The Bank of Spain estimates that 600,000 more homes are needed in the short term, without taking into account that in the short term we are only for elections. The problem is exacerbated in Madrid and Barcelona. And if there are so many floors missing, I don't even want to think about how high the shortfall must be.
Will we bequeath to our children and grandchildren a Barcelona without Snowflake, without white handkerchiefs at the Camp Nou and without picaderos?
Modesty aside, I was an entrepreneur in this picaderos thing, which were much sought after during the transition. Far from leaving an unoccupied family flat closed, I understood that there was a social responsibility. My friend Josep, a partner in the adventure, contributed the business vision and every Sunday afternoon we rented the house to two football teammates with their respective girlfriends – the values of sport! – for an exorbitant amount that , despite this, they emptied their pockets without complaining.
Unfortunately we didn't reinvest the profits from such a restful business and polished them off in the summer in the Balearic Islands...
Long before Ikea and the ready Marie Kondo, Barcelona's picaderos were an example of avant-garde (not so their tenants, things as they are): functional furniture, no shelves with books from Salvat, no alienating television , absence of Swords of Toledo...
The modernity of those picaderos, often studios, went beyond aesthetics. Before co-working, co-living and co-living, tenants or even owners improvised cooperative formulas, well hierarchical, very flexible, to make the space profitable, and it was even the case that the flats combined liberal jobs with liberal licenses , so that Barcelona was a party, and its picaderos, a fruitful example of the county's dynamism.
Due to the applications, the flexibility of the hotel industry, the divorce law and the real estate deficit, the picaderos in Barcelona are in short supply or have simply moved on to a better life. Or not
Perhaps those who have moved on to a better life or to a residence are its users, captains of free and uncommitted love.
