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 continue living in the Catalan capital. It is the majority opinion that Barcelona has become a prohibitive place, not only because of the high prices, but also because wages and family incomes do not match the high cost of living or the heavy burden of 'municipal taxes.
At least this is what emerges from the first conclusions of the Tu opinión cuenta macro survey, which La Vanguardia has launched to coincide with the municipal elections to collect readers' opinions on the main problems in Barcelona and the city model of the present and the future.
When more than 10,000 contributions have already been registered, a trend towards unanimity is increasingly reflected and nine out of ten readers consider that "Barcelona is a city that is too expensive and with taxes that are too high compared to wages and family income". One of the resulting problems is growing gentrification, as experts have warned, and not only in the neighborhoods with more urban pressure or tourist activities, but also in the peripheral ones, with the aggravating effect of the reduction in income. To this we must add that this year inflation is making the day-to-day life of families even harder.
In this context, with access to housing increasingly difficult and low wages, as well as the arrival of a new resident profile, such as the so-called "digital nomads", it means that Barcelona residents and their children of Barcelona residents have to choose to go and live outside the city. An example of this is Poblenou, where the new neighbors, from the United States and northern Europe, are settling in an attractive neighborhood due to the connection to the 22@ and the proximity to the beach. Another case is the Eixample, where the new superblocks are already resulting in an increase in housing prices. It affects tenants, whose rental contracts must be renewed. Gentrification is progressing in parallel with the city's new urbanism.
The housing debate will be one of the keys to the electoral contest, not only in the municipal elections, but also in the next general elections (the PSOE and the PP are already publicizing their initiatives in this field). At this point we see 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 take the reins of the capital again. The leader of BComú has fiercely defended setting a limit on the price of rent (after all, the Spanish Government has recently closed the housing law, to the point of setting it at 3%), but the people of Barcelona believe that with this measure will not be enough. In the survey by La Vanguardia you can see how six out of ten opinions call for another kind of complementary actions to try to solve the housing problem.
Trias has advocated for a large city pact to have a sufficient stock of affordable public housing for rent and considers that, although well-intentioned, the regulations that oblige private developers to reserve 30% of new works or major residential renovations in social flats it has not worked. For Colau this measure needs time and he has defended that the housing policies of the City Council have led Barcelona "to have the largest public park in Spain". Be that as it may, the majority opinion of La Vanguardia readers indicates that it is increasingly difficult to live in a city that is too expensive. Who will manage to have the 28- M the best recipe for the problem?
