad – the institution that brings the apartment owners in each building together to run its affairs – or negotiations between neighbour associations and local businesses, concessions have to be made and agreements reached. In a country so fiercely divided across left and right lines, the barrio feels like the centre that holds everything together.
It is modern Spain - a rich mix of nationalities and cultures, those who have only ever known life in one barrio and immigrants like me; an aging population whose pensions will have to be propped up by people who do not yet call Spain “home.” During daily visits to the café bar, newspaper kiosk, bakery, or market, I cross paths with both the well-heeled and those who struggle to make it to the end of the month, people from every corner of the world. I fondly remember the Pakistani shopkeeper from a previous barrio who would update me about Ireland cricket games I had no idea were happening.
In Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Robert Putnam argued the importance of interaction with people of different backgrounds, cultures, and beliefs: “When people lack connections to others, they are unable to test the veracity of their own views, whether in the give-and-take of casual conversation or in more formal deliberation.” Left to their own devices he said, “people are more likely to be swayed by their worst impulses. It is no coincidence that random acts of violence, tend to be committed by people identified, after the fact, as loners.”
The lived-in streets of urban Spain – with children being children, locals walking their dogs, and the elderly going about at their own pace – feel remarkably civilised. Feet on the street at all hours creates a self-perpetuating sense of security. It’s a natural repellent for anti-social behaviour. It creates what Jane Jacobs termed the feeling of “eyes on the street” – invisible self-policing. In a country where space and amenities are precious, there is zero tolerance towards assholery.
From public spaces to the tapas and raciones served in dishes and even Christmas lottery tickets, sharing is part of Spain’s national psyche. By choice or by design, Spaniards are barrio people. “They like the warmth, the solidarity, the sense of belonging that groups give them,” writes Giles Tremlett in Ghosts of Spain. “That, perhaps, is why towns and cities pack people together, ignoring the acres of open space around them.” They mightn’t realise it, but barrio folk are shareholders. Every interaction with neighbours in these tight spaces is an investment in social capital. The barrio doesn’t follow fiscal calendars. Instead, its inhabitants receive regular proximity dividends as daily trade-offs crystalise.
In this environment of convivencia – coexistence in harmony – small children are treated like royalty, the elderly like adults. They exist. As depicted in this TikTok video by American travel vlogger @maggieinmadrid, instead of being discarded once their economic usefulness or mobility diminishes, pensioners continue to maintain their status as both a visible and important part of society. An inter-generational bridge, the barrio has enabled me to interact daily with a generation that are, in countries like Ireland, out of sight and out of mind.
Barrio life isn’t always pretty, however. In fact, some barrios are ugly concrete jungles with little or no access to green spaces. The popular social media account @Liosdevecinos highlights the (often amusing) daily squabbles between neighbours, the friction a natural outcome of such a diverse mix of ages and backgrounds living so close together. But by accepting the trade-offs on offer, Spain has just about mastered the art of cheek by jowl living through patience and tolerance.
And with this model of sardine-can living, it has a ready-made antidote for one of the world’s most serious social problems.
A lonely planet
“Spain is a country that gets under your skin, and eventually on your nerves, but that will always offer a respite than so many in the West have most come to fear: loneliness.” After the fall, Tobias Buck
The world’s largest economy is going through a friendship recession. According to the Survey Center on American Life, the number of close friends Americans have has plummeted over the past 30 years. Their findings show that things are particularly bad for men: the percentage with at least six close friends fell by half since 1990, from 55% to 27%. What’s more, the percentage without any close friends jumped from 3% to 15%.
Defined by the European Commission as “a subjective feeling defined as an unmet need in terms of quantity or quality of social interactions,” when it comes to loneliness, America isn’t alone. When announcing the new UK Loneliness Minister in 2018, then prime minister Theresa May cited research saying that 9 million people often or always feel lonely in Britain. Figures from the European Union are also alarming. A 2022 survey found that more than one third of respondents were lonely at least sometimes and 13% were lonely most of the time. As the below European Commission graphic illustrates, the contrast in loneliness figures between Ireland and Spain couldn’t be starker.
Declaring loneliness as a “public health emergency,” a Time magazine report linked loneliness to the increasing risk of early death. “In part, that’s because it’s linked to a striking number of disorders, including cognitive disorders like Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia, and mental health disorders like depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia. Loneliness has also been linked to cardiovascular disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes, cancer, and other chronic illnesses.” Health crises are expensive for governments. They affect national productivity and competitiveness. It, therefore, makes zero economic sense for countries to ignore loneliness.
