lovehatebcn

2009-09-22T13:45:00.003+02:00

¿Década perdida por España?

If Catalunya is the success story of Spain's recent economic implosion, I shudder to think what the rest of the country must look like. Here in my admittedly lower to lower middle class neighborhood of Les Corts, fully 3-4 shops per block are shuttered or announcing FINAL LIQUIDATION sales or sport tiny hand lettered signs, "Se Traspasa Local," indicating some obscure or non-existent new location where they have moved to seek either heavier foot traffic, more bustling business or both.

The bloom has long ago withered from the Zapatero rose, and it doesn't require an advanced degree or years of experience covering Spanish politics to realize that his days are very likely numbered--even if this crisis is none of his doing.

A bleaker interpretation of this Icarian fall from newly integrated EU high-flier to moribund economic basket case is that the past year will prove to be not the abberration but the return to Spain as it is meant to be; that is, that the cocky, proligate, (mostly Brussels, German & UK sudsidized) boom of the early noughts was the exhilirating if delusionary exception to a Spain who's time has not, in fact, come.

2009-09-17T20:34:00.003+02:00

Barceló: Capital mundial de los pick-pocket

And not just along the (unsightly) Ramblas:

"Sus últimas cifras (de 2007) reflejan que ese año hubo 170.000 hurtos en Cataluña. Más de la mitad, 95.000, ocurrieron en Barcelona. Eso supone 260 robos al día."

Fuente: El País, 2009

2009-06-18T16:30:00.004+02:00

Monocle's List of 25 Most Livable Cities for 2009

1. Zurich
2. Copenhagen
3. Tokyo
4. Munchen
5. Helsinki
6. Stockholm
7. Wien
8. Paris
9. Melbourne
10. Berlin
11. Honolulu
12. Madrid
13. Sydney
14. Vancouver
15. Barcelona
16. Fukuoka
17. Oslo
18. Singapore
19. Montréal
20.Auckland
21. Amsterdam
22. Kyoto
23. Hamburg
24. Genève
25. Lisboa

Tyler Brûlé writes in the weekend Financial Times: "The inaugural issue of Monocle's 'world's most liveable city' award, in 2007, was Munich, which scored high in all our designated categories. Then, last year, the German city was beaten by Copenhagen due to the Danish capital's strong environmental efforts, subway network expansion and diverse neighborhoods.

For 2009, we decided to tweak the metrics a bit, looking at three new factors: the independence of a city's retail and restaurant scene (let's call it the Zara/Starbucks index), the ease with which small business owners can start up operations and planned infrastructure improvements. More broadly, we considered the way in which locals and visitor are able to navigate and use everything from public parks to the local property market. In our view, places with the best quality of life are those with the fewest daily obstructions, allowing residents to be both productive and free of unnecessary stress."

Barcelona's TIME OUT mag on life support?

2009-05-01T12:14:00.046+02:00

How much longer can Barcelona's TIME OUT (en Català!!??) survive?

While I was strangely thrilled and puzzled when the first edition appeared on newsstands a little over a year ago, I immediately began a collection of the titles because I was reasonably sure they would become curious if sentimental artefacts of a delusional by-gone era (not to mention language) within the not too distant future.

I commented to a friend of mine yesterday that, especially now that Spaniards (and more characteristically, the incorrigibly tight Catalans) are not purchasing much of anything these days--and have even taken to shoplifting in grocery stores--and that every other storefront seems to sport a LOCAL PER LLOGAR cartel, I didn't think Time Out-Barcelona would live to see the first cool chill of autumn. (Official Spanish unemployment exceeds 17%, with the real figure surely closer to 20--higher still, I was surprised to learn, in the xenophobic, self-satisfied corridors of most mercenary Catalunya.)

Unbeknownst to me, as I am only a part-time resident here and haven't been in town since January, the magazine has already exerted a final gasp for life by supplanting more English language text and tips. But alas, apparently even this concession to reality has not stemmed the tide of red ink; recently the magazine began being distributed gratis, according to the same friend, in the Wednesday edition of La Vanguardia. (Or is it Què Fem? in the Friday edition?) Apparently the Grupo Godó that owns the newspaper also either owns TIME OUT BARCELONA or has a significant financial stake in the title. (Oops, wrong again: it's a brainchild of Sapiens SL, HQ'd across the Besòs in Badalona.)

Yes it's sad, but ultimately one has to ask, "What were those folks smoking?" when they made the decision to launch what is, at least in other capital cities, basically a where to go, what to do guide aimed at young people and out-of-towners, in a language indecipherable--especially in PRINT--to about 99.8% of the world's population? It will be a solemn but ultimately an imminently predictable and deserved passing.

No tears, no laughter, please; after all, we are Catalans.

Cómo vender pisos en tiempos de crisis

2007-11-16T11:15:00.001+01:00

Two years ago, an apartment in the center of Barcelona sold in under a week. Today it can thttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifake 6 months or more. With this as a background, the Asociación Profesional de Expertos Inmobiliarios (Apei) has begun organizing workshops for frustrated real estate agents, offering tips on how to get rid of all those unsold properties. One representative's advice? Get up early, work harder than the competition, and loads of advertising. Go get 'em, tiger. Source: Diario Metro, 15-Nov

Catalonia Property Sales Fall 20% In Latest Trimester*

2007-11-13T17:42:00.000+01:00

Seems the disinflation of the Barcelona (and Spain) real estate bubble is unfolding just as it does in the text books. First the average time on market extends dramatically. It is currently about 6 months—twice what it was just over one year ago.

Home (well, apartments in this case) sales fall as sellers hold out for their asking price. This is very likely what we are seeing in these numbers released today by the Registradores de la Propiedad. Additional factors weighing down prices and buyer demand in this most recent quarter are tightening credit conditions (yes, even in Spain) and double-digit increases in the price of food.

Add on top of that the jobs lost in the construction sector (yes, South American immigrants buy property too), said to possibly approach 22,000 lost jobs in Catalonia alone, and eventual but inevitable losses of jobs of property agents and ancillary home improvement sectors, and suddenly you've got yourself a self-perpetuating downward spiral.

To be sure, prices will not fall immediately. And at least one dreamer, Spain's ministra de Vivienda, Carme Chacón, quoted in today's news, comforted herself with statistics pointing to continuing price appreciation albeit what she estimates to be a more earthly 5% for this year.

But this observation, alas, is the last refuge of those determined to cling to the fantasy that the party can go on. The last 2 steps in the unraveling of a speculative bubble are the slow, begrudging price cuts on the part of a few owners who have no choice but to sell. Then all hell breaks lose as los demás realize that they need to get out while the gettin's good. And a competitive round of price cuts—not to mention repossessions—sets in, the bottom of which only time will identify.

But don't expect this to happen overnight. The first round of officially tallied price cuts are unlikely to show up in government statistics until spring or summer of 2008. After that, it's anyone's guess how fast the air rushes out.

While Catalonia was near the top of the list of sales declines, other regions experienced even greater stalls:

Cantabria -27%
Canarias -21%
Catalonia -20%
Valencia -18%
Galicia -17.5%

No word on Castille-La Mancha. Will look for that figure.

*Doesn't immediately make sense that these numbers would be for the 2nd quarter (trimester, as they call it here) and not the 3rd. I will also try to make sure this wasn't a typo in my source, www.diariometro.es

Chávez Proves His Real Value: Uniting the Socialist and Conservative Parties of Spain, As the World Looks On Bemused

2007-11-11T10:34:00.001+01:00

Spain, and presumably the mushrooming expat Venezuelan community, is getting a big kick out of the king's (Juan Carlos I) historic rebuke aimed at firebrand Venezuelan populist crackpot Hugo Chávez in Chile yesterday at the 7th annual IberoAmerican Summit.

Every paper in Spain this Sunday morning, left, right, center, is emblazoned with the headline, "King Tells Chávez to Shut Up," or some version of that. But unaccustomed to following the rules of decorum and drunk with petro-power, the man who has single handedly destroyed a nation while purporting to fix it continued his petulant performance, insulting former Spanish president José María Aznar (whom he referred to repeatedly as a "fascist" and accused of having a hand in the attempted military coup against him in 2002). As if that were not antics enough, recently elected Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega seemed to follow Chávez's lead when it came his turn to speak, lambasting as "mafiosa" the Spanish electric company Unión Fenosa (for allegedly not making good on its promise to extend the electric grid to outlying regions of the country) and accusing Spain (along with the U.S.) of interfering in his country's domestic politics in order to (unsuccessfully) prevent his election in 2006. An exasperated Don Juan Carlos eventually abandoned the reunion as a visibly shaken and begrieved Michelle Bachelet, the meeting's host, scurried out after him.

No big fan of the PP (or the monarchy for that matter), it was interesting to learn Sunday morning that Aznar had called to thank both Zapatero and Don JC for intervening on his behalf. Surely an historic low point in these sorts of diplomatic summits. Leave it to Hugo to put a Romper Room face on an assemblage of the region's leaders, but also, perhaps testimony to the corrosive legacy of both the Monroe Doctrine and Spanish colonialism.

