Citizen's Resistance and the Housing Crisis: Barcelona, 1975 - 2007

Citizens’ Resistance and the Housing Crisis: Barcelona, 1975-2016

CITIZENS’ RESISTANCE AND THE HOUSING CRISIS: BARCELONA, 1975-2016

Inés Aguilar Figueras May 2016 Committee: Gabriel Arboleda & Myrna Breitbart Hampshire College F12-S16

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

0

Acknoledgement Glossary

INTRODUCTION

Setting the political and economic context of the housing crisis Housing: its importance and the role in the economy Right to the city, right to a home Literature Review Chapter Review and key questions

1

THE HOUSING BUBBLE: 1975-2007

Franco’s Legacy Housing accessibility, renting, owning, VPO Housing Bubble: Building up to the crisis Eviction Crisis Housing Crisis: the aftermaths of the bubble

Time table

13 14 15 18 22

3

DWELLERS’ RESISTANCE AND COUNTERCULTURE73

Initial residents’ direct action

25

Start of the conversation, planting the seeds

26

La PAH’s model

27

The Spanish Revolution

Talking about housing as social justice ILP: towards the abolition of the eviction crisis Squatting empty units

31 36 41

Towards a more just renting system Alternative ways of accessing housing Self-management and cooperatives: Sant’s history

2

Towards a housing cooperative system Surrender of property: the public and private management

93

Erased historical memory The Expansion of the city The invisible city Cleansing informality: revitalization through iconic urbanism The reductionist approach The Church’s paternalistic approach The museification of Barcelona Anarchism and Okupas Rebranding and renewal Marketing of the city Gentrification and tourist Current Situatiation

Towards a new model of architectural practice

45 47 47 47 49 51 54 55 57 61 63 66 69

74 74 75 78 79 80 81 85 88 88 89 91 92

Repurposing abandoned factories

BARCELONA, LA MILLOR BO TIGA DEL MÓN

IX X XI

4

CONCLUSION

97

Reactionary versus Reformist movements

97

Importance of organizational activist work

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Ada Colau: ‘‘The Voice of the People’’ Hábitat 3 Foundation Housing as a right?

References

101 103 105 109 VII

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to my mother, Virginia, my father, Sergi and my sisters, Julia and Banchi, who have been encouraging me and giving me love and support all throughout this long journey. Thank you for encouraging me to keep going forward and realize that this project matters.

Thank you to my all my loving friends, and to Max, my partner, who have always been there whether it was for hugging and emotional support or for discussing ideas and editing.

Thank you to the writing help and Hojung for editing my paper, being supportive and giving me constructive feedback.

Thank you to Myrna Breitbart and Gabriel Arboleda for giving me feedback and challenging me with interesting and needed questions.

And above of all, thank you all of the people I interviewed and talked to during this process of understanding the history and current situation of Barcelona. This project is to honor your important work and to honor the history carried within each of you. Thank you for keeping pushing forward and keeping a positive attitude towards the future. Thank you for letting me participate in all of your meetings and welcoming my project, because we know how important it is to spread the word. Thank you for encouraging me to keep moving forward and show why this project matters.

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GLOSSARY: Asistencialismo: Service of a ‘‘one stop’’ window approach which fosters a dependency of a need based assistance. Situation where a person alienated from your problem tackles your issue without your involvement.

Asociacionismo: 1. m. Tendency to create civic associations, political, cultural, etc. 2. m. Psicol. Doctrine that uses the laws of association of ideas to explain all psychic phenomena. (RAE) CNT: Confederación Nacional del Trabajo – Workers’ Union. Created in 1910 to accomplish the ultimate goal of Spanish anarcho-syndicalists: replacing the government with an ‘‘administration’’ of life through community and workplace networks. (Breitbart, 2011, p. 4) DESC: Derechos Economicos, Sociales y Culturales - Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. DESC observatory, stands for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights observatory, a platform composed by different union/syndical identities and organizations for peace, development and human rights. As a celebration and demand from the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, DESC emerged in 1998 with the goal of promoting social justice through a holistic vision of human rights. Its main goal is to thrust an effective fulfillment of the human rights, following the directives of the International Pact of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966. (Pisarello, 2003) Generalitat: Government of the autonomous region of Catalunya, Spain.

Housing: it applies to both standalone homes and apartments.

ILP: Iniciativa Legislativa Popular – Popular Legislative Initiative: the direct participation of citizens in the process of normative production of law, involving the submission of 500,000 signatures in order to pass or demand a new law initiative.

Mobbing: hostile or humiliating treatment to which a person is subjected systematically, that causes psychological and professional problems. It is a bullying related to housing ownership and renting. It is perpetuated by the real-estate developers and housing speculators on the workers and marginalized communities.

Ocupas: squatters.

Okupas: squatters with anarchist ideals.

PAH: Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca – Mortgage Victims’ Platform.

PMHB: Patronat Municipal d’Habitatge de Barcelona – Municipal Housing Barcelona PP: Partido Popular – Right wing party.

PSOE: Partido Socialista Obrero Español – Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party.

SAREB: Sociedad de Gestión de Activos procedentes de la Reestructuración Bancaria - Assets Management Company from the Bank Restructuring (AKA the bad bank of Spain). It is a assets management corporation transferred by the four nationalized entities (BFA - Bankia, Catalunya Banc, NCG Banco

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- Banco Gallego and Banco de Valencia), and entities under restructuring or resolution as provided for in Law 9 / 2012 (Banco Mare Nostrum, CEISS, Box3 and Liberbank). SAREB is owned 55% by private capital, and 45% by public capital through the FROB (Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring).

The main objective is to maximize the profit of its assets during 15 years.

VPO: Vivienda de Protección Official – Housing of Official Protection.

Private-owned houses benefitting different State subsidies.

TIMELINE 1918: World War I 1920-30: Primo de Rivera’s regime 1936-39: Civil War 1939-75: Francoism 1978: Instauration of democracy and New Constitution 1982: Socialist party in power since the dictatorship 1985: Entry in the European Union 2002: Appropriation of the Euro as the monetary currency. * * * 1956: Law of the Land 1964-85: 40/64 Rent control law 1961-76: ‘Housing Plan’, years of ‘Wild urbanism’ and desarrollismo 1986-92: financial crisis 1992: Barcelona host the Olympic Games 1997-2007: Housing bubble 1998: Amendment of the Law of the Land 1985: Law Boyer (rent contracts reduced to 1 year long) 1994: Another rent amendment that changes the contracts from

1 to 5 years 1998: Savings account for youth’s housing accessibility 2002: Reform of labor bill 2004: Creation of the Minister of Housing 2005-07: Creation of SPAVIVE 2008: Eviction crisis 2015: 25/14 ILP

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0 - INTRODUCTION Setting the political and economic context of the housing crisis ‘‘Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.’’

UN General Assembly, 1948, art 25.1

In the last thirty years, there has been the largest growth of unequally distributed wealth in the world. The gap between rich and poor has increased alarmingly. This gap reaffirmed what Tono Albareda (2002), president of DESC1, calls the ‘‘indivisibility of all human rights: the need of every right for every person’’ (p.14). How can one talk about the right to freedom of speech when there is no right to education? Or how does one have a right to life when there is no right to health care? It is pretty clear that one right cannot be promoted if others are not guaranteed. Moreover, one can see that there are no guarantees for equal rights in this globalized society that has drawn thousands of migrants to cities and bears thousands of daily displacements. For example, one knows that economic, social and cultural rights are overlooked, resulting in people without access to basic needs such as water, electricity and housing. As DESC declares, ‘‘the DESCs are as essential [as civil and political rights]; however, neither the public opinion assumed them as ‘‘rights’’ nor have there been actions or campaigns to propel them.’’ (Albareda, 2002, p.14) It is important to understand how these rights have been historically overlooked and how neglecting them has resulted in a power structure of hierarchy of oppression, a hegemonic2 structural issue that impacts us all. Throughout the paper I encourage the understanding of the importance of housing rights and its ramifications if there are no housing rights.

1. Observatorio de Derechos Humanos, DESC -Derechos Económicos, Sociales y Culturales – Human Rights Watch, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

2. a) preponderant influence or authority over others : domination <battled for hegemony in Asia>. b) the social, cultural, ideological, or economic influence exerted by a dominant group (Merriam-webster).

According to the Pis(o) Pilot(o) Exhibition in Barcelona in 2015, ‘‘the home, as much as the street, is a collective issue, playing an equal role in giving structure to the shape and content of the urban space.’’ The guarantee of the right to housing is the keystone for the guarantee to the basic rights of the city, such as education, jobs and healthcare.

Due to the massive immigration from rural to urban settings over the past and current century, The Cañada Real is a stretch of land at the outskirts of Madrid, Spain, known by the presence of informal settlements in there.

Introduction 13

global cities are overpopulated and overlook basic needs of citizens. There are however, examples of responses to conventional ways of accessing housing and to the lack of resources to accessible housing. One can see examples of self-management, self-organization, informal housing to meet these basic needs, such as the favelas in Brazil, the slums in India, Lagos, and most of Latin-American countries. According to Sen (1987), ‘‘poverty is a failure to meet the basic capabilities,’’ a failure seen within the dichotomies that people face: choice versus deprivation of basic needs. These examples of informal housing are clear signs of a failure to support all lives. There are also signs of contradictions found in the application of housing as a right and of policies of inclusion and the political willingness to talk about these issues.

The vulnerabilities that marginalized and poor communities face when accessibility to housing becomes a privilege is a call to act with urgency on housing issues. There are different ways the housing crisis reaches cities: either through lack of government actions and lack of basic structures, or Torre Agbar by Jean Nouvel, Barcelona Spain. The area around the through the survival efforts of citizens when creskyscraper is being developed very quickly and many old buildings have been demolished in the last years. ating informal shelters, or squatting in the empty overstock of the city’s housing market. There are important examples around the globe that accentuate the intersections of the housing question and its relation with grassroots resistance and organizations. Barcelona, Spain, which I will use as a case study, demonstrates the connection between the housing emergency and the citizens’ resistance within the city. Considering Spanish history and its precedents of collective political consciousness amongst residents, I analyze the connections between the Spanish housing overstock and citizens’ resistance. Throughout the next pages, I will demonstrate the relation between housing being a social issue and the development of Barcelona’s grassroots organization as historically influenced by anarchist ideology. The fight for the right to decent housing is also a fight against an intense eviction crisis and the neoliberal capitalist individualistic mindset of property and ownership.

Housing: its importance and role in the economy Housing is a dominant issue within the domestic politics of Europe. It is a basic human need and right. Accordingly, it reflects the inequalities of the

14 Introduction

system: especially when there is speculation in the housing market, turning the right to housing into a commodity.3 When the right to housing is overlooked, accessibility becomes a privilege rather than a right. It magnifies the oppression forced upon the lower class, which keeps increasing due to the economic imbalances resulting from neoliberal capitalism.4 In globalized cities, one can observe a trend of internalized classism which encourages the lower class to feel middle class with an illusion of wealth that muffles the housing question, normalizing the commodification of basic needs. This is the case in Spain, since Franco’s creation of the middle class, and the encouragement of property ownership to strengthen a sense of financial support. In the first chapter, I will further analyze the situation in order to better understand the current context of the Spanish economy and housing market. Throughout the thesis, one should be attentive to the current global situation of the housing market, the current neoliberal policies and the commodification of space when privatized.

Right to the city, right to a home “The right to the city is far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city… The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is, I want to argue, one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human rights.’’

Harvey, 2012

3. “an external object, a thing which through its qualities satisfies human needs of whatever kind” (Marx, 2007, p. 125) and is then exchanged for something else, thus being made for sale (or trade). The value of this commodity is not reflected on the use value but rather on its exchange value, determined by the market.

4. Neoliberalism is a series of economic policies that have become widespread during the last 25 years or so. It is defined by the state’s withdrawal from key areas of economic intervention.

The policies include liberating ‘‘free’’ enterprise or private enterprise from any bounds imposed by the government; cutting public expenditure for social services; deregulation; privatization; and eliminating the concepts of ‘‘public good’’ or ‘‘community’’. (Martinez, E., & Garcia, A.)

“Today, buildings have become more important than places.’’

Lewis, 2005

The housing question is strongly linked to social and economic urban tensions. In consequence, the government (city, regional or federal…) has a great role to play, by intervening and privatizing or socializing housing. Although the government should facilitate, and help to provide housing, particularly for poorer and marginalized groups, nowadays, the neoliberal parties tend to lean towards letting the market decide and regulate the access to housing.

