The Sagrada Familia in Barcelona's eixample district. Flickr/Aldas Kirvaitis. Some rights reserved.The city of Barcelona has been, for the last 30 years, what could be called a success story. However, at this particular moment in time, the city is experiencing a fierce debate about who wins and who loses in relation to that success. In other words, a debate about what path has been followed in order to socially distribute costs and benefits of that success. There is an obvious correlation between this debate and the different tickets and political options contesting the upcoming local elections, due in May 24, which might remarkably alter the current political balances.
One of the issues under discussion links current problems (rising inequality, housing problems, job security, high unemployment among others) to decisions taken by former governments. The transition from Francoism to democracy at the local level was carefully prepared by an intellectual elite which was both well-connected internationally and well-rooted in the political parties and social movements that opposed Franco’s dictatorship. The slogan at the first local elections of the regained democracy (1979) was: “the people enter the city councils”.
In good measure, these elections anticipated the big change in leadership of the new democracy which the Socialist Party assumed in 1982. In 1986 Barcelona won the nomination to host the 1992 summer Olympics, a success that allowed the revamping of the city taking advantage of the substantial flow of investment, both public and private, triggered by the event.