Let them eat olive oil

2007-11-07T16:51:00.000+01:00

Just imagine the nationwide panic as prices for milk, eggs and flour rise as no time in recent memory. Everyone here who patrons a fruit stand or supermarket is pretty much on a pension one way or another (government pensions for the elderly typically run about 600 Euro a month while the median take-home pay for all but the toniest of workers, as discussed in a previous post, hovers around 1,000 Euro monthly), and so even the most modest increase in the price of daily staples can quickly send a household budget into the red.

Inflation for October here came in at a disconcerting 3.6% annualized rate, although officials say they don't expect that to continue into 2008.

Just when the year on year increase in the price of onions (+22%), chicken (+18%) and sardines (+15%) were making headlines, it turns out that October is turning out to be the worst month of all, with the price of just about every household staple jumping 3.5% in just 30 days' time. Everything, that is, except for that liquid gold of the so-called Mediterranean diet, olive oil, whose price has actually fallen, September '06 to September '07, by a surprising 18.8%

Coffee too, rumored to have been joining the price run, seems to be staying relatively stable, with an increase year over year of a mere 0.3%. And while the official stats from the Ministerio de Industria, Comercio y Turismo report that the prices of oranges have climbed 3.5%, I have found that a 3 kilo bag of juice oranges cost significantly less than it did just a couple of weeks ago. Apparently it is now high season.

El gran desastre

2007-10-27T14:02:00.000+02:00

La previsió amb què treballa el govern és que diumenge quedin apuntalats els fonaments de l'estació de Bellvitge. Paral·lelament se seguirà treballant, previsiblement fins a finals de la setmana que ve, per reforçar la plataforma dels 300 metres de via sobre el túnel de FGC per poder restablir el servei "com a molt tard el 5 de novembre".

Notícia publicada al diari AVUI, p 27. Dissabte, 27 d'octubre

Manifestació a BCN per un transport digne

2007-10-27T13:58:00.000+02:00

El lector informa: "Dilluns 29 (19h) a la plaça de Sant Jaume, manifestació per demanar un transport digne".

Don't Blame Maggie (Ella No Tiene La Culpa!)

2007-10-27T13:23:00.000+02:00

¿Quién es el responsable?
"Para encontrar a los verdaderos culpables hay que remontarse a varios años atrás, a la Barcelona postolímpica. En la segunda mitad de los noventa, asistimos a una inacabable disputa acerca de por dónde de tenía que pasar el AVE en la ciudad de Barcelona... Al final, se decidió que por el centro de la ciudad, con paradas en Sants, en Passeig de Gràcia y en la Sagrera, muchas estaciones, ciertamente, para un tren de alta velocidad. Y en esta decisión están las causas de los males..."

¿Quien tomo esta decisión?
"Yo recuerdo una famosa foto en la que están todos los responsables de tal decisión: el ministro (PP), el conseller de la Generalitat (CiU), el alcalde de Barcelona (Joan Clos) y los alcaldes del Baix Llobregat afectados, entre ellos Montilla y Corbacho (PSC). Satisfechos y sonrientes habían tomado la mejor decisión para el pueblo. Ninguno estaba contento del todo pero habían llegado, finalmente, a un acuerdo..."

"En la foto no estaba Magdalena Álvarez, entonces consejera en la Junta de Andalucía. Los culpables de lo que hoy sucede son aquellos que no encontraron inconveniente alguno en que el AVE y el resto de la red ferroviaria, incluido cercanías, se interfierieran a su paso por Barcelona. En aquella foto están los verdaderos responsables."

Francesc de Carreras
LA VANGUARDIA (27.oct.07)

Barcelona As 'Whoville'

2007-10-25T14:54:00.000+02:00

The longer I live here, the more I am struck by the parallels between daily life in Barcelona (well, for the vast majority that makes up what constitutes a middle class here—but what we would think of as borderline poverty back home) and that of the denizens of Theodor Seuss Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Suess)'s fictional 'Whoville' of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.

While surely no one would attribute the qualities "merry and warm-hearted" (said to be characteristic of the 'Whos') to more than an outlying Catalan, the satisfaction they seem to derive from the most mean and mundane quotidian ritual still puzzles and fascinates me. Maybe there is something to be learned here.

Regimented schedules (betraying a discipline that would make a female prison guard blush: everyone pretty much eats, sleeps, commutes, coffee breaks, farts and fucks* according to some ancient instinctual & internalized clock); perfunctorily prepared cuisine that evokes memories of post-WWII rationing; record levels of chain smoking and coke blowing; near total (often belligerent) isolation from the outside world; unforgivably inflexible work schedules that garner some of the lowest salaries† in the industrialized world; and still they sit down together at some dingy bar/cafe§ and dive into their uninspiring cortados and lunchmeat laden flautas or cardboard croissants as if they were partaking in a virginal and exquisite treat.

Later, at 2:15 or 2:25, as they gobble down their iceberg lettuce salads, day old bread and hearty Arroz a la Cubana (which has nothing at all to do with any dish one would find in Cuba; well, when Cuba had food...), you can almost hear the swelling song in the distance: "Fah who for-aze! Dah who for-aze!"

* Saturday evenings are reserved for the once weekly Catalan coitus, although newer couples are rumored to jump the proverbial gun and linger together in bed on the occasional weekend alba.
† Because Spanish employees are paid once a month (or because quoting an annual sum would shock them into grim reality), salaries are quoted as a monthly figure rather than a yearly sum. Official sources place the median monthly income at 1,600 Euros (19,200 Euros annually). Of that 1,600, a hair over 1,000 appears in one's monthly paycheck after taxes.
§ There are nearly no cafés, as we would think of them, in Barcelona, only bars and bread shops that serve coffee (and beer) at the appointed hours. Even fifteen years after Barcelona's self-conscious launch onto the world tourist stage, most restaurant-bars away from the Passeig de Graçia or Diagonal still sport brightly flashing video games burping Atlantic City style under jaundiced fluorescent lights, the air thick with Fortuna or Ducado fumes.

2007-10-22T09:51:00.000+02:00

Spain Feels Pinch As Housing Boom Slows
By JOELLEN PERRY in Frankfurt and KEITH JOHNSON in Madrid
October 22, 2007; WSJ, Page A3
The real-estate slowdown that hit the U.S. is spreading to Europe.

Home prices in some of Europe's hottest markets are falling after a decade of double-digit-percentage increases. The reasons resemble those across the Atlantic: higher interest rates, faltering confidence and tighter lending standards.

"A year ago it was all, 'no problem,' but now they're making us jump through hoops," said Iciar Caro, a 29-year-old school psychologist in Spain who can't find a bank to give her a mortgage on a €236,000 ($337,000) house in a northern suburb of Madrid.

Home prices in Spain more than doubled over the past 10 years, but the average price of an existing home has fallen slightly since July, according to real-estate agent facilisimo.com.

The weakening home market could hit European economies. An expanding construction industry has fueled growth in Europe. Now, construction in Spain and elsewhere is easing. Also, some people said higher payments on their mortgages are cutting into their ability to spend.

Low interest rates were a potent stimulant in Spain, which experienced one of the biggest housing booms in Europe. The European Central Bank, mindful of slowly expanding, big economies on the Continent, kept interest rates low for much of the first part of the decade -- often lower than the rate of inflation in Spain. That encouraged Spaniards to borrow money.

Last year, Spanish families on average paid six times their annual salary to buy a home, compared with 3½ times salary in the late 1990s, according to the Bank of Spain, the central bank. Immigration and an influx of wealthy tourists scooping up coastal property fueled skyrocketing prices.

Construction accounts for about 10% of Spain's annual output, compared with about 7% in the U.S. Last year, 726,000 new homes were built in Spain -- more than France, Germany and Britain combined, even though those three countries together have more than five times as many people. Housing helped push Spain's economic growth to 3.9% last year, its fastest rate since 2000.

But the energy is fading. The Bank of Spain said new-housing permits fell 38% in July from the year-earlier period, the latest figures available, after falling more than 20% in May and June. Spanish central bank Gov. Miguel Ángel Fernández Ordóñez warned this month that the credit crunch and the housing slowdown would affect consumer spending next year. Car sales and consumer confidence already are turning south.

Rising interest rates headline the front pages of Spanish dailies, which update monthly mortgage-payment increases. Some 95% of Spanish mortgage holders have variable-rate loans.

The orange-and-black Se Vende, or for sale, signs that used to appear briefly on balconies of apartments for sale in Madrid now linger for weeks and months. At the same time, as the resale market softens, more Se Alquila, or for rent, signs are popping up in a country where renting has traditionally been a last resort.