This behavior of capital free flow within the housing market hinders people’s right to housing and the city. It is important to recognize how the domestic housing issue is strongly correlated with social problems such as segregation, migration, racism and poverty. The deterioration of some areas and enrichment of others causes the displacement of poor populations to peripheral or downtown areas which lack in basic resources, also known as gentrification. On the one hand, this correlation points to the fact that housing is a reflection of socio-economic inequality. Shelter is a basic need and one’s location within city limits,

Seventy Romanians were cleared from a makeshift shanty town in the former football ground at Hendon, London. UK

Introduction 15

5. The environment is important as a building needs to engage with it in all levels: physically, by respecting the environment and using local and good quality products; and socially by integrating the users and building to the rest of the urban fabric.

6. “The belief that human activities are controlled by the environment. Specific offshoots at the urban scale include architectural determinism. General synonym: environmentalism.’’

(Pacione, M. 2005, p. 669) 7. It is important to note that design factors alone are insufficient when it comes to improve the architectural practice within the complexity of the urban environment.

It needs to be backed up by mentioning also the dynamic process of management and maintenance of the space. http://www.psi.org. uk/publications/archivepdfs/Housing/JV3.pdf

and determines one’s accessibility to education, food, jobs and healthcare. In addition, the neoliberal policies proceed to privatize what once were considered public spaces, such as streets, sidewalks and squares. This privatization is directly correlated to the connection of citizenship and ownership. Without ownership of a space you don’t belong there unless you are consuming and under surveillance. Belonging and the basis of citizenship become centered on ownership.

On the other hand, there is a strong correlation between politics, urbanism and architecture. As the architecture teacher David Bravo (2015) suggests, ‘‘the very meaning of the words are rooted in the city streets and show us that, more than a simple question of aesthetics, architecture and city planning also have an ethical dimension’’ (p. 46). Housing design needs to be seen as an urban issue rather than an architectural one. When talking about urban design, the focus should be on housing units satisfying society’s needs. Housing situations reflect social progress and the socio-economic demographics of a city, unfolding and unraveling hierarchies of power, domination and oppression existent in the space. Furthermore, talking about housing allows us to look beyond the traditional definition of architecture and expand the practice of architecture to encompass a more holistic approach that demands a solid engagement with the user and community. This integrated approach takes into account the needs of the users as well as the urban/rural context5 in addition to the essential good quality of the building. I consider architecture to be more than aesthetic and physical functionality; it also needs to encompass social functionality.

This paper explores the importance of housing and the right to a home as well as the impact when this right is denied. It is also essential to talk about architecture in housing dialogue. Even though I strongly disagree with environmental and architectural determinism,6 I do believe that the quality and resources within and around the built environment influence human behavior.

One can see the impact when inhabitants either thrive or deteriorate under the stress of inappropriate habitats or their absence. I want to emphasize that both quality of building and urban context7 are key factors in the interrelation between housing and poverty problems. Accordingly, the physicality of cities is an expression of our social lives. In situations where the economic drive is construction, the materiality and physicality of the urban context takes on more importance than the users themselves. During the period of industrialization and modernization of cities (accelerated in the late 20th and early 21st centuries), like in Spain for example,

Rocinha is the largest favela in Brazil, and is located in Rio de Janeiro’s South Zone. Since 1993, Rocinha is officially considered a neighborhood.

16 Introduction

the economy focused on constructing housing and hubs of culture and production. In the next pages I will discuss the case of Spain, where the construction sector and the real-estate development sector controlled the economy and focused too much on the physicality of the built environment. This created an overstock of housing units that do not respond to the society’s needs, which caused a severe housing and eviction crisis at the beginning of this century.

In 1973, amongst one of the first thinkers, John Turner in ‘‘Freedom to Build’’ states the idea that, The most common objection to changes in public policy which would increase a user’s control of housing at the expense of centralized institutions is that standards would be lowered as a result. The standards the objectors have in mind, however, are not something that can be achieved with available resources, but, rather, represent the objector’s own notion of what housing ought to be.

In 2005, Sally Lewis (p. xiv) echoes Turner’s words in her Design Agenda for Urban Housing, …what makes a good place? To answer this, housing needs to be described not in terms of what it is but in terms of what it creates: it is not about houses but about the places housing makes; it is not about visual appeal alone but how buildings and spaces perform together; it is not a series of icons but rather a complex and cohesive interplay of form, space and social dynamics.

The quality of the space depends as much on the quality of its location as the quality of the interactions with the immediate area. When talking about housing, one needs to look beyond its built form and focus on what this built form creates within urban and social power structures. The key lies in the interaction of the buildings, how the built and designed spaces perform together or not. I perceive that the interplay of form, space and social dynamics is the collision of architecture and urbanism.

The provision of homes should be more than just immediate space, more than just a set of rooms or a couple of square meters separated by walls.

The quality and internal dimensions of a home are as important as its external relationship with its immediate environment.

It is difficult to see the whole (environment) in the part (houses). Urban planning and architecture focus at different scales and have been mistaken

Children are pictured between the shacks which have been built by gypsies on a disused railway line beside a ring road in Paris, France.

Introduction 17

as separate ways of handling the built space. But in a certain way, they have been treated from the same lack of fieldwork and position of power: seen and practiced from the desk. Urban housing needs to transcend this position of power and focus on the details of the space created. It needs to shift its scale to the human scale. Housing becomes an architectural and urban planning issue simultaneously. However this should not exclude good architecture: good urban housing needs good design; it is intrinsic in its creation. The practice of architecture and urban planning from a ‘bird’s-eye view’ rather than from a ‘human’s view’ can be noticed in spaces born from private and neoliberal enterprises, discussed in detail in chapter 2.

In addition, good urban housing has the requirement to engage with its immediate area and to engage with the community. This encompasses a healthy interplay between users, neighbors, and the wider community within the design process. This effective interaction of engagement with the community is needed in any kind of design. The interplay between architecture and urban design that I’ve been developing can be considered under the concept of place-making. Place-making is an important concept, especially when understanding the importance of accommodating a city to the inhabitants’ (locals’) needs rather than to the tourists and what this entails. During the third chapter I explore how residents’ efforts to fight for the right to housing is intrinsic in their effort to demand the concept of place-making be taken into account.

Literature Review

8. Members of DESC agree on a need to modify and replace “all Spaniards’’ by “all Spaniards and all the people who live and work in the Spanish State.’’

(Riera. 2003. p. 12).

18 Introduction

“Todos los españoles8 tienen derecho a disfrutar de una vivienda digna y adecuada. Los poderes públicos promoverán las condiciones necesarias y establecerán las normas pertinentes para hacer efectivo este derecho, regulando la utilización del suelo de acuerdo con el interés general para impedir la especulación. La comunidad participará en las plusvalías que genere la acción urbanística de los entes públicos.”

Art. 47, Cap. 3, Título I. La Constitución Española de 1978 “All Spaniards have the right to enjoy decent and adequate housing. Public authorities shall promote the necessary conditions and establish relevant standards to enforce this law, regulating the use of land in accordance with the general interest to prevent speculation. The community will participate in capital gains generated by the urban action of public bodies.”

When my interest in citizens’ resistance started growing, I looked at the grassroots movements around housing in the US, like SNOL (Springfield No One Leaves) in Springfield, MA and ACE (Alternatives for Community Organizing), in Boston, MA. After studying the works and importance of grassroots organization alongside the history of public housing and squatters’

movements in the Americas (North & South), I became very interested in looking into the history of citizen organizing in Spain, and more concretely how they organized themselves around the housing question. The right to housing in the Spanish state has been violated systematically; and public administrations have been complicit in the violations. Since 2008, Spain has been one of the countries most affected by the world financial and political crisis. This crisis has especially affected the housing situation and resulted in a large number of people living in very poor conditions or in the streets from one day to the next. Miloon Kothari (2003), the United Nations Special Rapporteur on adequate housing with the Human Rights Council, officially reiterates it by claiming that ‘‘the global crisis of the right to housing and the right to the land has been marked by a series of violation of human rights internationally known.’’(p. 15) The economic and social crisis has catalyzed the birth of urban political movements and insurgent citizens ready to assume their rights and exercise them. These urban political movements have begun to unsettle the neoliberal status quo and shift the social panorama towards a feeling of deep discontent and criticism. This has resulted in ‘new’ collectives and associations while contesting the political and neoliberal status quo of the cities,9 which I will look at in later chapters (Swyngedouw, 2015, p. 173). After a literature review, I will discuss my primary research. In this work I intend to analyze how the citizens of Barcelona react and respond to the housing crisis, organizing and fighting throughout different creative and autonomous practices. I discuss the impact of these practices on the society and political power. Additionally, I analyze to what extent they reach the government and force them to change their agenda and respond to the housing emergency.

The housing question has been on the table for roughly over a century and a half and thus has been a topic of interest in the research world for many decades. In order to carry out my research on the housing question in Barcelona, I needed to research what works were already available in relation to the housing situation and the Spanish and European housing market, and the importance and history of social housing. I identified a number of literary pieces that delves into the housing question. I was first inspired by Whitehead, C. M., & Scanlon, K. (2007), Social Housing in Europe, a book that talks about the history and importance of social housing in Europe. It compares related statistics of social housing across countries, while stating the importance of the recognition for a Welfare State. It is important to gather and review the existent literature in order to compare and analyze what has been written previously, and to identify the gaps between the two. * * *

9. These resistances include from grassroots movements to cooperative housing alternative proposals, all contributing to the challenge of the imposed and not working status quo

10. Pisarello, G. (2003) Vivienda para todos: Un derecho en (de)construcción, el derecho a una vivienda digna y adequada como derecho exigible. Barcelona: Icaria Editorial.

11. Risc, O. D., & Curbet, J. (2005). Habitatge: Cohesió social i sostenibilitat: Informe 2005 de l’Observatori del Risc.

Barcelona: Institut d’Estudis de la Seguretat. Informe 2005 Observatori del Risc.

Introduction 19

12. Castela, T. (2011) A liberal Space: A history of the Illegalized Workingclass extensions of Lisbon, University of California, Berkeley. And Castela, T. (2015). ‘‘Por historias Situadas de la Division Urbana: Las extensiones Ilegalizadas de Lisboa en el Programa de Armonia Social de las Dictaduras en Portugal.

Estudios del ISHiR, 11, 10-36.

13. Cattaneo, C., & Martínez, M. A. (2014). The squatters’ movement in Europe: Commons and autonomy as alternatives to capitalism. London: Pluto Press 14. Paz, A. Rebollo, A. (&more). (2003) La Barcelona rebelde: Guía de una ciudad silenciada.

Barcelona: Octaedro.

15. Borja, J. et al. (1972). La Gran Barcelona. Madrid: Alberto Corazón 16. Moneo, R. (1982). El urbanismo contemporáneo: 1950-1980. Vivienda y Urbanismo en España, Banco Hipotecario, Madrid. Retrieved from http://www-etsav. upc.es/personals/monclus/ cursos2002/moneo.htm 17. ‘‘Barcelona desapareguda’’, ‘‘Bereshit: La Reconstrucció de Barcelona i Altres Mons’’, ‘‘Barcelofilia’’, ‘‘Barcelona Redescoberta’’, ‘‘Barcelona Oblidada’’, ‘‘Barchinona’’, ‘‘Viaje a la Barcelona Secreta’’, amongst others.

18. Along with the Mayor’s Office of Medellín and Barcelona City Council, and in association with the Museum of Antioquia. For more information about the different proposals exhibit, visit http://www.pisopiloto.org/ca/propostes/

20 Introduction

There is literature on a wide range of topics, but the sources are few, and some of them contain doubtful information, or are very one-sided. The range of sources fluctuate from literature that claims housing as a right (Pisarello, G. 2003);10 literature that exposes the housing situation in Barcelona Risc, (O. D., & Curbet, J. 2005)11 and literature that examines how people are affected by the lack of measures that protects housing and the basic needs (DESC).

I also delve into literature that illustrates the connections between welfare and social well-being with the importance of providing accessible housing to the citizens (Castela, T. 2011).12 These authors of the aforementioned works are usually collectives such as la PAH (anti-evictions movement), DESC or squatters’ collectives. There are analytical critiques about citizens’ resistance and organizations as well as academic works about informal housing and the collective power to create alternative housing accessibility within a capitalistic system (Cattaneo, C., & Martínez, M. A. 2014).13 Most of my sources have been published in the last century and are contemporary, as I am presenting a thesis on current issues. Some of the sources touch on the historical precedents and the context that leads to such current situations such as Paz, A. Rebollo, A. (et. al.) (2003),14 Borja, J. et al. (1972),15 Moneo, R. (1982),16 Naredo, M. (2005). Important to note that within news sources (El Pais, El Publico, El Mundo, El Periodico, Kaosenlared, DemocraciaYa!, Nou Horitzons…), some years are well documented, and some years are not, when these issues are not ‘‘news worthy.’’ This practice of not reporting becomes a way to silence the actions happening around the housing question and hinders the action of spreading of the word and encouragement distributed when documented. There is also a lack of news sources that illustrate the eviction problems and the relation between the construction lobbyists and the government. There are quite a few blogs and websites17 dedicated to Barcelona’s historical photos, which attract millions of visitors. However, there is a noticeable lack of sources regarding the transparency of accessible housing, echoed by David Bravo’s statement in Metrópolis (2015), a magazine about Barcelona, that states that ‘‘houses and our ability to fall into debt by buying one is one of the main measures of the country’s wealth and national solvency. Housing is the new gold standard’’ (p.48).