The brutal Covid-19 pandemic claimed more than 120,000 lives in Spain. Being such a tactile society, it affected Spaniards deeply. Because of sprawl and car dependence, Ireland avoided the apocalyptic weeks that I witnessed from a tiny apartment in Madrid during the spring of 2020 because it was already well-versed in social distancing.
“Ireland’s rainy seasons – all four of them – don’t help when it comes to facilitating the concept of connected communities,” wrote Keith Duggan in Why is Ireland, the land of a thousand welcomes, the loneliest country in Europe. Loneliness isn’t caused by climate – Spain has some of the dampest cities in Europe. I am writing these words from one of them.
Loneliness is driven by design.
The price of freedom
“Suburbia is a collective effort to live a private life.” Lewis Mumford, American sociologist (1938)
Friendship recessions don’t happen overnight. With so many social, economic, urban design, work and technology factors finely intertwined, social disconnectedness is a phenomenon that has been slow cooking for decades.
In Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam detailed how, between 1985 and 1994, active involvement in community organizations in the U.S fell by 45%. “By this measure, at least, nearly half of America’s civic infrastructure was obliterated in a decade.”
But what caused Americans to become what he termed “civic slugs”?
“Since the 1920s,” wrote one New York Times opinion piece, “single-use zoning has divided our cities into separate neighbourhoods for home, work and play.” Putnam, meanwhile, wrote about the impact of spatial fragmentation between home and workplace is bad for community life: “More time spent alone in cars means less time for friends and neighbours, for meetings, for community projects, and so on.” He also pointed to the devastating impact of “segregatory zoning policies” that pull residential areas apart from gathering places such as local shops, cafés and restaurants. Over time, vertical and communal living became horizontal and individual, and the distance between people hasn’t stopped stretching since.
Suburbia, too, offers its own trade-offs. Space comes with larger distances between the home and vital amenities. It comes with desolate streets in the evening. For many it comes with needing car keys to go for a walk. Cars promised us personal freedom, but car dependence driven by sprawl has obliterated community life all over the world. “Two cars don’t contribute to social cohesion,” said Pontevedra mayor Miguel Anxo Fernández Lores. “They can crash into one another, sure, but they don’t interact – people do.”
In Ireland, life without a car is unfeasible for most of the population. Without four wheels you’re a second-class citizen. Abysmal public transport infrastructure has given vehicles carte blanche to dictate people’s quality of life and to continue holding Irish urban planning to ransom. Sprawl continues to sell the illusion of freedom. E-commerce, meanwhile, reinforces the idea of easy and convenient living while next-day delivery is actually priming people for long-term misery.
“I visited the U.S last fall, and I was horrified at the total car dependence by everyone I know,” Melissa Rossi, a Barcelona-based contributor for Yahoo News from Centerville, Ohio tells me. “Work, play, shopping, doctor – you hop in the car. It was a severe culture shock. The country is totally locked into decisions made decades ago about neighbourhoods and highways.” Distance forces lives to become hyper regimented. In car-controlled societies, considerations such as traffic and parking are factored into all activity planning, thus strangling spontaneity and stifling socialising on a whim.
Remote working has further compounded the reality that socialising in Ireland is now an occasion, a weekend event with trains and taxis, baby and dog sitters. For some, the cost and hassle of the logistics after a long week of life don’t justify an evening in the pub or restaurant. A takeaway meal and bottle of wine does the job and meaningful social encounters are put on the backburner for another week.
For those who live for the big trip into the city it’s about the session and the craic. Drink ’til you drop. If I’m going to hit the town, I’m going bloody hit it hard. These two scenarios – social sluggishness and extreme, infrequent socialising – represent the all-or-nothing model of socialising that many suburban areas condemn their inhabitants to. When the window for catching up with friends is reduced to dinner and drinks on a Saturday night or brunch on a Sunday morning, there’s no room for new friends. There’s no time for life’s good stuff: the moments you (or your schedule) don’t see coming.
A garden for the kids and a driveway for the car(s) – for generations it was the goal. For many, it still is. The American Dream. The Irish Dream.
The planet, however, is telling us to wake up.
An unsustainable model
“The dispersed city is the most expensive, resource-intense, land-gobbling, polluting way of living ever built.” Charles Montgomery, The Happy City
With the world’s population expected to hit 8.5 billion by 2023 (it was 5.3 billion in 1990), there aren’t enough resources to support the direct and indirect effects of people living further and further apart. The barrio, on the other hand, shows that it makes sense to be dense: municipal budgets can be stretched further, providing better quality services to more people. The resources needed to maintain a street home to 500 people are a fraction of those needed to cater to the same amount of people spread across several sprawling suburban housing estates.