Tomas Gonzalez, a 33-year-old translator, bought a spacious, three-bedroom apartment in downtown Madrid last fall, with help from his in-laws. He and his wife, a free-lance audiovisual producer, felt monthly payments of €800 on a 35-year, €200,000 loan were manageable. Now, the payments have risen €200 a month after the European Central Bank's gradual lifting of interest rates, which it began in 2005. Plus, the Gonzalezes fear their home is worth less than they paid for it. One set of neighbors have repeatedly cut the price of their home in a yearlong effort to sell.

Mr. Gonzalez has stopped eating out and curtailed his purchases of books and music. "We are trying to save something for the lean times ahead," he said.

On the consumer front, the euro zone has one difference from the U.S. that may soften the effects of flattening home prices. American consumers have used home-equity loans to turn the rising value of their homes into cash that can be spent on big-ticket items. In the 13 countries that share the euro, home-equity loans are rare. And Europe doesn't have a subprime sector comparable with the one in the U.S.

Ms. Caro, the psychologist, has signed a contract for a 600-square-foot house under construction in a northern Madrid suburb, where she hopes to live with her boyfriend. In Spain, buyers sometimes make a down payment gradually by putting in a little money each month. Ms. Caro has been doing so for 18 months, and she had hoped to pick up the keys in November.

Now, that hope may be dashed if she can't find a mortgage, or if the interest rate on a mortgage is too high. Ms. Caro has cut back her spending on vacations and clothes, and recently she began teaching private classes in the evenings to earn extra cash. She said she has stopped following interest rates "or I will go crazy."

In the third quarter, 22% of banks surveyed by the European Central Bank reported that they were tightening standards for mortgages, with 10% easing and the rest unchanged. Banks that raised the bar cited deteriorating bank balance sheets and weaker housing-market prospects.

"The ECB had already been raising rates to cool things down, and it was having an effect," said Ken Wattret, an economist with BNP Paribas SA in London. "Now, you've got this credit crunch on top of it, which could not only restrict households' access to funding but also slow the housing market more sharply."

In Ireland -- where economic growth, an influx of immigrants and low interest rates helped quadruple house prices over the last decade -- the boom also may be ending. Falling house prices will push construction of new units down to 60,000 in 2008 from last year's record 88,219, according to a recent study commissioned by Ireland's environment ministry.

Construction accounts for some 13% of Irish jobs, and the slowdown prompted the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin to reduce its forecast of Irish gross-domestic-product growth next year to 2.7% from 3.7%. David Duffy, a senior researcher at the institute, said: "It would still be a good growth outturn in a European context."

Some European countries experienced less of a housing boom and are feeling less of a hangover now. In Germany, the largest economy in Europe, a preference for renting has kept house-price growth limited. In an interview last week, German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück listed cities, including London and New York, where he believes there might be a property bubble, and then added pointedly: "Not in Berlin."

In France, government regulation has limited construction, so French houses still are in short supply, unlike in Spain and Ireland. Also, the majority of French mortgages carry a fixed interest rate, meaning homeowners are less sensitive to rate increases. That is why economists expect any slowdown in French home prices to be gradual.

The variations across Europe complicate the ECB's rate-setting decisions. Earlier in the decade, its low interest rates were suitable for slowly expanding countries but helped foment the housing boom in high-inflation, high-growth countries. Now it is keeping rates higher, which may not be ideal for all 13 countries that use the euro. ECB officials have stressed that inflationary threats are likely to prevent them from cutting the bank's benchmark 4% rate soon.

During the boom, Spain and Ireland "needed higher interest rates, but the ECB was setting policy for France and Germany," said Desmond Lachman, an economist with the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington. "Now, when these countries need lower rates to offset the bust, they're not going to get them."

Eso No Puede Pasar Aquí

2007-10-03T11:43:00.000+02:00

Disminuye un 19,1% las ventas de casas usadas en EE.UU.

El mes de septiembre registró el nivel más bajo de los últimos ocho años

LA VANGUARDIA

El ritmo de ventas de ventas de casas y apartamentos usados bajó a una previsión de 5,04 millones de unidades en el año, la más baja desde 1999, cuando la Asociación comenzó a guardar los datos.

"Los problemas de las hipotecas estaban en su cima en agosto, lo que se reflejó en la cifra de operaciones que se cerraron en septiembre. Esto frenó notablemente las ventas en las áreas con precios más altos, que están vinculadas con los préstamos más grandes", explicó el economista principal del gremio, Lawrence Yun.

...

En el ámbito nacional, las ventas de viviendas usadas bajaron un 19,1% en septiembre comparado con septiembre de 2006.

El tiempo de espera en el mercado del inventario de casas y apartamentos pendientes de ser vendidas subió hasta los 10,5 meses, el más alto en por lo menos ocho años.

Las ventas de casas unifamiliares bajaron en septiembre un 8,6 % a un ritmo anual de 4,38 millones de unidades, el ritmo de ventas más lento desde enero de 1998.

El tiempo de espera del inventario de casas unifamiliares a la venta es de 10,2 meses, el mayor en 20 años.

El precio medio de venta de casas y apartamentos fue en septiembre de 211.700 dólares, un 4,2 por ciento menos que un año antes.

La gran encisera

2007-09-25T18:27:00.000+02:00

For what it's worth, I recently finished Robert Hughes' follow-up to his 1993 masterful cultural history of the city. Barcelona, "The Great Enchantress," as the nineteenth-century Catalan poet Joan Maragall called his native city, was published in 2004 and is more of a casual weekend read than Hughe's dense and erudite Barcelona.

Here are a few passages that jumped out at me, for better or for worse:

Barcelona's pride in its provinciality

"Some provincials—and there is one in most Australian hearts, including mine—struggle to throw off the stigma of their provincialism by relating chiefly, or in some cases only, to the huge cultural centers: New York, Paris, London. And in fact I have lived and worked longer in New York than in Australia. But I have never lost my tropism for the big small town that feels like home. Hence my feelings about Barcelona."

Barcelona's (4 1/4) artists

"The 1,500 years of the city's existence had produced only five names that came readily to mind. There was Gaudí, of course, and the century's greatest cellist, Pau Casals. There were painters Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, and Pablo Picasso, who though he was actually born in Málaga and spent nearly all his long working life in France had become a sort of honorary Catalan, having attended art school there and used the city as his point of departure for Paris." (Had he not heard of the accomplished soprano, Montserrat Caballé?)

The Falangist legacy and Barcelona gris

"One main reason why Barcelona seemed so hard to penetrate—apart from the unfamiliarity of its language, Catalan—was that it had decayed so badly since the loss of the civil war. Spain's dictator, Franco, hated the place and wanted revenge on it for opposing him. He had been in the saddle so long that most Catalans did not remember a world without him. After him, Spain had to be reinvented, a daunting if exhilarating prospect. The father of one of my best friends there had put away, years before, a magnum of fine champagne. When Franco died he was going to open it, but not before. Franco's death was heralded by a fusillade of popping corks all over Barcelona, but not my friend's; it had been sitting in the fridge so long that it had gone flat. So, in a sense, had the city itself. Barcelona gris, gray Barcelona, was how people referred to it, looking back on the years of Franco and his much despised Falangist mayor, Josep Maria de Porcioles i Colomer, who ran the most intellectually inert and historically oblivious city government of the twentieth century. Barcelona had turned into a sort of sleeping princess, neglected, and ignored. It was one enormous ashtray, covered in a mantle of grime and grit."

George Orwell on Gaudí's Sagrada Família (Homage to Catalonia)

'One of the most hideous buildings in the world ... I think the anarchists showed bad taste in not blowing it up when they had the chance.'

On Montjuïc

"...when the Romans conquered a place, they took it over completely and re-formed it in their image. So it was with the little settlement that straggled up the slope of Monjuïc—a name, incidentally, that may (but not certainly) derive from Mons Iovis, the "hill of Jupiter."

Monoglotas, todas

2007-09-18T18:16:00.000+02:00

Sorry to be such a Debbie Downer this week, but I just got back from a real city and this Third World backwater with Porteño arrogance, London prices and the median age of a Bingo parlor is on my nerves. So I was pricked with a jolt of schadenfreudian smugness when I came across this little number in the paper today (regular readers of lovehatebcn might recall that I made reference to the abysmal conocimiento of useful second languages here in España):

En plena era de la globalización, las empresas españolas consiguen a duras penas que sus trabajadores se entiendan con clientes extranjeros. El 80% de las empresas españolas exige un nivel alto de inglés a sus candidatos, pero sólo uno de cada tres se considera capaz de mantener la entrevista en inglés, un porcentaje muy por debajo de la media europea.

Of course, maybe these sweet, Spanish job-seeking souls are merely being modest. But then modesty is far and away a characteristic trait here. My guess is that the number is overstated. I'd say a quarter or so could handle the interview; and even fewer actually possess a competent working knowledge of English—let alone any other foreign tongue. But then that's just my impression from living here for five years.