Information about this issue is scarce, the little information that exists will be exposed in this thesis.

Although there is a lot of self-managed information (websites, social media etc) from the different grassroots movements that I will analyze in the thesis, there is not as much information about them written by external sources. In addition, a magazine called La Metxa, created by various self-managed groups in Gràcia is useful. The cooperatives have more external sources reporting about them. There is a lack of information considering the government’s actions and policy changes, even the ones claimed done through a participatory

process. The citizens clearly state that they have not been invited in the process nor informed about the imposed results. Moreover this past summer, the Center for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB)18 exhibited Pis(o) Pilot(o), a cross-disciplinary exhibition that ‘‘seeks to overcome the limitations of conventional town planning in order to undertake a collective exploration and experiment with the housing solutions offered by the combination of public and domestic space.’’ This exhibition has put the cards on the table and shown Barcelona the housing reality that most refuse to see.

In order to gather relevant data and to experience how these resistance movements are lived and carried out, and to understand the power and impact of these social movements I wanted to write about, I needed to do some field work to fill in the gaps found in the literature. In previous years, I learned how fieldwork has two main components: observation/participation and interviews. Therefore, I started by narrowing the social movements I was interested in. I looked at the information I gathered previously and decided I could categorize these different resistance movements into two or even three groups: citizens’ reactions to the housing emergency and claims to autonomy; cooperatives (collaboration with city council through them ‘lending’ the land); and administrative and public authorities’ reactions. Another way of narrowing down was to focus on research and movements created after 2007, after the crisis began. I decided to visit and talk to at least two groups corresponding to each of these topics. I managed to get information on everything, more on citizens’ resistance and less on cooperatives, which reflects the fact that there are more neighborhood social movements than cooperatives (not to mention that it was easier to gather contacts from the citizens’ resistance than cooperatives). Due to time constraints, I interviewed rather the people who were available, which narrows the scope of the information gathered.

Over this past summer, I attended a couple of meetings of la PAH which left me eager for more information and I came back almost every week, either Monday or Tuesday (their main meeting days) of my break to sit in the meetings, learn, listen and observe how they were doing. It was a bit intimidating at first, because the meetings I attended over the summer were in a room full of over 50 people.20 After attending a couple of meetings, I interviewed a veteran member of the organization, Carlos Macia, who filled in the gaps that were documented by the media and answered the questions I gathered from the meetings I attended.

19

19. All the movements and groups mentioned here will be furthered introduced and explained after this introduction.

20. Luckily, the first meeting that I attended over the break coincided with an announcement of a student that was writing a thesis about la PAH that wanted to gather all the people doing research about la PAH, and create a data base to work from there and not ‘‘disturb’’ the organization’s members. It has been interesting and enriching to hear about these other students writing about la PAH’s impact or way of organizing.

Parallel to this, I wandered a lot around Gracia and this ‘‘Banc Expropiat’’ caught my attention. I approached it and looked at the papers that were on top

Introduction 21

21. A civil rights activist group comprised mainly of the older generation, emerged from the Ocupy Barcelona movement. They reference the perroflautas, which are a type of okupas..

of a table outside, letters to tourists about their impact in the neighborhood.

Next to them, la Metxa, magazine made by the collectives hosted by the social center with some articles that talk about gentrification. ‘‘They must have a group that talks and deals with the housing situation in this center,’’ I thought and when I saw an agenda written on the big side window stating that they meet every Wednesday. I showed up the following Wednesday not knowing what to expect, but quite sure I would encounter a group of okupas. The meeting was rather small, run by young people that were not okupas. They were just young people with the desire to help and create a network of people.

At the first meeting I attended, they were figuring out how to keep going with their meetings. They made some of them ‘internal meetings’, which left me with not that many meetings to attend. It was nevertheless interesting to arrive at a moment when the group was reconfiguring and assessing their work. It was important to attend to the meetings before conducting an interview, to have a clearer idea of what to ask.

In addition to PAH and Oficina d’habitatge, I tried to interview people that would further represent the stakeholders I am talking about in this thesis. I also conversed with the iaioflauta21 and longtime housing activist, Pere Cuadrado, who has been involved in the struggle since the Civil War (1936-1939) and and international media journalist, Oliver Bourgeois, who has developed a close relationship with Ada Colau (the current mayor of Barcelona) and la PAH. I also talked to people in the city council such as Vanesa Valiño and Ricard Fernandez, both working in the housing and urban department, and Ricard Fernandez who works in the social rights department. Finally, I interviewed Pilar, okupa and lawyer who fights for squatters’ rights and Juan (pseudonym), a businessman and construction developer in Barcelona.

Chapter review and key questions From the literature, the data and conversations gathered, the scope of my research translates into a broad analysis, and thus I decided to write the first chapter with a generic focus on Spain’ to set the context. I then review the history of the construction sector since the 80’s, in addition to analyzing the situation of this last decade and the factors contributing to such a deep housing and eviction crises. Then I introduce how the housing system is in a state of emergency: lots of people who get fired from one day to the next and then evicted, while still facing high priced mortgages. This chapter intends to set a context for understanding the housing bubble and crisis. The second chapter centers in Barcelona, where I explore the context of the crisis and the aftermath, the present time, and how Spain is about to fall into another crisis. This chapter examines the long history of citizens’ resistance and organizations intertwined with the urban history of Barcelona and its current situation, tackling gentrification and tourism. Both of these first two chapters encompass

22 Introduction

historical facts from the past century until the present. In the third chapter, I introduce the core of my thesis: my research on the creative reactions, resistance, and responses of the citizens to the housing crisis. I identify three different types of organizations and resistance, which I illustrate with current examples of citizen interventions. How do people reach a collective political consciousness? What is the impact of these movements socially and legally?

I close the paper with the fourth chapter, an analytical conclusion about my observations and a commentary about current political trends. The main conclusion I draw from this study is the importance of housing to be considered as a social right and the drawbacks that the citizens face when they are not protected from housing exclusion/eviction. Associated with this, comes the relation between the construction sector and lobbies, the real estate developers and the government, and the clear economic interest it has in protecting the construction sector. In addition we can find a clear relation between the importance and priority given to construction and the current gentrification and tourist issue in the city.

In the thesis that follows, I will attempt to answer several questions. First, why is there such a high percentage of home ownership in Spain? Second, relating this to the capitalist system, how are alternatives for better housing accessibility born if the system keeps on prioritizing private housing? How can housing become more accessible? Thirdly, how can the focus change to reconsider the importance of ownership? Fourth, how can a dialogue between government and citizens be initiated about informality and the creation of an integrated community or several communities, and move from emphasis on the individual to the larger community? According to the Constitution, public authorities have to regulate the usage of the land to avoid speculation. Has this been the case from 1978 till today? If not, how is the government complicit in the existent speculation? It is important to keep these questions in mind when thinking about how neoliberal policies tend to undervalue social, cultural, and economic rights. Throughout my education, I have learned the importance of community engagement and organizing alongside to the importance of the human scale versus the monumental scale, elements that I explore deeply in the next chapters. I urge us to understand the different impacts of working only with the physical environment versus working with the people. In order to understand the current situation, it is important to be attentive to the parallels and connections that I will point out between structural institutional policies rooted in its historical neoliberal antecedents. Moreover, what is happening in Barcelona is not universal, but can be studied in order to understand and be compared with how other grassroots movements work within and without the system and their impact on social and environmental change.

Introduction 23

1

25

26 27 31 36 41

THE HOUSING BUBBLE: 1975-2007

Franco’s Legacy Housing accessibility,renting, owning, VPO Housing Bubble: Building up to the crisis Eviction Crisis Housing Crisis: the aftermaths of the bubble

24 The housing bubble: 1975 - 2007

1 - THE HOUSING BUBBLE: 1975 - 2007 This first chapter opens with a description of the three different ways to access a house in Spain currently. Following, it focuses on the political and economic context of Spain, starting with the Civil War in 1936 into Francoism and how the construction sector has become primordial within the Spanish economic drive. My focus is to show the different actors and policies that facilitated the emergence of the housing bubble and crisis. I then introduce the emergency situation, showing the complexities of a crisis and how this one is focused on thousands of daily evictions and mass tourism. This chapter is important in order to understand how the current economic and political context of Spain is rooted historically and comprehend its development and impact.

Spain is composed of 17 ‘‘autonomous communities’’, which are first level political and administrative divisions created in the Spanish Constitution in 1978. Each autonomous community has its own sovereignty to plan and its housing politics are managed by the town hall. However, the fact that the State has Executive power on issues such as policies concerning interest rates and mortgages, social housing promotion and rent regulation, the rules regarding eviction and especially the uneven budget distribution places the State in the center of the game (DESC, & PAH, 2013, p. 50).

Figure 1) a. Map of the 17 autonomous communities of Spain. Source: Rodriguillo, 2007.

The housing bubble: 1975 - 2007 25

Housing accessibility: renting, owning, VPO ‘‘The millions of displaced people do not exist anymore. When history is written they won’t be in it. Not even as statistics. (…) True, they’re not being annihilated or taken to gas chambers, but I can warrant that the quality of their accommodation is worse than in any concentration camp of the Third Reich.

They’re not captive, but they redefine the meaning of liberty.’’

Roy, A. 1999. The Greater Common Good. ‘‘Considering that there are houses standing there while you let us go without shelter. We have decided now to move into them because we're no longer content with our holes.’’

Bertolt, B. 1871. Resolution of the Communards

1. This situation happens when the owners (individuals and corporations) of the housing stock are wealthy and own multiple units that then they profit off of by renting or reselling.

Figure 1) b.

Differences between the ownership, renting and VPO model (own and Naredo, 2010)

26 The housing bubble: 1975 - 2007

In Spain, there are three legal ways to access a property: renting, owning, and social housing called VPO (Vivienda de Protección Oficial- Housing of Official Protection). On one hand we have the model of ownership of property, incentivized by a tax deduction on mortgage interest (similar to a State subsidy), seen as a sign of wealth and social status and possible way to tax concealment through laundering money.1 Supported by the neoliberal agenda, it encourages the free market housing stock versus investing in social housing, in order to get the maximum profit out of the housing unit. On the other hand, there’s the renting model, which is not very protected by the State. Within Europe, countries tend to have a higher percentage of rental or public housing. This trend is represented by Holland’s and Sweden’s policies which encourage and promote the ‘‘Welfare State’’ through hosting a higher percentage of social housing. In contrast with the rest of the European countries, Spain’s public housing, called the VPO system, happens when the

developer obtains a subsidy from the State and the autonomous communities that reduces the final prices of the housing unit (Equipo, VPO, 2009). The protected housing unit’s price is lower than private housing, and thus catered to families with a low salary to promote accessibility to housing. However, ever since the Spanish economy fell into recession the VPO has been mainly offered within the private sector, used as a motivator for private construction growth. Furthermore, the laws disregarded the practice of VPO so VPO units were almost nonexistent within the housing plans and the VPO for sale did not have long term protection, resulting in its resale years later for very high prices. This practice results from a clause that confirms the option of selling the VPO’s to the private market and profiting from them (Sanchez and Plandiura, 2003). In addition, the Spanish State encourages ownership of property as the ultimate way of accessing housing.

Here we have Figure 1) b. that shows three models –owning versus renting versus VPO- that have different consequences within three main areas: the housing market stock, the urban territory, and the urban and construction sector, in addition to some financial implications. In the following figure one can see the main differences between the three ways of accessing housing.

Franco’s legacy During the First World War, as Spain took a neutral position in the war, it exported products that provoked an inflation that a couple of years later turned into a crisis. This crisis almost dragged Spain to a civil war by 1920. Three years later, Primo de Rivera led a military coup that resulted in his military dictatorship until 1930. The anarchist movement that began in the 1870’s in Spain, came to fruition in July 1936, in Republican-held territory, and initiated a social revolution. After being under the control of centralized regimes the Spanish population was very receptive to ‘‘the anarchist aims for communal self-managed production, political decentralization, and cultural autonomy.’’ (Breitbart, 2011, p. 1) There were collectives being created all around rural Spain. Cities, such as Barcelona, were transformed into federations of neighborhoods, factories into communities of work. All around Catalunya and Republican Spain, large industries were self-managed by anarcho-syndicates and/or socialist unions

Anarchism triumphed in Spain in the early decades of the twentieth century. Its concepts of “community” and “solidarity”, closely linked it to the revolutionary syndicalism, which relied on the masses for a successful revolution.

