When the delicatessen stalls outnumber the butchers and greengrocers in the food market, or the corner bar changes toast and sandwiches for cupcakes and muffins, there is no going back and the gentrification of the neighborhood is a fact.
The price of housing will rise, traditional businesses will be engulfed by businesses fueled by Instagram tourism and lower-middle-class residents, along with the elderly, will pack their bags in search of areas with more affordable prices or neighborhoods with less night fuss. And in Madrid, this process is out of control.
First it was Malasaña, the germ of the cultural revolution of the movement. Then Chueca, the capital's gay epicenter... and now Lavapiés, a traditional and modest refuge for a traditionally working population.
The shock wave of gentrification has crossed the geographical border of the Gran Vía, destroying the neighborhood shops to the south of Puerta del Sol.
The epidemic of casualties of classic bars and shops of a lifetime does not stop. And it is increasingly difficult to find one of those trustworthy grocery stores and butter shops where the shopkeepers were simply one more neighbor. But with no places to shop or have breakfast before going to the office, and no recurring clientele that filled the shopping cart, Lavapiés is emptying itself of those who generated a community and gave identity to a little piece of Madrid whose soul is is fading with the landed mass tourism. And in parks where there used to be children, there are now selfie sticks to add depth to tourist memories.
Amaia, a Navarrese from Lizarra, has experienced it firsthand. After 18 years living in Lavapiés, she has decided to leave. After renting several apartments, she found, in 2013, "one of those bargains that don't exist now." An apartment of 35 square meters, neither very modern nor very obsolete, at a rate of 390 euros per month. “It was small, but its price was below the market. And taking into account the few hours I spent at home, I didn't even doubt it.
But everything changed in 2019. After seeing how his rent had almost doubled and that the pandemic had brought teleworking under his arm, he began looking for a new home.
“What used to be a house that made you a way to live, a modest house in which you lived comfortably, but without working in it, also became my office by force. When trying to find a better space in which to work and have a differentiated space to live, I found that nothing went below 800 euros”.
Amaia decided to take a while waiting to find a cheaper option, but after a few months she couldn't take it anymore. The house next door, the one with which she shared a partition, began to have an unusual traffic of tenants. The daily noises during lunch or dinner time disappeared to give way to "a bustle of suitcases, parties and late-night meetings." The owner had decided to cash in and the hole left by its previous tenant was being occupied by short-stay tourists eager to party and without any kind of regulated schedule. Still, she was lucky. "I didn't have any direct pressure from the landlord, beyond the gradual increase in the price," she says.
Quite the opposite of what happened several streets above this traditional neighborhood dotted with slopes where a couple of companies were accumulating old rental houses, offering them for rent to annoying neighbors –in many cases dealers whose telephone did not stop ringing at all hours. day and night–, to coerce the few owners who refused to sell.
Some resisted, but the stress and suffering at home suffered by octogenarian neighbors and young couples with small children was too much for them. And so, in a kind of monopoly, but with flesh and blood players, some entire blocks, such as number 26 Ave María Street, were acquired by business groups that, after a facelift, used them entirely as tourist apartments, multiplying exponentially the profits and, by extension, the rental price of the area.
"If you expel the neighbors, you suffocate traditional businesses," laments César, a Madrid native from the Pilar neighborhood who lived on Calle Salitre until last January and who remembers how classic taverns such as La Chilostra or La Chilostra have disappeared in a short time. the Revolt.
“The terrace has taken over everything since the pandemic. And not only by tourists”, points out Amaia. "Those from outside have come and it turns out that now it is fashionable," she points out with her eyes wide open, delving into her disbelief: "Friends and acquaintances who never came here on a Saturday night now spend the entire weekend . On the terraces of Calle Argumosa or in one of the restaurants in the area”.
The same has happened with the occasional grocery store or bakery such as Panifiesto, which is now another hipster café. The alternative is the Carrefour in the square, but even the supermarket has been reoriented towards mass tourism by having the blinds up 24 hours a day and having completed the commercial proposal of the center with an Iberian corner, a sushi stand, or a space with healthy products as a claim.
“Do you really think that those who buy after ten at night are all a neighbor who needs eggs to cook dinner?” César resumes. Or that a little boy who arrives exhausted after the workday is going to stop to eat some niguiris on a bench instead of making himself comfortable on the sofa at his house? The majority are tourists who, in many cases over the top, come for fast food, soft drinks and ice to end the party in their Airbnb or in one of the 150 rooms in low-cost hotels that have sprung up out of nowhere”.
A quick search of the opinions of the Lavapiés motel on Zurita street confirms this, advising against any reservation for those who are simply looking for an affordable place to rest and recharge their batteries after walking around the Retiro park, the Reina Sofía museum or the Casa Encendida located in a radius of a mile and a half.
Iván, a Galician who has lived in Madrid for more than 15 years, suffered the same process when he lived in Malasaña. "I looked for a flat in Lavapiés, but I went a little further south." Specifically to the Arganzuela neighborhood. A district that, in its eastern zone, known as that of metals, runs parallel to the Atocha roads. The blocks built 20 and 30 years ago where there were factories directly connected to the railway, welcomed a large part of the expatriates from the center. But restaurants with oriental airs and cafeterias that serve brunches are already emerging.
"There is still no talk of Arganzuela," he warns, but "I have already seen tourist homes and prices are skyrocketing," he laments, assuming that he will probably have to pack his bags again to live outside the gentrification that is colonizing a good part of Madrid.