Moreover, already creaking healthcare systems will not be able to cope with the crippling physical and mental ailments that new waves of loneliness in ageing societies will bring. “With everything so far away, many seniors can’t get anywhere on foot – leaving many in a homebound state that actually hastens the ageing process,” wrote Charles Montgomery in Happy City, pointing to the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia as an example of the pitfalls of sprawl that await greying populations. “Those who can’t drive have a tough time getting services, and they are starved of the casual social encounters that keep people connected, strong and healthy.” With time, the perceived freedom offered to those who submit to sprawl diminishes alongside their physical capacities.
While Spain’s surging life expectancy is expected to overtake Japan by 2040, the lives of Americans are becoming shorter. How is it possible that the biggest economy in the world has a declining life expectancy? “Yes, Americans eat more calories and lack universal access to health care,” said Selena Simmons-Duffin, NPR health policy correspondent. “But there's also higher child poverty, racial segregation, social isolation, and more. Even the way cities are designed makes access to good food more difficult.”
While olive oil, oily fish, and high vitamin D levels have been earmarked as key contributors towards longevity, studies suggest that social bonds are another critical part of the equation that results in a long and healthy life. This idea is reinforced by The Harvard Study of Adult Development, an 80-year investigation which followed the lives of 268 Harvard sophomores in 1938 through 2018. “When we gathered together everything we knew about them about at age 50, it wasn’t their middle-age cholesterol levels that predicted how they were going to grow old. It was how satisfied they were in their relationships,” said Robert Waldinger, director of the study. “The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80. Taking care of your body is important, but tending to your relationships is a form of self-care too.”
Despite the proven benefits of offline social networks, Americans have never been as lonely or socially disconnected. They are now paying the price with the most valuable of currencies: their health. To combat loneliness, Dr. Marisa Franco, a psychologist who studies friendship, advises people to put themselves in “recurring social situations” in other to increase the likelihood of getting to know new friends over time. The children of the disconnected in the land of dispersion, however, are accustomed to a very different recurring situation. They are chauffeured to school, football practice, birthday parties, and the shopping mall, spending more time in the back seat than on the street. Trunk-or-treat is now a thing.
Their hyper-controlled childhoods starve them of access to third places to hang out. “Our thesis,” said the Journal of Pediatrics “is that a primary cause of the rise in mental disorders is a decline over decades in opportunities for children and teens to play, roam, and engage in other activities independent of direct oversight and control by adults.”
The barrio, with playgrounds, green spaces, and sports facilities woven between neighbourhoods, shows that there can be a different way. In After the fall, the Financial Times Madrid correspondent between 2012–2017 Tobias Buck recounted the time he asked a group of older boys who had let his son join their football game whether they were friends from school. “No, we are friends from the square” was the reply. According to Buck, “it summed up everything that is right about Madrid – a big, sprawling city but also a village where children can still make friends in the street.”
In Pontevedra, a city of 80,000 people tucked up in the northwest corner of Spain, 80% of children aged 6–12 walk to school by themselves. A city re-designed to prioritise people over cars, children with backpacks stroll together through the pedestrianised streets. Urban environments that make walking the most efficient way to get around facilitate constant foot traffic. What’s more, Pontevedra’s kids grow up with their city – they develop a relationship with it. They encounter people of all ages each day. They learn valuable social skills and become streetwise. And they are healthier.
Under the hood of the hood
“When everything else collapses, the barrio always remains,” Fernando Casado Cañeque, El País
I’m looking down my favourite street in Pontevedra. It’s the first Monday of the school year and families wait in a line at El Pueblo to buy stationery and supplies. Stretching a little over 100 metres, Rua Conde de San Román is too narrow for wide loads, but it squeezes value out of every inch with local businesses that sell books and cold beers, one that puts ink on skin and another that gives new life to shoes on their last legs. But that only tells only half the story of this street. The over half lies overhead.
Like the streets of most barrios, local businesses are very much the protagonists, but the people are its vital organs. Bars and bakeries, kiosks and chemists are punctuated by apartment buildings that momentarily reveal their camouflage when a local emerges into the day with a bag of rubbish in hand or a dog on a lead. Or when an elderly lady cracks the dust from bed linen from a balcony above.
The barrio is a complex ecosystem. The latest gig or political rally posters rolled onto the weather-beaten, peeling layers of past events are frequent reminders that the barrio is alive. Rarely idyllic and never quaint, this is real, authentic life. It’s where you get to see the humanity of Spaniards and the trust they place in each other. “I have copies of the house keys for around 15 people in the barrio, in case they lose theirs,” one newspaper kiosk owner in Barcelona told The Guardian journalist Stephen Burgan.