The destruction wrought on Granollers after a raid by German aircraft on 31 May 1938.

All around Catalunya and Spain, large industries were self-managed by anarcho-syndicates and/or socialist unions.

The housing bubble: 1975 - 2007 27

(Bolloten, 1961, p. 48-54; Brademas, 1955; Breitbart, 2011, p. 1). Anarchists, Marxists, Liberals, Republicans and Social Democrats allied together against the fascists also known as the Nationalists, and a three year long Civil War ensued. The period that followed the brutal end of the Civil War and fascist victory in 1939, known as Francoism, lasted until 1977. This involved a coalition of authoritarian, nationalistic and conservative ideologies represented through the patriarchal figure of Francisco Franco. When Franco died in 1975, and democracy was reinstituted in 1978, Catalunya got back its autonomous government, la Generalitat de Catalunya (Breitbart, 2011, p. 1). It was not until 1982 that socialists came to power in the State and up until today, five different heads of the Catalan government took over the office: Jordi Pujol (1980-2003), Pasqual Maragall (2003 – 2006) José Montilla (2006-20010), Artur Mas (20102016) and Puigdemont (2016). Convergencia Democràtica de Catalunya (right wing) and Partido de los Socialistas de Catalunya (socialists), respectively.

2. From now on, unless stated otherwise, ‘government’ refers to the central Spanish government as it is the one that has the executive power for all the political decisions mentioned throughout the paper.

With a history of communalism, where does this obsession for owning a house come from? Private property is synonymous with stability, quality and financial investment. After the end of the Civil War in 1939, private ownership was highly incentivized by Franco, overshadowing the renting sector. In 1964, the Law 40/64 was approved State wide, which maintained rent control until 1985 (Rodríguez, 2010, p. 125; Sánchez and Escribano, 1995).2 This resulted in a rapid decrease in the supply of rental housing stock, all the new housing destined to be occupied by its owner. In addition to the government providing little to no affordable housing, there is direct aid to families investing in a house through subsidies given as tax relief on mortgage interest payments; subsidies to the purchase of standard houses for the middle and working classes with flexible regulations. The government offers no alternative ways for inhabitants to access a home other than to purchase it into the private market.

According to Cattaneo, 2014 (p. 39) and Naredo, 2005, home ownership is a mindset that comes from the dictatorship period as a solution to maintain public order. The more people are connected and attached to their dwellings, the less likely (it is assumed) that they will challenge the social order, particularly when swamped in payment responsibilities resulting from buying a property. The architect David Bravo also affirms that ‘‘in order to shake

A family in Madrid during the postwar period.

28 The housing bubble: 1975 - 2007

The soup kitchen for children proliferated after the Civil War.

off the grey heritage of Francoism, Barcelona turned public space into a vessel for the young democracy; yet the domestic space remained in the hands of the market.’’ (2015, p.47) Therefore the private property project started during Franco’s Regime kept going in the democratic years, along with the destruction of social housing. Graph 1) a. shows the trend of the evolution of the different housing models along this past 60 years in Spain.

In 1950’s, 46% of the housing stock was owner occu- Water restrictions in Madrid, December 15, 1950. pied and 54% was tenant occupied. According to Belil, Borja and Cotri, DESC (2013), Naredo (2010), and Rodriguez (2010), in the cities the ratio was even higher, Barcelona had 95% of housing stock in the rental market. The economy was recovering from the Civil War and Barcelona was receiving a wave of migrant workers coming from rural Andalucía and Extremadura looking for a place to live and jobs in the richer cities. The housing stock was not enough to house all the people, so from mid-sixties to midseventies, the so called ‘‘years of development’’, there was a ‘Housing Plan 3. This shows the correlation 1961-1976’, included within the Economic and Social Development Plan,3 as between the construction sector, the economic drive of the an alternative to relaunch the economy through promoting construction. The country and the tourism indusplan proposed a process of re-qualifying the land’s value for the benefit of the try. (Rodríguez, 2010, p. 125) construction sector, promoting more building. This expansion of edification would include surrounding green zones and agricultural land to be considered for building purposes: there was rezoning and urban recodification.

This was the first wave of ‘‘wild urbanism’’, catalyzing a fast paced urban sprawl along the Spanish coast. According to Borja (1972) and Naredo (2010), the population doubled in big cities such as Madrid and Barcelona.

The overstock of construction and its ‘urgency’ promoted tearing down of old construction to make more but less quality construction, disregarding the option of reusing or repurposing, and disregarding the new use and purpose of the new buildings. This metastasis of the housing units was a redundant

Graph 1.

Evolution of the housing trends in Spain, 1950-2001.

Source: Carbajal, A.

The housing bubble: 1975 - 2007 29

move as the construction sector was not anticipating the burst of the housing bubble, due to the constant influx of migrants. By 1970, the proportion of private property and renting reversed: 64% of home ownership and 32%, rental. Furthermore, according to Cattaneo (2014, p. 39), Naredo (2010) and Rodríguez (2010), from 1981 to 1991, the housing sector increased by 40% as a consequence of the demographic boom and migration, as well as the ‘new’ concept of second residency and the tourist afflux. The ‘second house in the mountain/beach’ became a commodity made available for ‘‘everybody’’ through mortgages. Being a home owner meant capital gain, which created an ‘‘effect of feeling rich’’, boosting a consumerist mindset and a foreign deficit for the Spanish economy (Arellano and Samuel, 2009; Naredo, 2010).

Since the new constitution in 1978, more centrality is given to the autonomous communities, different states within Spain, in terms of housing and urbanism policies. Furthermore, according to Juli Ponce, referred by DESC (2001, p.54), these politics have a so called ‘‘desarrollista’’ vision through prioritizing the right to own land over other rights involving spatial territory needs such as the right to decent housing (art 47 Spanish Constitution), right to equity (art 14), right to the environment (art 45), right to religious freedom (art 16) and right to education (art 27). Putting the right to own land as a priority weakens the need for including housing as a social right and increases the regulation and management of land from the private sector. In addition, these policies that facilitated the management and right of owning land through privatization enabled different ways of getting profit out of home ownership, which also meant savings for the future and for renting when not using housing for the present. Ownership of property is thus used as a counter balance for the lack of social rights: it is a safety net for senior precariousness and lack of pensions and it is some sort of investment for the future. I urge us to remember this fact in order to understand today’s housing landscape and lack of basic social needs amongst the Spanish State.

A first financial crisis happened from 1986-1992 when Spain, and especially Barcelona, received a lot of money and input from international investors due to the Olympic Games event. Social polarization emerging between people with access to a house (renting or owning) and people excluded, resulted from

The war leaves a country in ruins, divided and with serious problems of supply.

The Franco regime has three distinct stages: isolation period (40's-50's), breaking the blockade and opening period.

30 The housing bubble: 1975 - 2007

There were collectives being created all around rural Spain. Cities, such as Barcelona, were transformed into federations of neighborhoods, factories into communities of work.

this first financial crisis. As Cattaneo (2014) argues, during the second financial crisis 1997-2007, this polarization grew between ‘‘indebted households versus financial investors’’ (p. 39). In the 90’s, the construction sector expanded the economy in Spain, but since then it has been out of control. Two main corporate entities have gained power since Franco, taking advantage of this building up of the economy within the housing sector: the housing-construction sector and the different banking entities. Both branches contributed to this speculation and building of the housing bubble from 1997 to 2007.

Housing bubble: building up to the crisis: setting the context 1997-2007 As Gonzalez Cuesta (2008) reaffirms in El Mundo’s report about the economic crash of 2008, ‘‘the Spanish crisis can be summarized in two lines: the coincidence of a worldwide finance crisis with the fall of the construction sector, main driver of the country’s economy for more than a decade.‘‘ Since Spain entered the European Union in 1985, Spain’s progress and economic growth has been very reliant on the housing and construction sector. Spain was the first country of the EU driven by the construction sector, because it had more housing, highway kilometers and high velocity trains per person than any other European country (DESC, PAH, 2013; Naredo, 2010).

From 1997 to 2007, the State approved a series of measures and laws that supported precarious jobs, privatization and more construction. In order to understand the crisis, one needs to go back to the root of the problem, present in the creation of laws regarding land practices. In 1956, a law passed was the first to state the reliance on the private sector being in charge of managing the land. In 1998, José Maria Aznar, former president of Spain governing from the right wing conservative neoliberal party, PP (Partido Popular), approved a law that strengthened the previously mentioned law, known as ‘the law of urbanizing everything’, ‘‘ley del suelo’’ (Rodriguez, 2010). This law of the land to regulate the price of the land, defined as ‘‘building land’’ all land –disregarding whether it was urbanized or not urbanized land. This law was in effect until 2007, eliminated the tax exemption for renters for renting but not the tax exemption when buying. The formula behind the new law was rather simple: increasing the amount of useable construction land, introducing it into the free market and getting it into profitable business -actions that would encourage more developers and individual investments in the housing sector, fueling money for more housing units. This expanded privatization of land and free market speculation. The theory was that the higher the supply, the lower the prices and the more young people would be able to buy houses. ‘‘The urban politics of the Spanish State have been characterized by taking

Figure 1) c. Average housing unit price in the market (€/m2) in Spain from 1985 to 2015.

Source: Appraisal Company and Españistan, 2011.

The housing bubble: 1975 - 2007 31

the construction of housing and infrastructure as a financial investment and speculation rather than fix assets related to the needs of the people’’ (PAH, 2013, p.9) The consequences were the opposite, as the availability of the land decreased, the construction of buildings and the price of housing escalated and housing was monopolized by rich families. As we can see in Figure 1) c. the prices of housing kept increasing up until 2007, reaching an average of 2905 €/m2, price not comprehensive of the wages earned.

Rodriguez (2010) argues that when the objectives of housing plans are so disparate the value of housing in the market does no longer depend on its use value, but rather on its exchange value. The house becomes an object of investment, prices increase faster than the purchasing power of the population and the disproportionate amount of construction does not answer to the needs of the people, resulting in an empty stock of extra housing units, as we can see in the map in Figure 1) d that shows the percentage of empty stock per autonomous community in Spain (2012). Alongside, marginalized people are disregarded and targeted as victims of the process of cleansing. Due to the economic uncertainties and the precariousness of employment and unemployment, in 1997, 80% of youth (18-29 year old) still lived with their parents (in comparison to 30% of the youth in Denmark and 40% in Holland). The Spanish youth were the first victims of the increase in housing prices. This has become a culturally accepted norm, where youngsters stay at home until pretty late –some people are there even when older than their 30’s. In order to incentivize the youth financially, Rodriguez (2010) asserts that the Spanish government launched in 1998 the Housing Accounts Savings for residents under 35, which guarantee above-market interest and tax relief -provided that such savings be allocated to purchase housing in a period of less than 4 to 6 years.

What caused the increase of the construction sector was speculation, as reported by Miloon Kothari in 2003, "the automated trust in the ‘market’ and the privatization taken as the panacea to resolve the crisis of access to housing…" (p. 16) was the core of such speculation. The lobby of construction developers and promoters pushed the State for more construction, which brought people, jobs, more houses and easy mortgages to access the houses. Having rental prices as high as the rates of convenient ownership was a strategy to make homeownership more appealing: banks and Real State agencies marketed mortgages of 100 percent or more of the cost of a property, and ‘‘facilitated’’ loan requirements and guarantors, ‘‘easing’’ Figure 1) d Share of empty residences by region in Spain (2012). According to the official census of residences (2012), Spain has 25.2 million of homes, 14% of which are empty (3.4 million). 1 in 7 houses are inhabited Source: Ministry of Public Works and Transports and National Institute of Statistics (INE)

32 The housing bubble: 1975 - 2007

the process of buying and tricking citizens to get loans for up to 40 years.

Due to the vulnerability of the ‘tenancy regime’ that became official with the Law Boyer, 2/1985, which turned the mandatory rent contracts into one year contracts that enables the owner of the housing unit to increase the rent or evict their tenants, it seemed more profitable to buy property. In 1994, Urban Tenancy Act (LAU) 29/1994,4 turned the one year rental contracts into 5 year minimum and encouraged increase in rental prices after these 5 years (DESC, 2013). With renting housing perceived as residual, an alternative for people who cannot afford to own property, options for housing accessibility are narrowed to practically only owning.

