The governing team from Barcelona city hall has put the tram debate and its project to link the plaça de Francesc Macià with plaça de les Glòries on the table. And it's done so in a questionable way: leaking as its own a survey on the tramline which, it seems, was ordered by the company Tram, which would be who would take advantage of it. I recognise it's not an easy debate given that positioning yourself against it can give the impression you reject the drive for a land connection between two sides of the city which, moreover, would improve the connections between Barcelona and eight surrounding cities: l'Hospitalet, Esplugues, Cornellà, Sant Joan Despí, Sant Just Desvern, Sant Feliu, Sant Adrià del Besòs and Badalona. Even so, and at the risk of being unpopular, I believe it's an unnecessary project at this time, it's badly set out as a solution to public and private interests and, above all, it's a smokescreen which prevents us from tackling the real problem which Barcelona's residents should be debating in the coming months: can we continue trusting in a municipal government which has paralysed Barcelona and which hasn't solved any of the matters which were pending when it took over in 2015?
I understand that, deftly, the absence of a city narrative is to be made up for with a debate on a future topic. A strategy also employed with the "multiconsultation"1. Little more than a year out from the municipal election there should be a certain consensus to debate real questions for the city, whether the election manifestos have been met and whether there has been improvement, inaction or degradation. They're not the only ones, but we could start with three: housing, tourism and infrastructure. Mayor Ada Colau promised during the campaign to construct 4,000 public properties to rent out and, at the end of her mandate in May 2019, they will barely have reached a quarter of that. At this time, almost three years later, barely more than 12% of her promise is met. On the other hand, every day some twenty evictions are ordered in the Catalan capital, the great majority from rented properties. This doesn't seem to be successful management and residents' worries have grown given the lack of solutions.
Tourism, after much demagoguery about the construction of hotels in the city centre, keeps growing and yet spending per visitor is decreasing. This should be a cause for concern, great concern, since the success must be managed and cannot come in fits and starts with conventions like the Mobile World Congress. The construction of hotels which have a positive return for the city and its residents has to be allowed. Tourism isn't bad in and of itself and that part of the city's GDP is linked to it shouldn't worry us excessively nor make us tear our hair out. Much more can be done in this area. Above all because the only thing done so far is posturing and demagoguery.
Finally, infrastructure. Here the debate on the tram and connectivity would be relevant. But not before solving Glòries, la Sagrera station or the completion of metro lines 9 and 10. The three cases are real problems and much more urgent than the tram connection although only because they've been dragging on for years. Has enough been done by the city hall? I'm very much afraid not. That's why they're running away from this debate. The tramline, just in case, we can talk about that in the future when something more than speeches has been done.
Translator's notes:
1. The "multiconsultation" is a referendum proposed by Colau with three questions on gentrification, historical memory and public management of water.