'Moure's amb bici' just became alot more unattractive

2007-09-18T17:44:00.000+02:00

Barcelona's recently announced reign of terror against well-meaning cyclists makes one wonder what all the hoopla was around their early summer BCN bici campaign. Among the draconian new policing measures (in a city with universally inadequate bike lanes and safety measures in place for cyclists—Christ, have you ever tried crossing a zebra striped crosswalk in this city?) that go in effect this week include a dizzying array of exorbitant fines. For example:

Incorrect parking: 30 Euros
Riding outside of bike lane (even though many roads do not have them): 30 Euros
Talking on cell phone: 30 Euros (well, I kind of have to agree with this one—and yet, what is the fine for the driver of a car or motorcycle, ubiquitous around the city, for same infraction?)
Incorrect parking that impedes pedestrian traffic: 98 Euros (plus your bike is impounded)
Cross a road when the light is red, even if there's not a soul in sight: 100 Euros
Cross a road when the light is red and imperil another biker, driver, or pedestrian: 120 Euros
Bike not equipped with a bell: 30 Euros
Bike not equipped with a light (even if you only ride during the day): 30 Euros

As the folks at Amics de la Bici de Barcelona here note, there are many places in the city where there are no bike lanes. And in places such as Rambla de Catalunya, NOT taking to the sidewalk (instead of the narrow and bus-busy 2-lane passage way is tantamount to taking your own life in your hands. What's more, there are still many places throughout the city where the only place to lock up one's bike is a sign post, a park bench or some other now criminalizable edifice.

As José Cervantes summed it up in today's paper, "Con tanta norma, andar en bicicleta dejará de ser atractivo." Cervantes says if biking becomes too much of a hassle, he'll simply drive his car—and park in a garage space he has in the center of town. Funny, wasn't this exactly the type of thing the wise Ayuntamiento was trying to discourage, mere weeks ago?

Enough already! Der Spiegel crowns BCN 'capital of cool'

2007-09-13T05:41:00.000+02:00

If Barcelona is as hip, interesting and cosmopolitan as Europe gets, we're in big trouble. And if the Ciutat Comtal even comes close to deserving the title capital of cool, well then I'm Gina Lollobridiga. Try to find an undubbed foreign film here, or Le Monde, The Independent, the Berliner Morgenpost at your corner newsstand for that matter. A machiatto? Caffè ristretto? Sorry folks, it's sólo, cortado or con leche aqui. (And there is a difference). While we're on the topic of java, the only wi-fi hotspots in this alleged hipster haven are at Starbucks! And it'll cost you an arm and a leg (something close to $20 for half an hour) to connect. Then, of course, well, you're in Spain in an American coffee chain. (I've just been reminded that the Barceloneta area is now wire free hot spot, but why on earth there? There's not a coffee shop or funky cafe to be found there.) Good luck, too, when you've had your fill of local cuisine: the Catalans are famous for their fear and suspicion of unfamiliar flavors. Finding even a good basic French or Italian bistro seems beyond the pale. Forget Turkish, Thai, Vietnamese. Ah yes, the ever prudent Catalanes have taken a recent interest in everything Japanese, and one can find an overdone and overpriced sushi place on just about any corner outside the Filipino and Pakastani ghettos. (Funny though, there have never been more than a handful of Japanese expats in the city. I wonder who does the cooking & cutting.) Granted, sit down with the kids here and two out of three will tell you how their lifelong dream is to become a DJ or the next Ferran Adrià (as if one isn't already more than sufficient). But how many openings for disc jockeys and Michellin starred chefs are there likely to be any time soon? And what with the educational system here ranking among the lowest in Europe (and the teens being force fed Catalan or Castellano as a second language, if at all, instead of English or something else useful in the real world), most of them either never finish their schooling and end up working at Corte Inglés or for RENFE. Que viva 'cool.'

New yoga/pilates place in the 'hood

2007-09-12T05:40:00.000+02:00

It's called Essence and it's just down the way, Carrer Caballero 87 (08029). Looks like they don't officially open until 17-September, but we'll check 'em out. Clases sueltas run 12 for yoga (doesn't say what style of yoga or if the classes are 60, 75 or 90 minutes sessions; also no word on the instructors, but I suppose they are still working on their website) and 15 for pilates, but if you buy 10 at a time you'll get them for 8 and 10,50. 933.638.358

'Lejos de una recession?' Dream on, Espanya.

2007-09-11T05:39:00.000+02:00

Recessions rarely announce themselves. And the Spanish economy is a house of cards, propelled by an unsustainable real estate boom. As interest rates continue their vertiginous climb and out-of-pocket monthly mortgage expenses eat away at a population long ago endeudados hasta las cejas, a Panglossian blush across the land can quickly turn to blight. But let's see what real economists (and economic history) show... (gimme a day to retrieve these bits, please)

The most credible scenario about how Spain will fall from grace (and its ridiculously overprice housing market along with it) comes from Financial Times columnist Wolfgang Munchau today. In a nutshell, a sustained Euro-USD exchange rate in the 1.40-1.45 range along with a flailing US economy export recession to Europe and beyond. I've tried my best to edit down his comments, taking out some of the more wonkish stuff, but only reluctantly!

Brace for Act II when the crisis goes global
By Wolfgang Munchau
Published: September 16 2007 17:13
There has been some good news in the past week and a lot more bad news. The good news consisted of tentative signs that the credit markets were stabilising. Conditions in the asset-backed commercial paper market also appeared to improve. The bad news was the shocking bail-out of Northern Rock, a UK mortgage bank.

I would nevertheless suspect that within a few months, the banking sector will have absorbed most of the horrible real estate investments and the financial markets will be celebrating an end to the crisis.

Unfortunately, I fear this is only going to be the end of Act I. Act II plays out in the real world. Act II begins with a sharp slowdown in US economic growth. The two obvious questions that arise from this scenario are: how bad will the US downturn be and how contagious will it be? It looks as though it will be bad. Some optimists had hoped that the rest of the world could easily withstand a US recession and invented the infamous de-coupling theory. What they did not count on was the rapid decline of the US currency as expectations of a US recession were rising. A weak dollar is going to be the main global transmission mechanism.

Some market observers are now preparing for the bilateral exchange rate to move into the $1.40-$1.45 range. Short spikes in an exchange rate do not have much economic effect, but if the exchange rate were to remain in the $1.40-$1.45 trading range for a long period, it would no doubt affect eurozone exports and growth. Add to this the more direct effects of the credit crisis plus the global cyclical slowdown that has already started and you have the ingredients for a sharp downturn. If the US economy tanks, the rest of the world will follow with some delay. Act II of the crisis is therefore the transmission from the US to the global economy.

By the end of Act II, there is a reasonable chance that global imbalances will have unwound. US imports will have fallen. Exports will rise, as will the savings rate.

Will there be an Act III? Quite possibly. Moody’s, the rating agency, has predicted that a US recession could see a rise in corporate default rates from 1.4 per cent of rated companies last year to about 12 per cent – a level last seen during the early 1990s and after the dotcom crash. When that happens, it will be interesting to see how the credit markets will cope. The subprime glitch may soon be over. But the credit and global adjustment crises have only just begun.

When do the diminishing returns of BCN's tourism boom set in?

2007-09-10T05:39:00.000+02:00

You want 'crime & grime'? Try August in New York

2007-09-09T05:38:00.000+02:00

Headed to the cool, green hills...

2007-08-01T10:51:00.001+02:00

As time permits, I will be trying to flesh out some of the summer's more substantive news items: wage, economic growth and apartment price trends in Barcelona (and throughout Spain), the skinny on 'most visited' European tourism stats, the Spain bebé and BCN bici programs, and more. Otherwise, see ya in September.

Grime and crime? Barcelona??

2007-08-01T04:50:00.000+02:00

Even for someone like me, who feels that the Ciutat Comtal's fifteen minutes of fame have gone on for, like, 15 years too long, I don't get the whole dissing of Barcelona in Monocle's line-up of the 10 most livable cities. (Well, at least not for the reasons cited.)

You have to be a subscriber for access to all the dishy details (and I'm working on transcribing the columns on Madrid (#10) and Barcelona (#13), but for now all I can do is lead you to their site.

EURIPORbre

2007-07-31T21:20:00.000+02:00

Can someone explain to me why all the home loans in Spain are adjustable rate?

(04-08) Madrid-based EFECOM reports today that the average monthly mortgage payment will rise by over 80€ due to last month's hike in the Euribor rate, to 4.56%. Madrid, Catalonia and Basque Country homes are said to experience the highest jumps: 1,295€ a year more for Madrileñ@s, 1,205€ for Catalonians, and 1,100€ for the Basques.

On a monthly basis, the increased out-of-pocket mortgage expenses look like this:

Madrid, 108€
Catalunya (Barcelona, Girona, Tarragona) 100€
País Vasco 91.67€
Baleares 90.21€
Navarra 81.10€
Castilla-León 65.95€
Cantabria 65.45€
Asturias 62.22€
Extremadura 48.39€

If it is to be believed (as reported in area papers earlier this summer) that the median per capita annual income (after taxes) in Barcelona is 16,555€, a 1,200€ a year (or 7.25%) hike in mortgage payments is likely to inflict a bit of pain, especially to single income households.