In 2001, Spain became the European country with the highest rate of home ownership –only 15% of Spaniards were renting as opposed to 85% home ownership (Gonzalez Cuesta, 2008). The government never acted upon the above mentioned reliance of home ownership versus lack of social housing and little renting options, until the housing bubble exploded. The government never admitted that Spain was going through a financial and housing crisis and even when they were accepting the rescue from International Monetary Fund (IFM) and the ailing banks, they were using euphemisms such as ‘adjusting the economy’ rather than exposing the truth to the citizens of Spain. The housing bubble was the ‘beginning’ of a long series of corruption cases. As stated in a DESC’s report, ‘‘the relation between developers, financial sector and political power is one of the main explanations of corruption cases that now a days are being under investigation.’’5 This fact has been demonstrated throughout multiple corruption cases dismantled almost daily since the crisis began and up until the present. Most of such corruption cases touch upon urban plans used for money laundering.

In 2002, construction escalated and the president Aznar passed a new labor reform bill; ‘‘intensive flows of incoming migrants and several reforms of employment regulations contributed to keeping salaries very low and work

4. The current LAU articulated a moratorium on the completion rented premises under the rent control of 1964 for a period of twenty years.

The term ended in 2014 and landlords unilaterally modified the conditions of the contracts, increasing rent prices.

5. From the Caso Barcenas, where a presupposed case of payment of sobresueldos to members of the Partido Popular in 200 through business donations, the majority in the construction sector, to the juridical processes of urban corruption such as PalmaArena in Baleares, Pretoria in Santa Coloma and Palau de la Musica in Barcelona. (‘‘de la corrupcion urbanistica a la corrupcion de la democracia’’ en El Estado de Derecho frente a la corrupción urbanística, La Ley, Madrid 2007)

Figure 1) e Disparities in the average price of a house in European cities, 2012. Source: Eurostat

The housing bubble: 1975 - 2007 33

(1) Estimated data for Tenant rent at reduced price or free category (2)Unreliable data for Tenant rent at reduced price or free category Figure 1) f. Housing cost overburden rate 2011-2012. Source: Eurostat

Table 1) a. Housing cost overburden rate by sex, age and tenure status. 2012. Source Eurostat

34 The housing bubble: 1975 - 2007

temporary and precarious’’ (Cattaneo, 2014, p. 40). The supply of dwellings rose, encouraging people to become owners of multiple houses. Thus, in 2002, of the housing stock reported for 41. 84 million inhabitants, a total of 21.487.307 houses were owned in Spain, of which 14.587.227 (67.8%) were primary houses and 6.900.080 (32.1%) were non primary. These statistics6 illustrate the growing inequality between these who have no home and those with funds to own a second house. It also underscores a growing capitalist mindset amongst the population, since money spent on property was tax deductible.

Furthermore, the adoption of the Euro as a currency by 20027 facilitated a high external debt in the Spanish economy. In response, the socialist government created a Minister of Housing in 2004, and soon after, approved the law 8/2007, creating changes within the rigid rules put in place through the ‘law of the land’. For the first time housing is related legally to the social function of the land which enables expropriation in case the owners of the land do not construct with good quality nor renovates the existing stock. In addition, the law makes mandatory that 30% of new residential land is destined to be protected housing VPO and that the evaluation of the land is given its real situation rather than the ‘expected’ situation, which provides a disincentive for the speculation.8 In addition, the law 2/2004, acted as an urban acupuncture, by improving neighborhoods and urban areas that require special attention.

Some people may consider this as an ‘‘antighetto’’ law (DESC, 2013, p.68).

In 2005, Zapatero (PSOE) created the Sociedad Publica de Alquiler, SPAVIVE –Public Society of Rental-9 and in 2007 established an allowance to facilitate access to rent for young people (18 to 35 years) through emancipation.

However, he opened the way for speedier eviction for nonpayment, overlooking situations of social need and increasing the legal uncertainty of disadvantaged tenants (DESC & PAH, 2013, p. 68). The following Figure 1. b., shows the housing cost overburden rate of different European countries, which according to the Eurostat European Statistics, is the percentage of the population living in households where the total housing costs ('net' of housing allowances) represent more than 40 % of disposable income ('net' of housing allowances). According to the European Statistics, in 2012, 11.2% of the EU population spent more than 40% of their disposable income on their household. As we can see in Figure 1) e and table 1) a, in Greece, Denmark, Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, and Spain the housing cost overburden rate exceed 14.0% in contrast to the lowest rates, reported in Malta (2.6%) and Cyprus (3.3%).

We can also see how housing affordability differences among various groups of society, such as an overall trend of women being more vulnerable to housing cost burden than men in Europe. However, there is not a clear trend about a person’s age concerning housing affordability, since most of the countries’

6. Issued by the ‘Ministerio de Fomento’- Ministry of Public Works and Transport-, show how the overstock of housing is used for non-primary use rather than provided for people in need of housing.

For more information about how the overstock is created and existing in the hands of financial identities, read: (2015, Sept. 28) “¿Por qué Los Bancos Tienen Casas? ¿Cómo Las Consiguen?” Spavives. <http://www.spaviv.es/ por-que-los-bancos-tienen-casas-como-las-consiguen/>.

7. From 1999 to 2002, Spain started transitioning through a currency change. By 2002, Spain adopted the Euro, substituting its national currency, pesetas, by the European Union currency. This change has been adopted by 17 other European countries. The use of the euro has resulted in numerous benefits and drawbacks, such as the following. On one hand, the euro facilitates de free circulation of goods, services, people and capital, amongst the UE, as well as a growth of transactions across the world. On the other hand, Spain lost its sovereignty when needing to adjust the currency-s flux to the economic and social situation of the country-all decision are taken from the BCE (Central European Bank) which benefit some countries and disadvantage others; as well as the general price growth due to the conversion of the currency –Spain’s prices fall the currency change was high –there is inflation and ‘‘monetary illusion’’ as well as easier fraud situations. http://www. bde.es/bde/es/secciones/ eurosistema/uem/euro/ and http://www.elmundo. es/especiales/2001/11/ economia/euro/1.html 8. This step is very important but has been postponed thanks to different moratorias. (DESC, 2013, p. 55)

The housing bubble: 1975 - 2007 35

9. The objective was to ease the flow the renting market of housing by incentives of products that increases the market, promotion of ‘insurance of housing’ and management, administration and assessment of renting to third parties.

Created under the supervision of the Minister of Housing, Maria Antonia Trujillo, it ended up not being able to handle the situation and in a big debt, causing SPAVIV’s closing and cutting people out of the business (not paying back what was needed).

More: Lopez, J. (21/01/13) “El Amparo Judicial Ante El Incumplimiento De Los Contratos Por La Sociedad Pública De Alquiler.” Sepin Editorial Juridica. http:// blog.sepin.es/2013/01/ el-amparo-judicial-ante-el-incumplimiento-de-los-contratos-por-la-sociedad-publica-de-alquiler/>. And Salido Cobo, J. (16/03/16) “El Gobierno Liquida La Sociedad Pública De Alquiler Por Cierre.” El Mundo. http://www.elmundo.es/ elmundo/2012/03/15/suvivienda/1331840835.html.

10. Green Peace has documentation about the impact of the constructions in the environment of the coasts: complete destruction of its natural habitat. In addition, in this case homes refers to private property and most likely second residencies whereas housing unit is for any family in need of housing that might not have the resources for it.

elderly population has a tendency to experience trouble affording housing whereas in Spain and Greece the younger group (18-64) suffers more than the elderly (+65). Youth in Spain have been the main victims of the housing crisis, fueled by 50% youth unemployment. This also causes a brain drain.

By 2007, Spain had already constructed more housing units than France, Italy and Germany all together- estimated of 6,6 million housing. This ranks Spain with the highest housing per habitant country of Europe, with a total amount of 25,5 million housing units (PAH, 2013, p.10). Note that the majority of these housing units were constructed in ‘rural areas’, in urban sprawl areas and in tourist spots around the Spanish coast –clearly answering the speculation of the market rather than real needs of inhabitants: 390.000 new homes were created out of the 600.000 housing units created.10 The economy benefited from the housing speculation, unemployment rates decreased, housing prices rose, but salaries were kept the same. According to Saló (2011), from 1998 to 2005, as housing prices doubled (from 100.000 to 200.000€), peoples salaries stayed the same (1.200€).

The price of the housing unit relies more on its location within the city than its dimensions and architectural characteristics. As we can see in Figure 1) g. housing prices in the north (Les Corts, Sarria-Sant Gervasi and Eixample) are higher and housing prices in the east and west of the city are lower.

Furthermore, with figure 1) h. we can see that the areas most affected by the decrease in housing prices are the areas where the prices are already the lowest. This statistic is highly correlated to the map Figure 1) j. where we can see the income inequality distributed by neighborhoods. Therefore, when it comes to neighborhood associations, residents organize by their rent payment capacity, tackling their problems in relation to their location.

eviction crisis This situation was happening mainly because of two factors: (1) the interest rate at which the mortgages were given was very low and the liberation of credit enabled banks to give money to whomever long they wanted and for

Figure 1) j Percentage of decrease of housing price from 2006 to 2014, Barcelona. Source Idealista, 2014.

36 The housing bubble: 1975 - 2007

Map of Barcelona divided in districts. Color coded with graph 7 + 8

however they wanted; (2) the possibility of having a lot of empty housing awaiting speculation without any type of penalty.11 Since 1946, the mortgage law put in place has been modified twice, in law 2/1981, to expand the mortgage market, and in law 41/2007. The mortgage law enabled unlimited liability once the bank had been awarded the property to proceed to the seizure of wages and other property of the person, under implementation of their guarantors (DESC & PAH, 2013, p. 58). In case of lack of payment, the property was auctioned.12 Both figure 1) k and 1) l show the mortgage situation in Spain from 2003 to 2012.

The mortgage law enabled banks and financial institutions to reject the give-in payment, which meant that when people can no longer pay for their mortgages they lose their housing unit. In addition they are required to keep paying the difference in value of the value of the mortgage given and the value of the delivered house. In 2004, in an attempt to further promote the economy, the State passed the law 41/2007 which aggravated the mortgage situation by facilitating even more access to mortgages, thus increasing the risk to families in debt with the banks, the ‘‘overexposure to credit,’’ without taking into account what would happen when mortgages are not paid and people are evicted (DESC & PAH, 2013, p.58). Almost inevitably, due to the bubble and consequential crisis,. residents failed to pay full mortgages or to get the house from the bank, leaving them in the streets with nothing, the banksmseizing all their financial holdings, and being stigmatized as a slowmpayer and defaulter.

Moreover, themlack of back up policy of ‘secondmchances’ or protection of themresidents who were evicted,mresulted in people in the streetsmrather than the relocation ofmfamilies into the (lacking) socialmhousing system. The most abusivempractice during the boom camemfrom the over-debt of middle classmfamilies and vulnerable sectors’ problems accessing housing. Lots of the scenarios involved fraudulent advertisement by so called expertsmthat ruled out any possibility of theminterest rates going up or the crashmof the economy, resulting in amdevaluation of the housing market. In addition, a big part of the interest rates given out includedmdoubtful legal clauses,13 which caused important economic losses to the debtor. The study aboutmthe Housing Emergency in Spain made by DESC and PAH in 2013 shows 5 examples of these abusive practices (p.11):

Graph 7. Average housing price per district (€/m2), Barcelona, 2014.

Source idealista.com + http://www.elperiodico.com/es/graficos/barcelona/ diferencia-precio-pisos-distritos-barcelona-4550/

11. Once banks, developers and constructors could not sell all the new built houses, the vicious circle of recession, unemployment and unpaid debts, contaminated the whole economic life. The credit crunch started primarily at the real-estate sector, but immediately the global financial corporations put a pressure on the government in order to aid the banks who had acquired debts with other international banks and financial agents.

The public budget, finally, ended paying the private game of debt and drove the whole State services into a cul-de-sac which was the perfect location for the implementation of additional neoliberal policies of privatization. (Cattaneo, 2014) 12. If the auction is not completed, the creditor can claim the property by 70% appraised value auction purposes. But in the event that the award by 70% of the appraised value for the purposes of auction covers the total outstanding debt, the bank may claim the property by only 60%. Up until 2011, the law stated that the creditor and bank could claim the property by 50% appraised value auction purposes. Due to the crisis there are few people willing the rebuy the property so the banks claim the properties for lesser value than the appraised value and claim the rest of the debt, in addition to interest rates and judicial costs to the creditor and guarantors.

Graph 8. Average housing price per district (€/m2), Barcelona, 2007.

