Cities are increasingly hostile places if you only look at business and not progress. If terraces proliferate on the sidewalks, we say that we are "tavernaries" and we do not think about which park our children and grandchildren are going to play in, we are going badly. If we fill the central almonds with tourist apartments and do not take care of the regeneration of the neighborhoods, we will also pay for it. Madrid is one of those cities where everything gets complicated for those who want to lead a quiet life. And it is also a place where an entrepreneurial or angry citizen begins to emerge.
But there is hope. Because protests sometimes get what they want. The residents of Arganzuela, to the south of the capital, have succeeded, stopping the removal of 279 trees in Madrid Río, specimens that were going to be transplanted for the expansion works on metro line 11.
This park is a veritable oasis and it is only fair to recognize that the city owes it to Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, a rare person from Madrid who did not criticize him in his day for the pharaonic work he designed and executed. With extra costs, yes. But where before there were six lanes of cars clogged daily on the surface, now there is a green area and a Manzanares river where birds inhabit that not even the most authentic had seen in their lives.
"Metro yes, but not like this," the neighbors proclaimed, because the protest has been led mainly by mothers and grandmothers who take their children to that area every day. Social networks acted as a loudspeaker and viralized the claim throughout the past week. On Sunday the victims of the “arbolicide”, as they called it, took to the streets to say our trees should not be touched. Pedro Vallín told it in El Patio Digital. His voice reached The Guardian. Some even took it humorously and removed the strawberry tree from the bear that lives in Puerta del Sol in a tweet. He too was transplanted from a place not long ago, but he could not complain.
What is happening in Madrid has a lesson that should be highlighted. Social networks have been key for the protests to reach thousands of people from Madrid. And it has not only happened with the trees, forcing a government to rectify, something unusual. A few weeks ago it already happened with the demonstration for public health. Right now there are political advisors who are more concerned with Twitter than with inaugurating a square or a sports center.
The victory does not belong to the residents of Arganzuela. It is from a city that wants to remain habitable. Long live social media.