Caos i aglomeracions a l'estació del Clot

2007-07-31T16:34:00.001+02:00

El Punt, 31-juliol-07
El canvi de ruta de les línies de Rodalies C1, C3, C4 i C7 per les obres del TAV està provocant un autèntic caos a l'estació del Clot, on molts viatgers han de baixar per canviar de tren o agafar el metro. A més, els falta informació dels canvis. La situació continuarà fins l'11 de setembre.

How quickly "four months" grew to six. Yes, the Catalán government is now setting February as target for full restoration of electricity production

2007-07-31T10:54:00.000+02:00

They must teach these methods in management school: when the news is really, really bad, best not to let them know it all all at once. Certainly Don and Dick followed this play book (the US defense dunces, not the Disney characters). Now it seems the Ayuntamiento, Generalitat and maybe even ENDESA have purloined these tried and true tactics. For the moment my only source of this news is the attractive buy not terribly amibtious Metro free daily, but I will try to find more reliable sources. It's just that I left the house without any coins today.

Crisis eléctrica: Another (appropriately) strongly worded editorial on the failing Barcelona infrastructure

2007-07-30T12:15:00.000+02:00

Crisis eléctrica

LA VANGUARDIA, DOMINGO, 29 JULIO 2007

AUNQUE la luz se ha restablecido en Barcelona, después del apagón más grave de su historia, que esta semana ha dejado sin suministro a cerca de 350.000 abonados, la crisis eléctrica no está resuelta, ni mucho menos. La red de distribución se ha podido reparar con soluciones de emergencia, como es el recurso a ruidosos grupos electrógenos, pero el servicio funciona bajo mínimos, con riesgo evidente de nuevos apagones si se produjera un elevado incremento del consumo. Es muy grave que se vaya a tardar todavía varias semanas, o quizás meses, en lograr que todo vuelva a funcionar con normalidad. No puede permitirse que el sistema eléctrico de Barcelona funcione como las cercanías de Renfe, con averías cada dos por tres, que distorsionen y dificulten la vida cotidiana y la actividad de sus comercios y empresas. Sería una catástrofe que hay que evitar por todos los medios.

Don't leave for the beaches without first clearing out the fridge!

2007-07-29T12:02:00.000+02:00

La fragilidad de la red aconseja vaciar la nevera en vacaciones
por MAURICIO BERNAL

Salir de vacaciones y dejar la casa vacía: a las precauciones habituales hay que añadir este verano las que implican dejar atrás una ciudad que prácticamente funciona con baterías y que no ofrece garantías de normalidad en el servicio eléctrico. El suministro de luz, precario e intermitente, amenaza con dañar electrodomésticos y estropear los pocos alimentos que los viajeros suelen dejar en la nevera pensando en el regreso. Por eso los consejos de los expertos tienen este año un matiz distinto.

"Lo más importante es dejar la nevera completamente vacía, para no correr el riesgo de que la comida se estropee", explica Joan Manuel Pla Miralles, coordinador del Departamento de Electricidad del Centro de Formación Técnica Disced de Barcelona. (leer más)

Cinema in the park hits BCN this week—and for a total of 12 nights in August

2007-07-29T11:10:00.000+02:00

Better late than never. While exploring the vast stretches of Pest last week, we stumbled upon the Hungarian equivalent of New York's Bryant Park summer outdoor film fest. "Surely Barcelona can do something like this," I thought. Even Montréal, for christ's sake, pulls one or two of these off each summer, with particular panache. And suddenly one Sunday while hojeanda the Sunday papers, voilà, here it is: as reported in El Periódico today, a new edition of the Gandules cycle which this year is entitled Travelling: Travel, discovery and emotions at 24fps. While the interpretation, at least as reported in EP, seems a bit pathetic (a tour of the world through film for those who were not able to escape for real voyage and discovery), the line-up of titles is nothing to be sneezed at: films by Oskar Fischinger, Wim Wenders, Jean-Luc Godard, Roman Polanski, and John Cassavetes. The first is scheduled for Wednesday of this week (starting at 10 p.m.), the first day of August. In fact, it appears it's to be a double billing, with Abderrahmane Sissako's La vie sur la terre to follow. Entrance is free but space (or at least the number of lawn chairs) is limited. All is to take place at the Pati de les Dons of the Contemporary Culture Center of Barcelona (CCCB) each Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evening of August. Pity I will miss it.

All screenings will be in original versions with Spanish (castellano) subtitles unless otherwise indicated.

(Otra) avería en la estación de Sants causa (más) retrasos en la línea del aeropuerto y la C-2

2007-07-28T13:57:00.000+02:00

Yesterday's delays forced some families to cancel their trips.

por El Periódico
Un error en la señalización de la estación de Sants está causando retrasos de entre 15 y 20 minutos en los trenes con dirección al aeropuerto de El Prat y en la línea C-2, de Maçanet de la Selva a Sant Vicenç de Calders. Asimismo, los trenes regionales acumulan retrasos medios de 20 minutos.

Un portavoz de la compañía Renfe ha informado de que los retrasos en la línea del aeropuerto (la 10) han empezado a ser importantes desde las 10.30 horas o las once de la mañana, pese a que el problema de señalización que los ha originado se ha producido una hora antes.

La Vanguardia editors note bittersweet 15th anniversary of Olympic Games, chide City Hall for its insensitive decision to proceed with celebrations

2007-07-27T11:33:00.000+02:00

Quince años
LA VANGUARDIA, OPINIÓN, 26 JULIO 2007-07-27

SE cumplen quince años desde la celebración de los que fueron calificados de mejores Juegos Olímpicos de la historia, los de Barcelona, que constituyeron un hito deportivo sin precedentes para el país, que permitieron poner la ciudad al día y abrirla al mar y a nuevos horizontes... Desde el 25 de julio de 1992 el mundo situó el nombre de Barcelona en el mapa y su proyección internacional se multiplicó exponencialmente. Pero el balance de la capital de Catalunya, quince años después de los Juegos Olímpicos, es agridulce. Es cierto que la ciudad se ha modernizado, que ha aumentado su protagonismo cultural y que, con ocasión del Fòrum de les Cultures, acabó de abrirse al mar. Es cierto que la promoción internacional de la ciudad la ha convertido en destino turístico de moda y que ello ha permitido batir récords de visitantes, hasta el punto de hacer de Catalunya la comunidad líder en turismo. Es cierto que se ha recuperado con gran éxito la capitalidad en el ámbito de las ferias y congresos. Es cierto que la economía va bien, con uno de los índices de paro más bajos del Estado que hace que incluso pueda hablarse de pleno empleo, a la vista de la continua llegada de inmigrantes para cubrir las necesidades de mano de obra. Y es cierto, también, que la integración de los recién llegados –más de un millón en toda Catalunya- se ha producido sin excesivos traumas.

El descomunal apagón eléctrico sufrido estos días, con más de trescientos mil afectados, obliga sin embargo a dejar de lado los triunfalismos de la conmemoración olímpica y a situarnos en la penosa realidad. En este sentido el Ayuntamiento, mientras todavía había millares de hogares sin luz, demostró muy poca sensibilidad al negarse a posponer la celebración del aniversario olímpico, ya que la ciudad no está precisamente para fiestas después de los graves problemas y grandes pérdidas que ha generado la prolongada falta de suministro eléctrico. Como decíamos ayer, una gran metrópoli como Barcelona no puede aspirar a nada en lo económico, social, político y cultural si fallan las condiciones imprescindibles para que la vida cotidiana se desarrolle con normalidad.

Los Juegos Olímpicos supusieron un gran esfuerzo en infraestructuras que permitieron, después de veinte años de retraso, poner al día a la ciudad y su entorno metropolitano más inmediato. Pero, después de esos días de gloria, en los últimos quince años se ha vuelto a acumular un profundo déficit inversor, que ha coincidido con un enorme aumento de habitantes, que hace que crujan todas las costuras de Catalunya, especialmente las de Barcelona y su área metropolitana, donde vive el 75 por ciento de la población. No sólo resulta insuficiente la red eléctrica, sino también, como es bien sufrido por todos, la red ferroviaria, la red viaria, el aeropuerto y la atención sanitaria, por no hablar de la falta de medios policiales o de la insuficiente inversión en enseñanza y en investigación que ahoga las posibilidades de progreso.

Está fuera de discusión, por lo demás, que el impulso olímpico no ha servido para incrementar el peso económico de Barcelona en el conjunto del Estado, sino todo lo contrario, ya que en los últimos años se ha perdido la capitalidad económica española a favor de Madrid. No se ha sabido tampoco liderar la transformación que necesita la economía hacia empresas de dimensión global y hacia una industria y unos servicios tecnológicamente avanzados, que permitan superar la estructura productiva del siglo XX.

