Barcelona forces the people of Barcelona to live beyond their means or, directly, to go to another city. It happens with young people who want to become independent, but also with adults who can no longer face the costs of residing in the Catalan capital.
The majority believe that Barcelona has become a prohibitive place, not only because of its high prices, but also because wages and family income are not in line with the high cost of living and, also, with the great burden of municipal taxes.
At least, this is what emerges from the first conclusions of the Your opinion counts macro-survey, which La Vanguardia has launched to coincide with the next municipal elections to collect the opinions of its readers on the main problems of Barcelona and the present city model and of future.
On this subject, when more than 10,000 contributions have already been registered, a tendency towards unanimity is increasingly reflected and almost 9 out of 10 readers consider that "Barcelona is too expensive a city and with too high taxes on wages and family income."
One of the problems derived from this situation is the growing gentrification that Barcelona is experiencing, as experts have warned, and not only in the neighborhoods with the most urban pressure or tourist activities, but also in the peripheral ones, with the aggravating factor of the rent reduction. To this is added, in addition, that, this year, inflation is making the day-to-day life of families even harder.
In this context, with increasingly difficult access to housing and low wages, as well as the arrival of a new profile of residents in the city, such as the so-called "digital nomads", means that Barcelonans and the children of Barcelonans have to choose to go live outside the city. An example is being experienced in Poblenou, where new residents, from the United States and northern Europe, are settling in an attractive neighborhood due to its links to 22@ and its proximity to the beach.
Another case is in the Eixample, where the new superblocks are already resulting in an increase in housing prices, which is affecting tenants whose rental contracts must be renewed. Gentrification advances in parallel to the new urbanism of the city.
The housing debate will be one of the keys to the electoral contest, not only in the municipal ones, but in the next general ones (PSOE and PP are already making public their initiatives in this field). At this point, once again, the clash between the two city models defended by the current mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, and the Junts candidate, Xavier Trias, who aspires to once again take the reins of the capital, can be seen.
The leader of BComú has defended at all costs that a ceiling be set on the rental price (finally, the Spanish Government has recently closed the housing law, placing it at 3%), but the people of Barcelona consider that this measure will not be enough.
In this way, in the La Vanguardia survey it can be seen how six out of ten opinions demand other types of complementary actions to try to solve the problem of access to housing in the Catalan capital.
Trias has advocated for a great city pact to have a sufficient stock of affordable public rental housing and considers that, although well-intentioned, the regulations that oblige private developers to reserve 30% of new works or large residential renovations to social floors has not worked and should be reviewed. In fact, since it came into effect, in December 2018, it has only produced about 120 floors.
For Colau, this measure takes time and he has defended that the housing policies promoted by the City Council have led Barcelona "to have the largest public park in Spain". Be that as it may, the majority opinion of the readers of La Vanguardia points out that it is becoming more and more difficult to live in a city that is too expensive. Who will come up with the most appropriate recipe to stop the expulsion of Barcelonans?
