The new mayor in charge of the Eixample district, the socialist Jordi Valls, announced in the last council of Sant Antoni the launch of a municipal shock plan to stop the degradation of the lower part of the neighborhood's supermanzana, which basically consists of Paral·lel Avenue, Ronda Sant Pau and Calle Manso.
For some time now, this side of the neighborhood has been the subject of a citizen confrontation that is mainly brewed on social networks through very intentional photos. On one side there are still lifes of painted street furniture, of people sleeping soundly on benches, of trails of empty beer cans, of some abandoned syringe... In the opinion of some, in the neighborhoods Philadelphia's fentanyl addicts in tents live better. And meanwhile those on the other side of the trench spread bucolic snapshots of children playing in public spaces, of elderly people chatting happily as if loneliness did not exist, of cyclists with helmets on their Bromptons who have never missed a traffic light in their lives. Much more beautiful people than the ones that appear in virtual images! “Who can be against all this?” they usually type next to these photos. The truth is that both deny reality, and look for arguments to attack and defend pedestrianization in general, to cruelly crucify or put certain political leaders on an undeserved stand.
Here in the lower part of this superblock, children play a lot, on many occasions kicking empty beer cans, among other things, because many people, even people with shelter and conventional lives, prefer to buy cans in the surrounding grocery stores instead of sit on terraces on Parlament Street where they are charged triple, and among them some also buy slices of pizza while others get food from home, and sometimes they argue with those who play chess, because when many players get together they take over the tables arranged, not only those with an integrated board – most of them graffitied and worn – but also the picnic ones, also battered... and sometimes a couple of homeless people drink cheap wine while contemplating the queues at the historic Sirvent horchateria.
Most of the neighborhood's residents find their place more or less comfortable in this delicate ecosystem. Plus, the people who hate the superblock the most no longer live on these streets. Here the really hard part occurred when about five years ago the renewals of many rental contracts skyrocketed in a cruel way – to infinity and beyond. What happens is that spaces of this type and provisional ones require very special care.
"At the beginning of October we launched a device of cleaning employees with water equipment that is added to the ordinary services," say municipal sources, detailing the main aspects of the shock plan established by the government of Mayor Jaume Collboni. We are also reinforcing the presence of the Urban Police in the area, as well as that of educators who serve homeless people and drug users. In parallel, the district is also committed to carrying out actions to clean graffiti from furniture and also to relocate and fluff up some elements in the most problematic areas.”
Yes, here everything is provisional, because these large pots and huge concrete balls planted five years ago and now all defaced, and also all the yellow triangles on the floor already blurred and darkened by a kind of urban grime, are one of the latest examples of tactical urbanism in Barcelona. They have an expiration date, the City Council has to remove them and redevelop all these streets so that they are similar to the upper part of the superblock, between Manso Street and Gran Via, where all the ground is at the same level, the flower beds are brick and the place has a definitive look.
Janet Sanz, who was Deputy Mayor for Urban Planning during the two previous terms, says that her team left everything well prepared for these works to begin at the beginning of next year. But everything indicates that this work will take at least a few months. Municipal sources limit themselves to pointing out that the preliminary project has already been put out to tender. “We left the work done so that in July the City Council could put out to tender the projects, and so that the works could begin at the beginning of the year,” Sanz herself adds. It seems that everything is going slower than desirable. It is a lack of commitment to the agreements we reached with neighbors and merchants. We ask the government of Mayor Collboni not to delay the deadline any further. These actions were provisional and worked very well, but over time they lost quality. These works are essential.”
“No, I don't sleep here, but somewhere in Gràcia,” says Juan Carlos Sánchez, on a bench. I come here in the mornings, until the Paral·lel soup kitchen opens, because it is a very nice place, it is good and no one messes with you.”