La clase política ha centrado sus esfuerzos, desde hace tiempo, en la negociación y desarrollo del nuevo Estatut para salir del atasco, y es fundamental para el progreso de Catalunya que pueda aplicarse y cumplirse sin más dilaciones, sobre todo en lo que a inversiones y nuevas competencias se refiere. Pero eso no bastará si no hay una mayor capacidad de liderazgo y si no se cambian los debates estériles y la agotadora lucha partidista por un nuevo estilo político más constructivo para asumir los retos del presente y las apuestas del futuro, con una mayor complicidad entre todos, incluida la iniciativa privada. En este sentido hay que reivindicar el espíritu olímpico que presidió Barcelona hace quince años.

New Train Trouble Leaves Airport Passengers Stranded Just As Thousands Embark Upon Their Summer Get-Aways

2007-07-27T10:48:00.000+02:00

NUEVO FALLO DE RENFE
La avería de un tren en Sants obliga a interrumpir el enlace con el aeropuerto durante hora y media

AGENCIAS (por El Periódico)

La línea de tren de cercanías que enlaza Barcelona con el aeropuerto de El Prat ha reanudado el servicio en torno a las nueve de la mañana tras hora y media de interrupción a causa de una avería de un convoy de larga distancia en la estación de Sants. No obstante, se mantienen los retrasos en la línea de Vilanova.

Un portavoz de Renfe ha informado de que los viajeros que tienen que trasladarse al aeropuerto vuelven a contar con el tren que realiza este trayecto desde Sants, después de que el tramo se haya cubierto con autobuses durante el tiempo que ha durado la interrupción del servicio ferroviario.

Where Is the Love? BCN Film Darling and His Fellow Cineastas Come To Their Senses And Have Foreign Food Shipped To Their Putxet Film Set

2007-07-26T11:05:00.000+02:00

El desprecio de Woody Allen a Barcelona

(La Vanguardia, 25-Juliol-2007)

Soy vecina del Barrio del Putxet en Barcelona, exactamente de la calle Musito nº 24, allí se está rodando actualmente en secreto la última película de Woody Allen y Scarlet Johansson.

En una torre, desde el pasado domingo, tienen media calle cortada con guardaespaldas y no dejan pasar a los vecinos. Les hemos pedido con educación que aparquen en otro lado pero nos tratan de malos modos, no nos han hecho ni caso.

Woody Allen ha dicho que la comida de Barcelona es muy mala y se la han hecho traer de un catering de fuera. Tengo entendido que Barcelona les ha dado un millón de euros por rodar aquí y a ellos no les gusta la ciudad. Me pregunto por qué no se gastan este dinero en películas creadas por gente que empieza, y segundo, qué es lo que la gente llega a hacer por dinero...

(see also, whereisscarlettjohansson? and blog.hoy.es)

I Sneak Away for a Few Days of R&R in a Real City, with Real History, Real Elegance, Completely Open About Its Shortcomings, & Wannabe BCN Falls Apart

2007-07-26T10:51:00.000+02:00

10,000 customers still without power in Barcelona two days after blackout

2007-07-24T13:09:00.000+02:00

The Associated Press (via IHT)

BARCELONA, Spain: Two days after a power outage hit Spain's second-largest city, 10,000 households and businesses remained without power Wednesday with utility company officials still unable to say when services would be fully restored.

"We can't say for sure when it will be fixed," said Carmen de Miguel, a spokeswoman for power company Endesa, the main supplier for the port city of some 1.6 million people. "We trust it will be today."

(Well trust away, but you'd be a fool to do so. Thursday's BCN dailies report power outages continue in parts of Graçia and that it will be FOUR MONTHS before things are back to normal.)

Snag In Spain Plan to Pay for Babies

2007-07-19T15:22:00.000+02:00

Nadons, they're called in Catalán. And you'd be forgiven for confusing them with something you might sprinkle on top a salad.

120,000 Catalánes Say Déu To Catalonia in '06—Most of Them Headed for the US of A... and to Andalucía

2007-07-19T12:10:00.000+02:00

(to the United States, for a chance to make a decent living; and Andalusia, ostensibly for the chance to live a real life on what little they have—and perhaps to escape the oppressive regimentation and uninspiring cuisine back home...)

MARIA ALTIMIRA. Barcelona
Prop de 120.000 ciutadans van abandonar Catalunya l'any passat, segons un informe de l'Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE), malgrat que, en xifres globals, la població catalana va créixer de 123.000 ciutadans. La primera destinació d'aquest contingent, que en més de la meitat dels casos va optar per quedar-se a l'Estat, va ser Andalusia, amb 12.550 persones, seguida del País Valencià, amb 10.828. Fora de l'Estat espanyol, el continent americà es va convertir en el receptor del contingent més gran, amb un total de 17.479 persones. Més de la meitat dels que van marxar –69.316– eren estrangers. El fenomen també ofereix una altra lectura. La majoria dels que van canviar de residència sense marxar del país es van establir en poblacions de menys de 10.000 habitants.

Durant molts anys Catalunya va ser un país d'emigrants. I, de fet, no ha deixat mai de ser-ho, tot i que les successives onades d'immigrants i la creixent presència d'estrangers que s'instal·len al país –sobretot d'origen americà, europeu i africà–, hagi fet oblidar aquesta realitat. La població catalana augmenta any rere any i l'increment, que cada cop és més gran, va ser de 123.000 habitants durant l'any 2006. Malgrat tot, encara n'hi ha molts que se'n van. Gairebé 120.000 ciutadans, ja siguin estrangers o autòctons, van marxar de Catalunya l'any 2006, segons l'informe Estadística de variacions residencials 2006 que l'Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE) va publicar fa uns dies sobre els moviments de persones regularitzades. D'aquests prop de 120.000, 65.669 es van quedar a l'Estat i la resta va decidir creuar les fronteres del territori espanyol .

SOBRETOT, A ANDALUSIA
Andalusia, amb 12.550 nouvinguts, es va convertir en l'indret de més recepció d'aquest contingent, seguida del País Valencià, amb 10.828, i la Comunitat de Madrid, les Illes Balears i Aragó, amb 7007, 5132 i 4938, respectivament. En contrapartida, províncies com ara Àlaba, Àvila, Sòria i Guadalajara, entre d'altres, van ser les que van rebre menys immigrants procedents de Catalunya.

El treball assenyala que més de la meitat dels emigrats, concretament 69.316, eren d'origen estranger. Fora de l'Estat, el continent americà va ser la destinació amb més pes en termes quantitatius i va acollir 17.479 persones. Europa, amb 9.659, i l'Àfrica, amb 9.328, van ocupar le segona i la tercera posició d'aquesta classificació. Oceania, amb un total de 57 immigrants procedents de Catalunya, 49 eren de la demarcació de Barcelona, va ser el continent que va registrar un menor flux.

PERFIL
Segons les dades de l'estudi, en la majoria dels casos l'emigrant és un home de 25 a 34 anys que abandona el seu lloc de residència per anar a establir-se en una localitat de pocs habitants. Tot i així, quan es tracta d'una persona d'origen estranger també són molts aquells que són en la franja d'edat de 35 a 44 anys. En cas contrari, quan l'emigrant té la nacionalitat espanyola, els de la franja compresa entre els 16 i els 25 anys són majoria.

El treball, que utilitza la informació relativa a les altes i les baixes registrades en els padrons municipals d'habitants motivades per canvis de residència, obté tant els fluxos migratoris anuals interiors, entre els diferents municipis de l'Estat espanyol, com els exteriors, entre municipis de l'Estat espanyol i l'estranger. L'INE també permet fer la consulta d'aquestes dades des del 1998.

What in god's name is that smell? (aka ¿De dónde proceden esos malos olores?)

2007-07-16T12:35:00.000+02:00

Me gustaría que alguien me dijera que puedo hacer con la comunidad, desde hace años llevo padeciendo malos olores en mi vivienda, lo he hecho saber a la comunidad y a constado en acta en varias reuniones, la comunidad siempre dice que se tomarian medidas para ver de que podria ser, al día de hoy la comunidad no ha hecho nada y yo ya no aguanto más!

¿Sabes de donde proceden los malos olores? Supongo que como siempre vendrán de los bajantes de la comunidad.

(Talvez la respuesta vendrá de aqui: En este año tendrá lugar también el próximo Congreso Internacional sobre Contaminación por Olores—en Barcelona!!)

Barcelonéses Say 'No' To Fast Train Tunnel

2007-07-15T21:02:00.000+02:00

In the face of unprecedented opposition to the passage of Spain's first fast train to the French border through the Eixample Derecha, and the never finished Gaudí cathedral, the Barcelona city council has said that the plan will go through after all. Are the citizens of this supposed forward looking metropolis betraying their true provincial faces? Or are the rumors of inferior technology to be borne out? I would guess the former, but only time will tell.