The local café doesn’t need to write your name on your cup, and for the time being, hand-written signs on the windows of local stores and bars resist the invasion of QR codes and high-definition marketing.
Despite the frantic pace of life in Spain, the barrio is adept at the art of distraction to slow us down. “Danish architect Jan Gehl and others have found that if a street features uniform facades with hardly any doors, variety, or functions, people move past as quickly as possible,” wrote Charles Montgomery in Happy City. “But if a street features varied facades, lots of openings, and a high density of functions per block, people walk more slowly. They pause more often.” At night, fluorescent letters representing the first letter of each store name illuminate Conde de San Román. It’s attractive and inviting. Because they have skin in the game, business owners take pride in their storefronts. They change with the seasons and locals slow down to check out new book releases or the daily specials on menus. When the pace drops, the potential for casual and spontaneous social interactions soars.
The Covid-19 pandemic exposed the vulnerabilities of anti-social urban planning and the hyper-segmentation of work, play, and home. Cities that opted for huge office plantations instead of mixed-use development were the ones found to be swimming without speedos when the tide went out. Ireland’s brutal housing crisis will not abate until people start living in inner cities again. Bringing people physically closer would also help break the loneliness cycle and drastically reduce the dependence on tonnes of steel on four wheels.
Following the 2008 financial crash, many barrios in Spain were pockmarked with boarded up windows and “for rent” signs. But they bounced back. By blending the residential and commercial, they resisted. These are dynamic hubs home to small businesses and entrepreneurs, the kind that add texture, resourcefulness, and a bit of get up and go to neighbourhoods. For both business owners and locals, it’s in everyone’s best interests that the barrio thrives – it’s use it or lose it. It explains why barrio pride and the shop local mindset is so strong in Spain. On a practical level, it makes sense to conserve that convenience of having everything on one’s doorstep. Across most parts of the western world, the weekly supermarket trip is a case of “the sooner we get in and out this god forsaken parking lot the better” – a stark contrast to being able to buy fresh and local produce on the street below. And being able to nip down again after forgetting the lemon for the paella. In Spanish, the verb bajar – to go down (the road/to the shop) – perfectly epitomises this priceless practicality.
On-demand socialising
“80% of life is simply showing up.” Woody Allen
Spaniards have an impressive ability to quickly mobilise, thronging plazas and streets for political rallies, religious celebrations, and local fiestas. Quaint plazas quickly morph into bustling markets and political amphitheatres with TV cameras, journalists, and an audience. Bars suddenly jolt back into life as midday fades into la hora del vermut. Groups of friends and family members dart between bars and squares and markets and restaurants like shoals of sardines before disappearing. They later reappear as if returned by the evening tide. “Spaniards like to move en masse,” wrote Giles Tremlett, “to belong to large gaggles.” This collectivism fuels the barrios dynamism.
Because of their convenience, these third places are fertile ground for spontaneous social interaction. Many of the decisions we make each day are guided by the path of least resistance. We are anti-effort. Thanks to proximity, the path of least resistance for Spaniards is a way of life that permits easy access to healthy foods and on-demand socialising. They are free to dip in and out of daily life at their leisure. By taking the effort out of socialising, Spain makes it easy to show up – multiple times a day.
Having called six different barrios “my barrio”, I’ve never lived more than 50 metres from one of the great barrio institutions. The Spanish bar is a one-stop shop for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and everything in between. Just don’t ask for spiced pumpkin lattes. Or avocado anything. Some people in my building are propped at the counter of the bar on the corner with a café con leche and the daily newspaper before work and, 12 hours later, they’ll be back in the same spot debating about football with a friend. “Life’s lighter, breezier relationships soothe and reassure us, specifically because of the lightness,” wrote Charles Montgomery in Happy City.
And thanks to density, there is no big commitment, planning or time investment involved. It’s why barrio folk always seem to be on the go, bobbing and weaving between work, errands, and play. “The richest social environments are those in which we feel free to edge closer together and move apart as we wish,” argued Montgomery. Spain is good at low-maintenance socialising, making it possible to enjoy both quality and quantity.
I once saw someone online trying to understand how Spaniards significantly outlive Americans when “the bars are full at mid-day.” As if it’s a bad thing that people are catching up over a coffee, orange juice, Coca Cola, a beer, glass of wine, a slice of tortilla, or a bunch of churros. Socialising is literally good for your health – instead of drinking themselves to an early grave, Spaniards are socialising their way to a long life. Furthermore, Spain’s adult approach to alcohol, frequent moderation, explains why “dry January” and the concept of “living for the weekend” don’t exist – why wait cooped up in a small apartment until Friday night to catch up with friends when you can bajar to the bar for half an hour?
