decreasing Barcelona
A Catalan personality recently told me that the commons intend to eliminate the middle class, which explains their ferocious campaign against the automobile, which was the great conquest of this middle class, using the need to fight climate change as an excuse. Perhaps I could also apply this comment to his opposition to the expansion of El Prat. Trips to any part of the world from Barcelona have been another conquest of this middle class.
The mayor and her party practice a policy of urban degrowth. They have been against or reluctant to Mobile, the cruise ships, the F-1, the Olympic Games, the Hermitage, the five-star hotels, the Rally Catalunya, the America’s Cup… And in some of these cases they have yielded reluctantly due to pressure from civic institutions and citizens. And let’s not forget the insecurity, the dirt, the graffiti that smears part of the city, and the disaster on Diagonal with the tram. I am convinced that his political action is aimed at reducing Barcelona to a modest city, of little international relief, much more dominable by this class of political forces with a long history of control and limitation of citizen freedoms.
I hope that part of the people of Barcelona wake up from their lethargy and deception and bet on the Great Global Barcelona, cosmopolitan and competitive of Juan Antonio Samaranch and Pasqual Maragall, which today, barely supported by civil society under the mandate of the commons with the support of CKD is at risk of death.
Carlos Cuatrecasas Targa
Barcelona