The city can hardly afford another construction fiasco along the lines of January 2005's Carmel tunnel collapse, and the Partido Popular and CiU (Convergence and Union Party) have wasted no time in trying to make political hay out of the overheated emotions.

Classical music 'al aire fresco' kicks off tonight in Barcelona

2007-07-05T16:28:00.000+02:00

... and continues every Thursday, Friday and Saturday evening, at different city parks, throughout the month of July.

Dijous, 5 de juliol, s'inicia el cicle de concerts Clàssica als Parcs 2007, que s’allargarà fins el 28 de juliol. Els concerts del cicle de Clàssica als Parcs se celebraran els dijous, divendres i dissabtes del mes de juliol a diferents parcs i jardins de la ciutat: dijous als Jardins de la Tamarita i al Turó Park, divendres al Parc de Diagonal Mar i a Ca n'Altimira, i dissabtes a la Glorieta del Parc de la Ciutadella, el dia 14 de juliol tindrà lloc un únic concert al Parc de la Barceloneta. (Podeu consultar tota la programació de Clàssica als Parcs en el document annex).

Barcelona, Meet Berlin

2007-07-05T09:54:00.000+02:00

Why is it that, having just arrived from Schönefeld airport into the unspectacular but leafy and cosmopolitan district of Schöneberg, Berlin feels so open, free, alive? Whereas in Barcelona--whether the Eixample, Gracia or even the oh so trendy Born and squalor chic Ravel--the famously Bacchanalian beach destination seems only oppressive and stultified?

Spain's President Announces Plan to Pay Families (including same sex couples) €2,500 for Each New Birth or Adoption

2007-07-05T05:39:00.000+02:00

but critics counter that the costs of child raising are more long-term than a simple one time cash handout and request, in addition, widely available free day-care, free summer camps where they can send the bratty kids away when it's scorching hot, free nappies, formula and kiddie clothes. Read IHT report (in English) here.

The Hazzards of Prix Fixe Dining in Barcelona

2007-07-04T17:59:00.000+02:00

At 9-12 Euros for a three-course meal, menu items can go quickly. And as they do, sometimes new menu items appear predictably and yet as if my magic: usually Ensalada mixta as a starter and Butifarra a la plancha (so ubiquitous throughout Barcelona that I chose this perplexing fave regional dish as the signature photo for this site).

Today's sidewalk pizarra toyed with our 2 p.m. hunger by promising us Coliflor gratinada followed up by my new favorite fish, Mero a la parilla. (Which folks more worldly than I will immediately recognize as your common Atlantic grouper.) We were over an hour earlier than our usual 3:30 arrival and still half the menu was ya agotada.

I ended up eating watermelon soup (Crema de sandía), veal stomach with garbanzo beans (Callos con garbanzos), and some overly sweet flan pudding concoction called Tocinillo del Cielo. None of this was anything I would want to eat again, but neither was it terrible.

(Just for fun, the recipe for this last dish, the Tocinillo, calls for 25 eggs yolks, 4 cups of sugar, 3 cups of water—and nothing else! Maybe a bit of vanilla or a spritz of lemon juice for the real gourmets...)

Catalonia To Open First Ever Embassy Abroad

2007-07-03T22:16:00.000+02:00

Never mind that neither Catalonia (nor Catalunya) is a country, the brazen (some say delusional) Generalitat announced with customary fanfare yesterday that proceedings were underway to christen the black sheep province (that would have to be after País Vasco, I suppose) of Spain its first ever autonomous diplomatic outpost in, where else?, but Paris.

(Not totally sure what the precedent for such petulant break-away nationalism is but will check with an old LSE buddy, Jordi Vaquer i Fanes, who recently left his post at the Generalitat where, to my knowledge, he held somewhat of an ambassadorial post after leaving London's West End with a PhD in tote.)

While surely Québec has not taken such measures, one can imagine that the Kurds, Kashmiris or Tamil Tigers have beaten Montilla et al. to the punch.

(La Vanguardia, where I originally learned of this news in the printed version, seems to have exorcised this embarrassing piece from its internet archives, but the story still appears online in ABC (albeit about the original negotiations las April), the free Metro daily, and this site called Europress. The Vanguardia article explains that what is currently the Maison de la Catalogne (not to be confused with a Left Bank restaurant of the same name), with a role more symbolic than political in the French capitol, will be reconfigured over the coming months and re-emerge as the virgin embassy.)

Post Script: The Vanguardia article did mention, at the end, that the province of Catalonia does have something called "casals catalanes" established in the Mexican capitol as well as in Santiago de Chile. And the report adds that these would likely be the next to follow in the steps of Paris.

Easily the Worst Chinese Food I've Had In My Life (aka Success Secret of Your Local BCN 'Chino')

2007-07-03T10:10:00.000+02:00

Now, Chinese restaurants have never been known for the flavor and lightness of their cuisine (at least not the Szechuan and Mandarin varieties that predominate in expatriate outposts across the world). And maybe we've grown complacent to presume the perennial presence of at least a short line-up of dependable can't-go-wrong dishes, say chicken with snow peas, moo shu pork, beef with broccoli. But who would have thought, in a relatively well heeled neighborhood in the travel world's new darling one could eat so badly while being treated to such elegant surroundings (spacious dining room with linen table clothes and etched glass dividers between tables; ours featured a spry carp) and top notch service (hot towels offered both before and after the meal and the postprandial ritual of a complimentary chupito).

The culprit, but I good reason to believe that this one is not exceptional? CHIN JUA, c/ Joan Güell 212. In fact, there is at least one more: CHIN JUA, c/ Canalejas 82.

(Of course, for those who have followed by culinary explorations with the Great Enchantress over the years will remember that this—the triumph of form over function—has always been one of my chief disappointments with at least upper end Catalán cooking. Could it be that these enterprising immigrants are just giving Barcelona what feels familiar?)

There may be a silver lining to this cloud, alas. Throughout last night's dypepsia, which continues to this day, I've had the opportunity to ponder the continued existence of such inadequate Chinese restaurants in the city and I dare say I have figured out the key:

1) The fact that nearly every other dining out option is closed not just on Sundays but also on Mondays guarantees the still limited in number Chinese venues a dependable if desperate stream of business.

2) The predomination of diners with no culinary tradition (or where one exists/existed, a wretched one). And here I am thinking of England much more than the US or Germany, although it must be noted that the vast majority of diners at this unforgettable dining establishment last night were, in fact, Barcelonéses!

Maybe the recent of flood of Japanese eats in the city (I swear there are now more sushi places than bank branches) will inspire to the Mandarins to clean up their act. But I suspect we are talking different price points, as it were, here and that the culinary crimes will continue. But at least the crime has been solved.

BCN Bike Rental Scheme Latest Barcelona Boast, But Might It Not Be Too Early To Declare Such A Rousing Success?

2007-07-01T10:04:00.000+02:00

News Apartment Construction Plans Scrapped Across the Country Over Fears of Oversupply

2007-06-28T10:07:00.000+02:00

Fe de errores, as they say here: It's the COCAINE in Spain

2007-06-27T10:40:00.000+02:00

...that stays mainly, well, in Spain.

Here I was scrutinizing the minutiae of daily Catalunyan commuter life while missing the forest for the trees. (And missing, it would seem, quite alot more.) This just in, from no less than a United Nations study: "España es el país donde se consume más cocaína." The hopelessly backward quasi-European appendage seems to have even surpassed the solid if totally debauched US of A in its affection for the ego & energy boosting powder.

I suppose if you can't think (or modernize) fast, you can at least feel fast.

UN says the country's cocaine use has doubled since 1999. Ah, that's where all those paper profits are going. In the US, home owning folks refinance to buy groceries and gasoline. But if you do enough coke, who needs food?

The Trains in Spain

2007-06-25T10:12:00.000+02:00

...stay mainly in the rail yard—or on the drawing board.

It boggles the mind to think that the inaugural service of France's train à grande vitesse (TGV), between Paris and Lyon, occurred all of 25 years ago while Spain is still struggling to complete its own humble high-speed line, AVE (for 'Alta Velocidad Española'), from Madrid to Barcelona. We're talking a difference of one QUARTER OF A CENTURY! And Spaniards wonder why the rest of Europe looks down on them culturally, culinarily, and technologically.

Despite the hundreds of millions of Euros directed Spain's way (mostly from Germany and Scandinavia) since its inclusion into the Euro zone circa 2002, the only thing these high profile infrastructure projects seem to have produced are a windfall of low-paying construction jobs for the 650,000 recently amnestied immigrants (Morocco, Ecuador, Colombia, Romania mostly) and an over-heated economy on the verge of bust.

One 'great' writer, food fit only for prison inmates (or drunk-out-of-their-minds British holiday goers who regularly storm the streets of The Great Enchantress in a Sangria sweetened riff on poverty tourism) and decades to build a high-speed train line? Mystery solved.