Having these third places within a short walk enables what Charles Montgomery described as “letting our social lives happen to us.” In a country where the working day often drags beyond 8pm, every second of free time counts – it’s why Spaniards are the great space optimisers and social improvisers. This convenience makes meet ups with friends the routine rather than an occasion. A March 2023 CIS study on post-pandemic social relations showed that just under 40% of Spaniards meet up with friends several times each week. That figure jumps to over 73% when the frequency is extended to several times a month.
Compact communities also allow parents in Spain to dedicate time to their social lives, hours that in other countries are lost to distance. With doorstep socialising, barrio parents can catch up with friends without it turning into a major logistical operation. If somebody decides to suddenly throw a tantrum in the bar, home is only minutes away.
“Whereas small children turn British parents into social lepers,” wrote Giles Tremlett wrote in Ghosts of Spain, “they elevate Spanish parents into privileged human beings.” Because of Spain’s all-welcome bar culture, children are not viewed as a nuisance – it’s completely normal to see groups of friends enjoy some terraza time while the little ones chase after flying footballs on the adjacent plaza late into the night. I undoubtedly learned tricks of the trade from others in bars before becoming a father. With my own daughter, I have seen how the barrio blurs the lines between the personal and social. With each interaction by my side, she is being educated in etiquette and learning social skills even if it just me making small talk with a stranger.
In Ireland, pubs – traditionally the heartbeat of community life – are no longer within walking distance for most of the country. Sprawling developments have emptied out town centres. Main streets are now colonised by bookmakers and discount stores. At night, the street lights still have to be kept on (and paid for) but nobody is home. In the land of sprawl, every errand is an effort. For anxiety sufferers, having to drive to a shopping mall – environments designed to shock our senses into submission – just to buy a book or a bottle of wine can be a hellish prospect. Online shopping is an easy get-out-of-mall-free card and opportunities for casual social encounters - good for easing anxiety - are wasted.
We, therefore, must add more resistance to the path to loneliness by putting good things, such as convenient third places, in the way. Through density, Spain makes it very difficult to become a civic slug.
But there’s a but.
A model under threat
“When a city gets a taste for tourism, addiction follows.” Jorge Dioni Lopez, El malestar de las ciudades.
Rolsers and Samonsites, rolling wheels over cobbled streets form the backing track of Saturday mornings in a growing number of barrios across Spain. But the people doing the rolling could hardly be more different: those who have been around for a long time and those who have just arrived for a good time.
“Mass tourism camouflages the fact that our cities are undergoing a process of aging and depopulation,” wrote Jorge Dioni Lopez in El malestar de las ciudades. In May 2023, for example, Cadena Ser reported that there were more tourist apartments than inhabitants in the centre of Malaga. A few hours to the west, Cadiz has lost a third of its inhabitants since 1991. Between 2021 and 2023, meanwhile, the number of tourist apartments in the city jumped by 62%. “In the centre of Burgos,” wrote Dioni Lopez, “it’s easier to buy a sword and armour than bread and ham to make a sandwich.”
While the investment funds continue to speculate, the problems for barrios continue to accumulate. Gentrification is pricing diversity out of barrios and driving socio-economic segregation. Skyrocketing rents due to a lack of supply force people to live even further away from their place of work, draining hours of their spare time. Sound familiar? More short-term let apartments – that often lie empty for large chunks of the year – leave neighbourhoods with fewer neighbours, the very people who will fight for its well-being. When social infrastructure crumbles and third places disappear, loneliness looms.
***
It’s about 13 hours since they each devoured a dozen grapes. One of the young ladies in the group takes a swig of an Estrella Galicia as they cross A Coruña’s Plaza España with a giddiness that suggests there’s life in their New Year’s Eve party yet.
If only Spain had such a care-free start to 2024.
While Malaga Airport’s temperature record for December was obliterated by almost five degrees, 2024 began with Catalonia on the verge of a state of emergency due to severe drought as reservoir water levels dropped below 17% of capacity for the first time. Summers are becoming drier, hotter, and longer. “About one-fifth of Spain has desertified,” wrote Simon Kuper in the Financial Times. “That could rise to three-quarters.”
Dismantling the barrio – the most sustainable approach to urban living – to make a quick buck off people who’ll be here today and gone tomorrow would be for Spain nothing less than societal suicide.
Then it’d be time for a different F-word.
Until next time,
Brendan
