¿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.

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

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?

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

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*

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

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.