And even if high hopes for their high-speed nexus were dashed in recent weeks, the litany of ferrocarril setbacks since the AVE news continued to come at bullet speed:

1) Tunnel implodes in the residential neighborhood of Carmel last April, setting back construction schedule for years (not to mention destroying homes and dislocating hundreds of residents)

2) AVE line arrives, with great fanfare, to within 143 kilometers (about 90 miles) of Barcelona's SANTS train station. No word on when the final bits of rail line will be in place. So for now, despite all the self-congratulation, the only way to get from Barcelona to Madrid in under 5 1/2 hours is, I guess, to take a taxi to Les Borges Blanques (Lleida)!

3) Just a few days later, the AVE geniuses acknowledge that their timetable for connecting the line to Girona and on to the French border was wildly overoptimistic. Instead of a 2009 targeted completion date, they are now talking 2012!! They overestimated the pace of construction by 3 years? Only in Spain. (Well, perhaps also Italy. But at least Italy has compensating virtues.)

4) Alarms bells sound again as Sagrada Familia boosters warn that the planned AVE line, which was to pass underground within a few blocks of the garish and never completed Gaudí cathedral, threatened to disrupt the integrity of structure's foundation and, alas, precipitate yet another grand implosion. So now all AVE routes out of the city are back on the drawing board (and subject to furious and politically charged infighting).

5) Thursday (vernal solstice) it was announced that the #4 (yellow) metro line was to be shut down because of menacing vibrations within one of the tunnels. So service from basically La Ciutadella to Besòs Mar is to be suspended indefinitely. (But how will we all get to the indispensable Fòrum now?)

6) Some hot rodding yahoos apparently monkeying around with the prototype EuroMed fast train on Friday (22-June) got the thing going 120 km/hr on a track designed for top speeds of 30. Inevitable outcome? Colossal derailment just outside the El Prat airport and delays, service suspensions, huge highway backups for all of Friday and running into the famed Sant Joan weekend. Check out the Saturday edition of El Periódico for a taste of the ire and blame gaming.

7) Not even I would venture to guess what incompetence will befall the Barcelona railways next.

Mortgage Companies Over Baleares Junkets, Three Months Free In Order to Revive Business: Is That A Hissing Sound I Hear??

2007-06-24T10:05:00.000+02:00

Number of speakers of Catalán falls just behind those of Kinyarwanda and Zulu

2007-06-22T11:45:00.000+02:00

(from Friday's La Vanguardia)

The Catalonian government ministry announced today that worldwide (i.e., Catalonia, the principality of Andorra, the Balearic Islands (Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza), Valencia (although there they call it "Valencian"), the town of L'Alguer in Sardinia, bits of southwestern France (Perpignan, I am told) and in the autonomous regions, within Spain, of Aragon and Murcia (just to the west of Valencia) there are 9 million strong catalanoparlantes, just behind speakers of Kinyarwanda (Rwanda) and Zulu (KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa) – and one place above speakers of Bulgarian, Tartarian and Uyghur (a Turkic language spoken by the Uyghur people in Xinjiang a Turkic language spoken by the Uyghur people in Xinjiang).

Funny, but one doesn’t see throngs of Tartars storming the gates of the EU Parliament demanding that their medieval language be embraced across the union.

For the record, the 23 official languages of the European Union are:

български (Bălgarski) - BG - Bulgarian
Čeština - CS - Czech
Dansk - DA - Danish
Deutsch - DE - German
Eesti - ET - Estonian
Elinika - EL - Greek
English - EN
Español - ES - Spanish
Français - FR - French
Gaeilge - GA - Irish
Italiano - IT - Italian
Latviesu valoda - LV - Latvian
Lietuviu kalba - LT - Lithuanian
Magyar - HU - Hungarian
Malti - MT - Maltese
Nederlands - NL - Dutch
Polski - PL - Polish
Português - PT - Portuguese
Română - RO - Romanian
Slovenčina - SK - Slovak
Slovenščina - SL - Slovene
Suomi - FI - Finnish
Svenska - SV - Swedish

Aquileres sin techo (and we thought NYC rents were insane)

2007-06-20T18:35:00.000+02:00

Just as I was dotting the last 'i' on Pigstye (okay there is no 'i'), this study comes out from some place called Mercer Human Resource Consulting saying how Madrid and Barcelona are now among the 31 most expensive cities in the world to live (Moscow still claims first place, believe it or not).

Of course, since these ratings are US dollar based, the careening greenback has a little bit to do with the recent shuffle. Still, Madrid and the Ciutat Condal shot up from 53rd and 56th, respectively, to 26th and 31st.

It's odd but typically Catalán how the free throw-away daily (à la Metro and their ilk... here the others are 20 minutos, Què!, and something else I can't quite remember at the moment), Diario ADN, trumpets the new unaffordability of Spain's top two cities as somehow having arrived. "Now we're somebody. Don't fuck with Catalonia."

Harto de Woody Allen

2007-06-20T13:22:00.000+02:00

(from EL RUNRÚN column in yesterday's La Vanguardia)
by the quick and witty Manuel Trallero

Un servidor de ustedes está hasta el gorro, mismamente del señor ese, que toca el clarinete rematadamente mal y que hace tiempo, bastante tiempo, dejó de ser artista para volverse un tramposo que hace entre No-Do y spot publicitario todo ello por encargo, con la pasta—y no precisamente italiana—por delante. Estoy harto de que cada día nos expliquen pormenorizadamente sus peripecias por la ciudad, igual, igualito, que si fuera un Bienvenido Mr. Marshall del siglo XXI. Igual que si fuera un explorador blanco descubriendo la octava maravilla de la Sagrada Familia—antes de que el AVE la convierta en papilla, los socialistas no tienen por qué hacerlo todo rematadamente mal—o en el edificio en forma de consolador del Agbar mientras los nativos, los barceloneses, ponemos la misma cara de estupefacción que los extras de Las minas del Rey Salomón. ¿A nadie le da vergüenza semejante tomadura de pelo, pagada con nuestros impuestos? ¿No habíamos quedado que el Fòrum se había acabado? Barcelona convertida en un parque temático, como unos nuevos ricos que quieren salir en la película. Este es el verdadero argumento de una película, las ganas desaforadas de tener una película sobre Barcelona.

Estoy harto de Woody Allen, como estuve harto en su momento del pobre Pau Gasol en la NBA cuando ya sólo nos faltaba conocer si el chico iba suelto o resteñido, gracias a los servicios informativos de Catalunya Ràdio. Todo lo demás lo sabíamos al instante. Los puntos conseguidos, los rebotes y las asistencias. La culpa de Pau Gasol la tenía, claro está, el señor Pujol y los sucesivos gobiernos de CiU, que gracias a su política de instalaciones deportivas lograron que salieran Pau Gasol a manta. Luego Pau Gasol juega con la selección nacional de España y dice que está tan ricamente entre los colores de rojo y gualda.

Estoy harto de este papanatismo que invade, de la imperiosa necesidad de ser siempre los catalanes los mejores del mundo mundial, cuando es mucho mejor el champaña francés que el cava catalán, o cuando en Francia—mal que le pese a The New York Times—se continúa comiendo unas quince mil veces mejor que en España y especialmente que en Catalunya, por mucha estrella Michelin que haya, que casi nos hacen hacer el ridículo espantoso de enviar a Ferran Adrià a la Documenta de Kassel como si fuera un Miguel Ángel. Por el amor de Dios, que el personal se despierte, se tome un café bien cargadito y una ducha de agua fría, que esto querido y querido, esto es Catalunya y aquí manda Hereu y Montilla. ¿Lo van cogiendo ustedes? Y esto es lo que hay, con los empresarios haciendo la genuflexión y a Dios gracias que tenemos lo que tenemos, es decir, que no tenemos nada, que andamos en pelota picada en infraestructuras y en todo lo demás con niñas maltratadas por una descoordinación oficial. ¿Y encima quiere gestionar un aeropuerto? Jesusito de mi vida, que me quede como estoy. A eso por lo visto se le llama autoestima y, ay, pobres de ustedes que sufran un ataque de cordura porque caerán de inmediato en el temible auto-odio para el cual todavía no se ha descubierto el antídoto.

Pero hay que sacar pecho y decir que somos los mejores, porque Woody Allen nos saca en un film ahora que ya había aprendido a decir penicuna.

Now this could be cool: Jazz evenings in the Ciutadella Park

2007-06-01T13:49:00.001+02:00

El Jazz torna a la Ciutadella

From the 6th of June to the end of August, every Wednesday and Friday evening, starting at 10 p.m., "comença el cicle de Jazz a la Glorieta del Parc de la Ciutadella".

Now this could be cool: Jazz in the Ciuadella Park

2007-06-01T13:49:00.000+02:00

El Jazz torna a la Ciutadella

Dimecres 6 de juny, a partir de les 22 h., comença el cicle de Jazz a la Glorieta del Parc de la Ciutadella.

2007-06-01T09:33:00.000+02:00

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