I have seen unusual things: children playing at five in the afternoon on the Rambla de Catalunya as if they were the ones in my neighborhood who, with or without confinement, still go out to play in the streets because the apartment is small, to watch TV you have to fight with other ‘living members’ and there is no Netflix or wifi or anything. The silence on the Rambla de Catalunya is strange, in the whole city broken by the cries of the little ones.
I have also seen a flat city from the constant noise of cars, horns and incessant coming and going. I did not remember the sound shock that you feel when you land here for the first time and you think: how do these people do to live with this environmental anxiety? I had gotten used to the noise day and night and with the confinement I have lived Barcelona as I have never experienced it before. Neither on Sunday afternoons nor in the middle of August.
The inhabitants who neither arrive nor go
I’ve seen a Barcelona without tourists, without queues at Casa Batlló, without people coming for shopping or for a walk, without fairs or congresses, with pickpockets having to work with natives. And I have seen Barcelonans who had not spent a weekend in the home where they live from Monday to Friday for centuries. In other words, all of these are us, the people of Barcelona, the inhabitants who neither arrive nor leave.
I have liked the silence and stillness and have the feeling of being in a town without leaving home. And the fresh air and the placid nights with the windows open. But it is a disturbing silence, a bit like a last supper. Can anyone savor a last dinner? We wanted a city without a car, but what will happen to those who earn their bread with it? What alternative has been envisaged for workers in the sector? We were hindered by tourism due to its massive size and the enormous pressure it exerted on its neighbors, but it is frightening to think about the number of people who have lost their jobs. Are there alternatives for those who depend on tourism?
I do not know if Barcelona is powerful as the ad says with a motto that returns us to the beginning of its gentrification. Right now she seems fragile and extremely dependent.
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