Source idealista.com + http://www.elperiodico.com/es/graficos/barcelona/ diferencia-precio-pisos-distritos-barcelona-4550/

The housing bubble: 1975 - 2007 37

• License of ‘growing mortgages’: they start up with accessible interest rates adapted to the income of the family and in a short period of time the quotas triple.

13. February 14th Sentence in the Justice Tribunal of the European Union allowed for some significant changes in the way trials work. Juzgado n50 Barcelona of June 5th and 10th of 2013. The legality of the clauses is still being analyzed. (DESC & PAH, 2013, p.17)

• Forced inclusion of additional products of questionable utility within the mortgages: like unemployment insurances which would only be effective when the person is unemployed.

• Establishment of a cross guarantee: through which low income friends, relatives and/or strangers commit to pay their own mortgage and any of the others’ unpaid mortgages.

• Promotion of the ‘bridge mortgages’ that encourage access to better quality housing through the sale of the current residence, which results in people having double mortgages with the outbreak of the crisis.

• Inclusion of ‘floor clauses’ that do not protect the buyer against a rise in interest rates but prevents them from benefitting from the lowering of the former.

Figure 1) j. Average of income per family, Barcelona Spain, 2014.

In 2003, the reporter of United Nations for Housing Rights, Miloon Kothari, wrote an extensive study about the housing situation in Spain and the failure of the State to fulfill the needs of citizens and consider housing as a right rather than a privilege. These charges against the Spanish government come

38 The housing bubble: 1975 - 2007

from three main principles related to human rights: the indivisibility of human rights (housing rights include the right to security, home security, participation, privacy, freedom of movement, access to information, not being arrested out of judgement.. etc); gender equality (it is important to recognize how women have been mistreated and suffered from discrimination that has to been fought against); and non-discrimination (the number of people who face segregation and getthozation has been increasing, resulting in the lack of accessibility to basic human needs such as water, electricity or sanitary amenities) (Kothari, 2003, p.15-16). Such human rights and their application must be taught for people to be empowered and informed about their rights and how to demand them –in case of violations from the State. Even after all these ‘international’ accusations, Jose Maria Aznar, the president that was in power, did not change any laws regarding the mortgage and housing crisis, nor did he mention anything to the Spanish population, disregarding the impact that these laws and the consequential eviction crisis were having in the mental health of the Spanish society.14 In the following years, under the government of Zapatero (PSOE), and currently with Rajoy (PP) we can also observe that trend of silence and misconception over what is happening, as Pedro Solves, the Minister of Economy and Finance 2004-2009, once stated (Feb, 11th, 2008): Those who predict the risk of recession do not know anything about economics. I'm sick and exhausted by the amount of nonsense I hear lately about the economic world. The Spanish economy will grow in the next legislature to a rate close to 3%, which will create 1.6 million new jobs and keep the unemployment rate at around 8% of the workforce.

In contrast, after 3 years of negotiation, the Catalan Parlament passed law 18/2007, the first law about housing rights, posing the housing question as a ‘‘social needs’’ question rather than for public politics (DESC & PAH, 2013, p.68).

Finally, the economy could not handle the transactions of the banks and the business of the construction sector anymore.15 In 2008, the demands for housing and quality of previous granted mortgages made led to the situation of very high priced single room units. In addition, the financial crisis in the

Graph 4. Mortgages in the spanish market by total amount 2003-2012 (by type of institution). Source: National Statistics Institute (INE).

*Other entities: Credit Cooperatives, Rural Savings Banks, Financial Institution Credit, Insurance Companies, Public and other Legal Entities.

14. For more information: Barrera, M.C. (2014, Dec. 10) “Gente Sin Casa La Historia De Los #desahucios En España.” YouTube. Retrieved from <https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=82lxL6GiX4k>.

15. The banks started giving mortgages to the construction and developers businesses, which they could not repay entirely, which meant that if the constructions and developers businesses broke, the banks were going to break too.

Additionally, as mentioned previously, the city hall benefitted from some unsustainable fund coming from a bad evaluation of the land value-corruption.

Graph 4. Number of mortgages in the market in Spain 2003-2012 (by type of institution). Source: National Statistics Institute (INE) Since 2006 the number of mortgages in Spain has plummeted by 76% (from 1,896,515 to 458,687). Commercial Banks increased its market share from 33% in 2006 to 71 in 2012, while Savings Banks decreased its portion from 56% to 12 for the same period. *Other entities: Credit Cooperatives, Rural Savings Banks, Financial Institution Credit, Insurance Companies, Public and other Legal Entities.

The housing bubble: 1975 - 2007 39

16. In 2008, ‘‘Brick’’ constituted a 17, 9% of the PIB and gave jobs to 13% of the active population. Taking in account its indirect influence in other sectors it summed around 34% of the PIB. (Gonzalez Cuesta, J. 2008)

17. Vid. Ministerio del Interior y de Relaciones del Reino, Housing Statistics in the European Union 2010, La Haya, Septiembre 2010. DESC&PAH, 2013

USA paralyzed the economy and banks of Spain. The increasing PIB16 started falling rapidly, dropping the economy down, creating a very dramatic social situation of people getting fired, not being able to afford to pay their mortgages and being evicted en mass. The neoliberal post democratic context was much reflected within the process of the crisis. The supply of houses rose, demand rose as well provoking a rise in the house price and land value, which made the final housing unit price go up even more.

The Housing Emergency in Spain study by DESC & PAH (2013) reaffirms that ‘‘the residential needs of the population have been subjected to the banks’ priorities and interests and to big construction developers’’ (p.9). It has resulted in a housing stock that does not meet the needs of the population. Furthermore, the government has denied any type of measure oriented towards increasing affordable housing and providing an urban framework to fight against empty and underused housing units. This last point is highly contrasted with measures taken in the rest of Europe. European countries consider empty houses a pathology that can be eradicated through, for example, fiscal sanctions and extra official financial sanctions, like in France where it is possible to seize housing units that are owned by individual owners that have been empty for more than 18 months. In consequence, the Spanish State scores the highest rate of empty housing units: 13.7%, in comparison with Germany (8%), France (6.3%) or Netherlands (1.5%).17 In the following figure 1) m, the indicators related to finance and housing shifted sharply from before the bubble (up to the 1990s) to the time of the bubble (until 2007), indicating the differences between the 60’s and 2007 in Spain’s housing market. (Cattaneo, 2014, p.41)

40 The housing bubble: 1975 - 2007

1. the availability of homes for rent decreased dramatically, from 40% in 1960 to 10% in 2005; 2. the construction of social housing (VPO) reduced from 34% in 1973 to 4% in 2005; 3. the banks conceded more credit for private consumption than for industrial production. 3.3 times more in 2005 than in 1997; 4. the increasing indebtedness of homes, ranging from 45% in 1990 to 60% in 2004; 5. the inflation of housing prices in terms of average working-time, from 14 months in 1980 to 14years in 2005; 6. the increasing speculation over the value of housing plots with a variation of the cost of land over the final home price from 25% in 1985 to 55% in 2005.

HOUSING CRISIS: THE AFTERMATHS OF THE BUBBLE

By May 2008, J. C. Valero released a report stating that in Spain, the demand and supply of housing market stock dropped by 26%. The COAPI18 estimates that 40.000 of the Real State offices, in other words, 40% of the construction sector was being affected by the crisis. It mainly hit small businesses based in foreign countries and located on the Catalan coast as well as big firms in the main cities. Catalunya’s demand for housing units decreased by 42%, the biggest in Spain. Moreover, in Barcelona, the highest decrease has been registered in the transactions with second hand houses (50,2%) and in the demand for new housing (30%). ‘Used’ houses have more credit restrictions than new houses, and pose a higher risk for the banks –a strategy to put into use the housing stock just created. However, the stock of empty houses kept increasing in the Barcelona metropolitan area: at the same time as 1.938 apartments were sold, 3.678 more housing units entered in the market. The oversupply accumulated around 3.000 units or 20% of the empty stock in the whole country.

According to a report Vidas Hipotecadas (Mortgaged lives) from la PAH (2013), this escalation of the housing crisis contributed to the highest rate of empty units (up to 27% in 2013) and highest rate of foreclosures of people not being able to pay their housing mortgages (the average was around 100,000 foreclosures per year 2008-2012; 517 daily evictions in 2012 around Spain). During the past ten years the debt of the citizens went from 55% to 130% of the available rent per family, mainly due to buying housing units transactions.19 The boom, based on the creation of too many houses, major infrastructures and often unnecessary large public buildings, entered 7 million units into the market within a decade at a price and in locations that did not respond to the social needs of Spain.20 In the following map Figure 1) n. we

18. Consejo General de Colegios de Agentes de la Propiedad Inmobiliaria - General Council of Associations of Real Estate Property Agents

19. The average mortgage went from 50.786€ to 149.007€ in only 10 years, and the average rate of payment grew from 19 years to 28. The number of yearly given mortgages was of 822.000€. (PAH, vidas hipotecadas. p.65)

The housing bubble: 1975 - 2007 41

20. This has resulted in multiple empty housing and building. The speculation has created ghost towns, full of abandoned and for sale/rent property. For more information: (2012, June 18) “Se Vende: Efectos De La Burbuja Inmobiliaria Española.”

Euronews Reporter.

YouTube. Retrieved from <https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=S2tEddRZNcg> 21. It is interesting to distinguish two types of migrants: immigrants-workers and immigrants-investors (tourists and retired people), these last ones are the ones who have helped blow the housing bubble, especially on seasonal housing.

It is important to understand the institutional oppression that comes with such terms as there is a trend which highlights a discrimination towards global south migrants (stigmatized workers) and the global north migrants (gentrification tourists who buy houses).

can see the percentage of evictions that leave an empty share of housing stock per region in Spain. In addition, urban sprawl and the territorial polarization that Spain, and Barcelona experienced, along with the fast demolition of buildings that deserved rehabilitation, suggests the use of urban planning as a legal tool that disguised new real-estate developments intentions. As Naredo (2011, p. 55-56) summarizes in a poignant manner the connection of current neoliberal policies rooted in past capitalistic trends.

The local and regional banks, closely tied to the rich elites who started the first wave of vast urban development in the 1960s, contributed to the municipal corruption and reached unsustainable risks after selling millions of subprime loans to the indebted home owners.

In summary, what has been happening in Spain under the government of Aznar (PP (right wing party): 1996-2004), Zapatero (PSOE (social democrats-and-liberals): 2004-2011) and Rajoy (PP: 2011-2016), is a dive into the depths of capitalism no matter the political affiliation of the government. Neoliberal policies have shifted the economy and resulted in global elites and corporations having new and more flexible ways to accumulate capital. In parallel, the worker class, underpaid migrant labor, undocumented migrants suffer from more forms of dispossession. They have been affected especially by cuts in the public services such as with gas, light and water; by looser regulation of working conditions that facilitates construction and the speculation; rising costs of living in urban settings while not rising salaries; and by the increase of police and State violence and brutality against the marginalized, to keep them away from the sight of the privileged. Furthermore, not only a neoliberal agenda that prioritizes corporations and tourism21 industry over local, public and social need was on the table, but a set of corruption cases all throughout these years show the inefficiency of the government. This corruption has manifested itself amongst other elements, through the creation of huge airports or cultural centers that now remain empty.

As Gimenez (2015, p.49) suggests, We have a housing problem, with our social services up to [the State’s] ears because State welfare arrives late, if at all. Our healthcare services have collapsed, with an influx of illnesses linked to the lack of housing and mental health conditions brought on by fear. And this is the same healthcare system that is undergoing cuts and privatization.

There have been cuts in salaries, subsidies, pensions and public services which resulted in the privatization of State services and properties and in consequence an intense repression over any social movements arising from the neoliberal agenda’s results. In order to have a clear picture of what the current situation looks like in Barcelona, according to Pis(o) Pilot(o) (2015), table 1) b. shows the different ways of formal and informal access to a house in 2015 in Barcelona.

42 The housing bubble: 1975 - 2007

In The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism, David Harvey (2010) argues that Since the 1970s, financial innovations such as the securitization of mortgage debt and the spreading of investment risks through the creation of derivative markets, all tacitly (and now, as we see, actually) backed by State power, have permitted a huge flow of excess liquidity into all facets of urbanization and built environment construction worldwide.

This situation was made possible by the hoarding of the 70% of the national’s credit invested in the construction sector in a context of increasing liquidity in the international financial context, especially since the use of the Euro.

The scenario coincided with a great number of violations of human rights, such as the discrimination of immigrants and migrants interested in renting housing, the increasing rate of underuse and unsafe housing, overcrowding or mobbing, also known as ‘housing harassment’ of ‘old renting’ tenants face prior to eviction.22

22. In 2006, Francesc Baltasar, the responsible of Housing in the Catalunya state, calculated that around 100.000 families faced mobbing.

