Barcelona has boomed since the early
1990s, when preparations for the
Olympic Games wrenched it into
modernity, and today it remains well
in the vanguard of other Spanish
cities (with the possible exception
of Madrid) in terms of prosperity,
stability and cultural activity.
It's a confident, progressive city,
looking towards the rest of Europe
for its inspiration and its
innovations - the classic tourist
images of Spain seem firmly out of
place in Barcelona's bustling
central boulevards and stylish
modern streets. And style is what
brings many visitors here, attracted
by enthusiastic newspaper and
magazine articles which make much of
the outrageous architecture,
user-friendly city design, agreeable
climate and frenetic nightlife. Even
the medieval Gothic quarter and its
once-notorious red-light area have
been swept up by the citywide
renovation programme, which is still
running at full tilt. As the new
millennium starts Barcelona has
continued to blossom from provincial
city to putative European capital.
It's no accident that the city's
current development outstrips most
of the rest of Spain. With the
return to democracy following the
death of Franco, the various Spanish
regions were allowed to consolidate
their cultural identities through
varying degrees of political control
over their own affairs. Catalunya
(Catalonia in English), of which
Barcelona is the capital, has an
historical identity going back as
far as the ninth century, when the
first independent County of
Barcelona was established, and
through the long period of
domination by Castile, and even
during the Franco dictatorship when
a policy of cultural suppression was
pursued, it proved impossible to
stifle Catalan ethnicity. In
Barcelona itself, this regionalism
is complemented by a strong
socialist tradition - the city was a
bastion of the Republican cause
during the Civil War, holding out
against Franco until January 1939,
and remained the scene of protests
and demonstrations throughout the
dictatorship.
As a result of this urge to
retain its own identity, Barcelona
has long had the reputation of being
at the forefront of Spanish
political activism and of radical
design and architecture, but these
cultural distinctions are rapidly
becoming secondary to the city's
position as one of the most dynamic
and prosperous commercial centres in
the country. As the money (much of
it from the EU) continues to pour
in, the economic transformation
of a city deprived under Franco,
continues at a remarkable pace:
entire districts, from the harbour
to the suburbs, have been replanned
and rebuilt; historic buildings and
museums have been given face-lifts;
and roads and communications have
been upgraded. In part, this
progress is due to the huge
psychological shove that the
granting of the 1992 Olympics gave
to Barcelona. When the Games had
finished, the city was left with an
entirely new harbour development
containing the futuristic Olympic
Village. And along with a
construction programme that touched
every corner of the city, went the
indisputable knowledge that these
had been Barcelona's Olympics, and
not Spain's - an important
distinction to the Catalan people,
who, bolstered by the gradual
integration of immigrants from other
parts of Spain, endow the city with
a character distinct from Spain's
other regional capitals.
Since 1992, the developments have
continued unabated; indeed
Barcelona's drive for
self-improvement and self-promotion
seems to know no bounds. The
commercial port continues to expand,
and is now dominated by a futuristic
World Trade Center set in the
central harbour, while the airport
is given a new runway and the city
anxiously awaits the arrival of a
high-speed train (AVE) line. There's
a pride in the city which is
expressed in a remarkable cultural
energy, seen most perfectly in the
glorious modernista (Art
Nouveau) architecture that
studs the city's streets and
avenues. Antoni Gaudķ is the most
famous of those who have left their
mark on Barcelona in this way: his
Sagrada Famķlia church is rightly
revered, but just as fascinating are
the (literally) fantastic houses and
apartment buildings that he and his
contemporaries designed. In art
, too, the city boasts a stupendous
legacy, from important Romanesque
and Gothic works to major galleries
containing the life's work of the
Catalan artists Joan Miró and
Antoni Tąpies, and - perhaps the
greatest draw of all - a
representative collection of the
work of Pablo Picasso.
For all its go-ahead feel,
though, Barcelona does still have
its problems . A
traditionally homogeneous society,
accustomed to Spanish emigration,
has been changed forever by the
arrival of large numbers of
immigrants from Asia, Africa and
South America, many of whom enter
illegally, looking to grab a share
of the city's economic success.
Partly as a consequence of this, the
petty crime rate has rocketed, and
tourists must take precautions when
visiting the city, and despite the
work done on the infrastructure,
there is still a lot to do. There's
also a growing gap between rich and
poor, and one repercussion of the
gentrification of poorer districts
is that the original dwellers are
being priced out - real estate
speculation has led to a curious
situation wherein the city, in the
midst of an acute housing crisis,
has tens of thousands of empty
apartments which are not on the
market.
There's a problem, too, in
Barcelona's relationship with the
rest of Catalunya. More than half
the region's inhabitants live in the
city and its surroundings, creating
an uneasy imbalance that becomes
clear if you travel through the
depopulated inland and mountain
areas, and which is most obvious in
the political sphere - Catalunya is
conservative and regionalist,
Barcelona is socialist and
nationalist. At times the city has
prospered at the expense of the rest
of Catalunya, and though there are
pockets of wealth and interest - on
the coast, in the ski resorts -
there's a nagging feeling that
Barcelona is very much the main
event. It's not a feeling that holds
firm if you do make the effort to
spend time in other parts of the
region, but it is indicative of the
fact that Barcelona, boasting loudly
of its European character and city
style, is in danger of forgetting
its wider roots and becoming
self-absorbed and inward-looking.
