On the lightness of the idea of the city and its status as an ongoing process, rather than a permanent reality, there are few more beautiful reflections than the one written by Italo Calvino in his preliminary note on Las ciudades invisibles, a book that Siruela has now published in the centenary of the Ligurian novelist.
Calvino noted that his work opens and closes "with the images of happy cities that continually take shape and vanish, hidden in unhappy cities." Is there a more elegant way of referring to that volatility of mood that leads us to think that we live in the best city in the world only to, the next day, consider it insufferable?
Globalization 3.0 and geopolitical instability exacerbate the feeling of moving. Nothing lasts. Far from it, the rankings that reward urban excellence. For example, a handful of visceral votes in an absurd referendum are conditioning the future of London as a reference metropolis, while giving wings to a Paris that is taking advantage of Brexit.
Not even Madrid, a paradigm in recent times of an open and expansive metropolis, is free from the ups and downs of the new order. The loss of the Ferrovial headquarters may be anecdotal and due to personal factors, but it does not stop responding to a certain market logic that a city that swells its business park by offering the lowest taxes also loses companies to the benefit of a competitor, the Netherlands, which practices an even more aggressive tax policy.
Economic stability, an ideal positioning for a company that operates in Europe and the United States at the same time, and greater “notoriety” in the destination city are the arguments put forward by Ferrovial to justify its move to the Netherlands. Arguments that we have already heard in the past from business managers who reasoned their decision to move, precisely, to the Community of Madrid.
In this ups and downs of business and wealth, Barcelona also found itself in a troubled river when, five years ago, the Fira snatched its ISE congress from Amsterdam by offering it facilities that were beyond the possibilities of the Dutch fairgrounds. The ISE, together with the MWC, have consolidated Barcelona's commitment to becoming a pole of technological attraction. The two congresses, especially the second one, are a great opportunity for the city. But neither can Barcelona relax in its new position as a techie city.
It is true that the Mobile World Congress has ceased to be a permanent headache since it was announced that it will stay until at least 2030. The renewed success of the congress, certified this week, ridicules the envious who celebrated at the headline cancellations in pandemic times, as well as the digital Taliban who proclaimed the extinction of face-to-face fairs.
The MWC has once again picked up cruising speed, all right, but Barcelona's aspiration to project itself as the technology capital of southern Europe comes up against that of other cities that want the same thing and are working hard to achieve it. Like, without going any further, the capital of Spain itself, which not only hosts technological giants, but is also incubating a dynamic community of startups.
There are many things that can be improved to try to make the most of the Mobile effect. It would be a question, for example, of reducing bureaucracy; to really reopen the debate on taxes (there is a happy medium between the aggressive fiscal policy of Madrid and the maximum rates of Catalonia); to develop bold urban plans (there is, to be explored, the Besòs front as a new area for innovation) and, above all, to assume that, today, the only possible discourse on the city must be based on the combination between the scientific and technological and a cultural vocation that already counts two millennia.