In this chapter we have reviewed the different laws, policies and political structure, the actors and the stakeholders that are present in the building up of the bubble and consequent housing and eviction crises. In order to understand more deeply the impact of these laws in the society of Barcelona, the next chapter will introduce the social and urban context of the city, reviewing the history from early XX century to present. The next chapter will also deepen our knowledge of the anarchist history of Barcelona as well as introduce the different components that set the scene for citizen resistance movements and grassroots organizations that fight against evictions and for better housing.

Informal Access • • • • • • • •

substandard housing squatter houses illegal premises settlements okupación ovre-occupied poor conditions 20% of homes have been restored for tourist use

• code of ethics, culture goes beyond the public space

Formal Access • 63.8% ownership (43.3% in EU): 59.6% buy, 77% mortgage, 37, 6% already paid, 3.8% own • 30.3% renting: 28.5% private & 1.5% public (0.3% social, 1.2%protected) • 0.1% Alternatives: cesión de uso, cohabit, co-ownership, urban masoveria, leashold

• Public housing itself, but for sale (deffered access outide Spain) Table 1) b: Different ways of formal and informal housing access in Barcelona, Spain in 2015. (CCCB, Piso Piloto, 2015).

The housing bubble: 1975 - 2007 43

45 47 47 47 49 51 54 55 57 61 63 66 69

2

BARCELONA, LA MILLOR BOTIGA DEL MÓN

Erased historical memory The Expansion of the city The invisible city Cleansing informality: revitalization through iconic urbanism The reductionist approach The Church’s paternalistic approach The museification of Barcelona Anarchism and Okupas Rebranding and renewal Marketing of the city Gentrification and tourist Current Situatiation

44 Barcelona, la millor botiga del món

Figure 2) a. Map of the growth of Barcelona’s urban and metropolitan area from its creation to 2012.

2 - BARCELONA, LA MILLOR BOTIGA DEL MÓN ‘‘A city rarely has been in the hands of its people. Barcelona, yes, sometimes, few times, but with an intensity that the memory of that dawn, of that solidarity party over days or weeks, still obsesses them, urging them to try again, and his enemies to avoid. The fear that these men and women would occupy their city and take care of themselves unites against them, all supporters of death: capital, State, Church, army. And the longing of what was there to come back fuels and has maintained the more determined and more festive part of this people, and waiting for the next attempt of occupy by all supporters of life. We remember here -only sketched out- some of these moments when

Barcelona, la millor botiga del món 45

Barcelona has been in the hands of its people.’’

(La Barcelona Rebelde, 2003, p. 11)

In this chapter I provide an overview of the history of Barcelona. I start by illustrating Barcelona’s housing situation since the start of this past century, recounting how lots of workers and families lived in shacks, stories that promoters and the city council of Barcelona have been meaning to forget and erase, but cannot as citizens claim their memory to not be neglected, to be honored. Cabrero (2001) summarizes precisely how ‘‘the built environment of Barcelona was divided into areas of proven urban efficacy, such as its Ensanche, and others on the disorganized outskirts composed of massive housing blocks, built in the more recent past and intended to absorb immigration into the city’’(p. 95). This chapter explores the complexity of Barcelona’s history, how the discourse of the displaced and marginalized has been wiped out and replaced by a branded model city, promoting Barcelona as a tourist destination. Looking back to the history allows me to relate the current environment of resistance with its historical precedents of anarchist ideology, informal housing and grassroots community organization.

Barcelona is the capital city of Catalunya, an autonomous region in Spain, and its second most populated city of 1.6 million of inhabitants within its administrative perimeter. Its urban area extends beyond the administrative limits with a population of around 4.7 million people, which places Barcelona as the 6th most densely populated urban areas of the European Union (WPR, n.d. BCN Pop). Barcelona has a rich cultural heritage, which has resulted in its status as a cultural center and major tourist destination. It is a city known for its architecture and its urban design. Among the renowned architects are Luis Domènech i Montaner, Antoni Gaudi, Josep Puig I Cadafalch, Josep Jujol, Josep María Sert, and nowadays we can find some works by Enric Miralles, Carmè Pinós and Carles Ferrater. In 2008, Barcelona was the 4th most economically powerful city of EU by GDP. According to a study done by Mastercard and Saffron Consultants in 2008, the same year Barcelona was ranked 3rd of EU and one of the most successful as a city brand, distinguishing itself from other European cities by defining its image, who they want to appeal to, and what they stand for. However, as Bravo (2015) points out, ‘‘among all Spanish cities, Barcelona is home to the most evictees, and the neighborhood with the most evictees is Ciutat Meridiana’’ (p.48). In the following chapter, I will

46 Barcelona, la millor botiga del món

discuss two grassroots movements that organize around the housing question and specifically, center against evictions: la PAH and Banc Expropiat.

HISTORICAL MEMORY OF BARCELONA The expansion of the city Midway through the 19th century, Madrid and Barcelona faced the same challenge: how to answer the emergent requirements of the industrial society.

Both cities were contained within old wall boundaries, keeping high density and insalubrity inside. In consequence, both cities proceeded to tear down the surrounding walls and reorganize their plans with two different urban planners. Although both proposals seemed very similar visually, the concept, and therefore the impact, was very different. Carlos Maria de Castro (1810-1893), in charge of Madrid’s expansion plan, just looked to expand the existing city, whereas Ildefons Cerda (1815-1876), Barcelona’s planner, had the ambition of raising the ‘‘Ideal city’’, distancing it from the old traditional downtown.

This is the start of a trend that I highlight for 150 years. In the next few paragraphs I am going to outline the different historical events that led to today’s Barcelona, a highlight of some of the important decisions and turning points in Barcelona’s journey towards urban transformation. From the formation of the grid, el Ensanche, through the innovative International exposition, the creation of leisure spaces, and the shanty houses, to the Olympic Games of 1992 and its urban development we can observe the urban impact of efforts to improve the image of the city.

The invisible city

In 1854, the walls that surrounded the center of Barcelona were torn down.

Ildefons Cerda proceeded to design a possible ‘‘expansion district’’ that would

Plan Cerda, 1859. Expansion of Barcelona through the creation of l’Eixample.

Barcelona, la millor botiga del món 47

include the peripheral housing development into Catalunya’s capital, called el Ensanche. El Ensanche consists of big square blocks with chamfered corners, forming octagonal squares within the intersection of the straight streets. Within each block you could also find inner green open spaces squares meant to be used by people living in the block as well as any citizen, promoting community.1 From this need for expansion, the Ensanche had to address a number of special issues, such as new and bigger urban dimensions and scale for transport and communication; new programs for the buildings (more residences and different public buildings); a new presence of urban infrastructures (from water supply, lighting to new proposals of public transport); a search for a new identity within the space (concerning monuments and other public representative spaces); and a new conception of the city as a place of consumption, creating business within itself, grounded in a prosperous real-estate market.

1915. First informal settlements in Montjuich.

1. This expansion plan enabled walking to be more enjoyable almost everywhere, half of the Street being dedicated to walking space versus the other half for all the other forms of ‘traffic’. Possible expansion into Cerda’s holistic view of a city and its applications to Barcelona as a healthier city.

(Eixample, n.d. Density Atlas)

In 1929, after the creation of the Ensanche, the city council developed new roads of communication and routes that linked to the city. The principal street of access was designed (Gran Via) and the city expanded towards the mountains and rivers. The architect and urban planner Josep Puig i Cadafalch (18671956) promoted an international competition in Barcelona dedicated to the electric industries, involving various agents such as industrialists, politicians, businessmen and institutions. Although the attention was brought to different parts of the city, the main focal point was the mountain of Montjuïc –an area regained after the military control and where the international exposition of 1929 was going to be held, becoming part of the new urban spaces belonging to the public. The competition’s impact on the plan of the city came to represent a model of the progress and modernity of the city, leading the trend for the rest of Europe.

At the beginning of the XXth century, Barcelona started to receive waves of immigrants, most of them national, coming from the south of Spain, and some of them coming from overseas. Spain was a very rural country, whose land was still divided into latifunds, with absentee landowners, and whose citizens were starving in the south and in the areas that depended on rural agriculture.

Barcelona seemed a city divided in two. On one

1910’s. Sagrada Familia by Gaudi, in a rural setting.

48 Barcelona, la millor botiga del món

hand, incoming migrant workers (these people worked in different sectors of the economy and industries, being the core members of the workforce of the industrial Barcelona) with no place to live and on the other hand, the owners to the lands, rich inhabitants that overlooked the needs of the marginalized.

Workers started to live in self-built shacks, in very bad conditions, with no light, water nor sewerage, surrounding downtown and factories –using factories’ scrap and waste to build their shelters. Migrant workers created an informal city alongside the planned city. Overall, it extended into the hills of Montjuic, along the waterfront, in the northern hills and some of the intersectional spaces within l’Eixample. This was just the beginning of an almost century long history of shanty houses and substandard housing. The city council did not direct much attention towards the right to housing, and the freezing of rents, which contrasted with the excessive attention being given towards the rising of the industrial construction sector, deepening the already existing problem of the lack of ‘popular’ housing.

According to the archives Barracas, La Ciudad Informal (Shacks, the Informal City) (2008) stored in the History Museum of Barcelona, from 1914 to 1922, the number of shacks increased from 1.200 to 3.6002 Public authorities only saw the need to intervene when important events were being hosted, such as the International Exposition in 1929, when the shacks surrounding the area of the Exposition were torn down to ‘‘clean’’ the image of the city. In order to perform the cleansing of the shack phenomenon, the city council proposed the Bill for Cheap Houses (1921), additionally creating the Patronato Municipal de la Habitación de Barcelona (Municipal board of rooms of Barcelona) which commissioned four groups of ‘cheap housing’3 where families from the shanty houses would be relocated. This did not solve the structural shanty problem and the measures supposed to be in place4 after the Exposition got interrupted by outbreak of the Civil War. Cleansing informality: revitalization through iconic urbanism

By the time the International Exposition5 in Montjuïc was opened to the public in May 1929 for 6 months, the structural problem of shacks grew to over 6.000 in the whole of Barcelona (Barracas, 2008, 40’s & 60’s). The exposition was meant to show the urban renovation the Catalan capital undertook, focusing on three main themes: art, industry and sports. It included the preservation and outlay of the old first downtown Barri Gotic, the finishing of Plaza España and Plaza Catalunya –today’s downtown main square, the integration of large fountains and sculptural

2. Different initiatives were started by the public authorities to face the problems of the shanty houses such as the laws of 1909 Social Museum, 1911 First Law of Cheap Houses & 1915 Institute of the Popular Room 3. For more information about Cheap Houses, timeline and press articles: Portelli, S. Capdevilla, S. Delgado, M. Viccaro, U. Sanchez, N. Cadenas, I. (n.d.). Cronología de las ‘casas baratas’ de Barcelona [1929-2010].

La Ciudad Horizontal.

Retrieved from http://laciutathoritzontal.org/es/ cronologí-de-las-casasbaratas-de-barcelona-1929-2010 4. Such as the ones proposed during the Republic: Block houses and the cleansing of Ciutat Vella and the shacks.

5. Around 20 European countries participated- France, Italy, and Germany amongst them.

In addition, this exposition was almost like an homage to the one held in 1888, that showed the technologic and economic advances of the city as well as the renovation of the biggest park of the city, la Ciudadela.

1928. Expansion of theBarcelona, rail system. la millor botiga del món 49

collections in Montjuic, an underground train connecting different extra radial parts of the city, new lighting and the first metro lines. For the opening, Barcelona also offered new leisure activities within reach of the visitors: interesting concerts, operas, ballets, theater. Culture and leisure were mixed and offered in the form of different conferences, concerts and expositions held in palaces and pavilions around the city. Moreover, besides including palaces and cultural centers, Montjuic was also composed by Poble Espanyol –a representation of Spanish architectures in small scale; Teatre Grec –Funfair Park and space for outdoor theater and performances; and possibilities for sporting events -such as swimming-pool, tennis courts and a stadium for athletic competition –preparing the city to host different kind of activities and offering room for all types of leisure.

The underlining monumentality of the exposition was completed by the main exhibition space, the National Palace. Mies Van der Roes’ Pavilion of Germany was reconstructed for the International Exposition, bringing the attention to the architectural Modern Movement and new Avant-garde movements. The landscape’s design, attentive to areas for sitting, walking and enjoying the views, transformed the Montjuic into an urban park and culminated in the main fountain that played with colored lights as different figures were created by the jet of water. This exposition was a very important step for Barcelona’s progress and image. Although many of the pavilions were demolished once the exposition was over, great renovations remained and have been remodeled and used –keeping Montjuïc as the green lung of Barcelona hosting important sporting and cultural events. Nowadays, Montjuïc is one of the first touristic attractions and we can still see the remains of the Exposition, transforming the spaces mentioned above in emblems of the city. Additionally, during the Civil War and postwar it was the site of mass executions of anarchists, communists and republicans by Franco.

1929. First renovations of Montjuic for the opening of the International Exposition.

Before, during and after the Civil War (1920’s-1950’s), Barcelona received waves of rural migrants, mainly from the drought areas of Almeria and Murcia, seeking refuge from the misery and repression of the civil war (Breitbart, 2011, p.3; Brenan, 1943, p. 124). The existing shanty neighborhoods expanded, and new ones formed, especially in ‘‘old’’ military forts, like in el Carmel. According to Sergio Villa, who reports in an article published in 2011 in La Vanguardia about the shanty problematic, by 1949, there were

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officially 15.000 shacks distributed within 387 different nuclei, inhabited by at least 60.000 individuals. Recorded in the Barracas -40’s & 60’s (2008) files at MUHBA, the boom of this shack expansion registered 2.406 people, 7% of the population, in 1954, reaching 10.352 shacks by 1957 and peaking around 20.000 at the beginning of the 70’s.6 The shanty house areas, previously conceived as dangerous zones where the government did not want to intervene, became ‘‘inconvenient’’ once Barcelona was striving to be international and innovative, and in 1949 Franco and the Catholic Church created a service to regulate and stop the shack problem, ‘legalizing’ them by numbering them and ruling the worker migrants without a numbered shack as ‘‘illegal’’. Due to this aggressive policy, by 1953, the Palacio de las Misiones de Montjuic again became a jail and deportation center. It’s calculated that, between 1953 and 1957, more than 15.000 people were deported back to the south of Spain.

6. 370.000 people migrated to Barcelona within 1950 and 1960. (TV3, 2010)

The reductionist approach In the mid-sixties and seventies, Barcelona underwent a process of transformation from industrial and residential city to tertiary metropolitan center, marking the early creation of neo-liberal policies. According to José Manuel Naredo (2010), globalization expands its economic strategy within the housing and property patrimony with a reductionist approach. This approach encompasses the unification of the territory, joining urban planning and construction sectors together. This unification of both sectors into an umbrella term ‘‘territory’’ is used for the sole benefit of the progress of the capitalist economy.

According to Jordi Borja (1972), this reductionist approach led to pathologies of growth encountered when the fast rate of urbanization diverges from the slow rate of population growth. Furthermore, this resulted in three different situations: first, the territorial model polarizes the space into different cores, attractors of population, capital and resources, and areas of supply. Second, the model of urban sprawl is a model of separation and expansion of the territory, demanding strong transport infrastructures in order to connect the different areas. And third, there is a unique model of construction imposed, as the ‘‘universal style’’ (which abstracts the building from its environmental condition and material use). The city was saturated by inadequate, complex, and old infrastructures that could be demolished and built over due to the overstock from the construction sector, perfect to achieve the goals of the neoliberal agenda. When tracing back the influence of the neoliberal agenda within urban planning, one can observe how the

1960. Informal settlements.

Barcelona, la millor botiga del món 51

different actions taken to maximize the profit of the land and privatize construction are not accidental but very much historically grounded.

Barcelona’s urban evolution during the 20th century showcases a strong spatial assembly of federations of neighborhoods, weaving different time periods and cultures through urban patterns. When looking walking down the streets of Barcelona it is easy to identify the different spatial conditions of each neighborhood from the times when it’s been renewed or created. From there we can observe the spatial segregation that promotes social segregation. The city is divided in two: West-Center is bourgeoisie and proletariat South-NorthEast. This social segregation inhibits the usage of the city for a communal benefit (‘bien collectivo’) and promotes inequalities.

A study of Barcelona’s social production made by the renowned urban geographer, political thinker and current president of DESC, Jordi Borja in 1972, p.11, determines the processes that create and change the physical frame of the city. There are 5 main aspects to take into account:

Main sites of informal settlements within Barcelona throughout the 20th Century.

First, a chaotic and accelerated increase in the CBD and the problems that accompany this growth, such as the saturation of the spaces and lack of public spaces, which contributes to the degradation of some sectors in the old neighborhood. This example is illustrated by the renovation of the downtown district for the 1929 event and the phenomenon of informal houses. Second, the densification of the Ensanche and its periphery, even if it was in contrast to previous urban planning decisions. This leads to the third point, the growth of the periphery of the metropolitan area and emergence of ‘‘tolerant urbanism’’ which results mainly in 40 to 60% of self-construction, reproduction of

52 Barcelona, la millor botiga del món

workers labor to minimum cost, and revalorization of a non-urbanized land that has been previously occupied (e.g. the shanty houses problem).

Fourth, a spilling of the city over the rest of the land which has spread so fast that the government has not been able to deal with it, create public spaces, and preserve old structures. These spaces are even further away than the ‘‘peripheries’’, increasing the deficits of services and public spaces. The construction is known to be of lesser quality and of smaller spaces that do not accommodate social needs. The government encourages speculation that threatens the suburbs and the rentability at short term of the land and the housing capital stock, which is based on the indirect and direct exploitation of labor force.

The waves of migration, cheap houses for workers and all the efforts made by the city council and discussed above are part of this spilling out that the city is experiencing.

And lastly, projects focused on creating ‘‘housing ghettos’’ without an urban structure equipped and balanced. This shows the intent of using the buildings as a tool to decentralize industry and favor the placement of workers near the industrial zones and in conditions that allow for a certain level of social control, e.g. cheap houses, la Mina. This point is very much correlated with the previous ones and show the direct connection of the production of space and the production of housing.

Looking at Borja’s study is important because it allows one to understand and connect the theory of space with the situation at that time of how the city deals with space and housing. As one can see then, housing is also a key element fueling consumerism, as it is essential to the reproduction of the labor force. Such elements of consumerism are part of a process that Jordi Borja (1972) calls ‘Collective consumerism’ and it follows strict norms determined by the structures of society and its practices by all of different social groups.

It is composed of different characteristics that include: First, the deterioration of the old downtown and its renovation (al throughout the XX Century). The old downtown is characterized by undergoing through rent control (1964-1985), a method to protect ownership, in addition to the expansion of the city’s saturated CBD and the old downtown. This combination is the consequence of high speculation around the deterioration of housing stock. There is a ‘value of exchange’ that increases due to the housing market speculations, and that cannot be affected due to the deterioration of the surroundings. Thus, if the housing unit deteriorates even more, the ‘value of exchange’ will be even higher. There is a heavy speculation on the ‘value of exchange’ over the ‘value of use’, which they increase and decrease intensely

Barcelona, la millor botiga del món 53

respectively. This is the root of the process of a global remodeling: a coordination of interests amongst the entities in power and the eviction of the locals and old inhabitants of the neighborhood in order to upgrade it. Which results in second, the real value of the housing stock in the market. There’s two sides of the market that are correlated - the public, non-efficient sector (VPO, Cheap Housing, etc), and the subsidized or protected private sector (private ownership and VPO). Refer to chapter 1.

Third, the growth of the housing stock and the situation resulting from such disproportionate growth is a clear result of the politics of abandon towards the proletariat sector. In other words, there are growing number of workers, mainly migrants, who due to their condition as a new workers they seek housing, are not fully aware of the conditions of their housing status, feeding into the industry of immediate production of affordable housing stock in order to keep a growing worker force. This results in workers and marginalized people only having the choice to access through either self-construction (shacks), bad quality block housing in poorly urbanized areas (‘Cheap Houses’), incomplete equipped dwellings, or a deteriorating downtown amongst others. See Chapter 1.

The Church’s paternalistic approach

7. For more information, check: R. (2013). 60 años del barrio del Congrés (I). Breve historia de su formación. El Tranvía 48. Retrieved from http://eltranvia48.blogspot. com/2013/10/60-anos-delbarrio-del-congres-i-breve. html and L, H. (2013).

This reductionist approach overviewed above is reflected in the evolution of the shanty problem and housing crisis. Another big event took place in 1952, the 35th Eucharistic Congress, that (re)moved all the shanty houses from the Diagonal, cleansing neighborhoods such as La Verneda and Can Clos –both of them still depressed areas today.7 Most importantly, the political repression carried out throughout all these years left the Church in power of deciding the actions needed to ‘clean up’ the shanty house problem. Due to the lack of engagement of Franco’s government with the Spanish residents, the Church adopted a paternalistic approach and welcomed people in schools and health centers, rooting Catholicism within Francoism’s mindset. The shack areas became so populated that some of them developed a strong sense of community and organized to fight for better housing. One could say that organizing actions and mobilizing against the housing crisis started around this time, when people living in the shacks networked and fought for better living conditions, supported by organizations and social assistants (Barracas, 2008, tejido social). Actually, thinking the opposite is as nonsensical as putting a sweater in a microwave. A big change occurred when the church professionalized their social work

1952. Thousands of people attending the 35th Eucharistic Congress.

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with people unattended by the government and living in terrible conditions, and new social projects were promoted. This social development led to the official creation of neighborhood associations. The role of the church was being imposed and people were both rejecting it and accepting it at the same time. Although, social help was needed and citizens were grateful for that, it was an attempt to co-opt different existing anarchism networks of support.

With strong connections made within these informal neighborhoods during the 40’s-60’s, people began debating how the effects of shack cleansing actions and relocation of the families would affect their relations, organizing, and community spirit (Barracas, 2008, tejido social). These cleansings resulted in a massive relocation of people into social housing, leaving the problematic of lack of social housing unsolved. The simple action of relocating hundreds of families to huge cheap construction industrial housing did not solve the structural problem of lack of accessible housing, nor the structural problem of marginality, lack of attention, incomprehension, and absolute lack of resources that migrants face when arriving in Barcelona.

The museification of the Barcelona

In Barcelona, there are four main areas of shacks known for their fight for better living conditions: Somorrostro, Montjuic, Can tunis (Bogatell) and el Carmel (Turó de la Rovira). These fights and organizing efforts undertaken by the neighbors of these shack areas clearly demonstrate the need and desire for people to unite and create neighborhood associations in order to be heard.

These actions are also strongly rooted within the anarchist ideology characteristic of Spanish workers in the early to mid-20th Century, and allow one to understand the historical richness of Barcelona’s grassroots organizing efforts and the agency of residents.

Figure 2) a. Main sites of informal settlements of Barcelona. Source: Lopez, H. 2009.

Barcelona, la millor botiga del món 55

Found between the Hospital del Mar and Carrer de la Marina, Somorrostro is the current name of the stretch of Barceloneta beach, finally paying homage to the shack area that was located there. I say finally because, as Julia Aceituno explains in 2009, ‘‘they do not want to remember that Somorrostro was here.

Well, it was. There were lots of years of suffering and penury, and there is not any sign that says Somorrostro.’’ (Lopez, H. 2010 and 2013; Tonifv, 2009; La meva Barcelona, 2011). The city council and government have been actively erasing from the urban history any memory of the struggle until the population asked for signposts and recognition of the fight that is still carried on today. Formed in the late XIXth century, the sea engulfed the 600 shacks of Somorrostro in 1966, forcing the government to take measures to relocate them to Montjuic. Once relocated, the government built a fence between the public parts of Montjuic and the shacks. In the sixties, most of the families living in shacks in Montjuic were relocated to ‘cheap houses’ to clear space for another main event of a funfair park. Important to note that each shack hosted more than a family, prompting families to demand and successfully mobilize a campaign called ‘‘a housing unit per family’’ in order to change the city council’s policy that offered a unit per shack rather than a unit per family within shacks. This movement pioneered neighborhood associations within the cheap industrial housing units, where they kept fighting against the lack of resources in these new neighborhoods (Barracas, 2008, Montjuic). The following map 2.a. shows the different placements of informal settlements all around Barcelona.

Another main informal area whose actions impacted the city and its habitants is Can Tunis, found near the seafront, and related to the constant growth of the harbor. When they had to be relocated, the neighbors created a housing cooperative to finance the project. They wanted to be relocated close/near to their shack area, as they felt attached to it and it was closer to their work places, but the city council did not listen to their proposal and relocated all the families to the barrio Cinco Rosas in Sant Boi in 1968. The city council used the remaining empty shacks to reallocate the gypsy population. It became a much marginalized neighborhood, known for its drug deals and it was torn down in 2003. In contrast to this experience, the neighbors of el Carmelo organized into a social center during the evictions which delayed the process. By 70’s neighbors were proposing solutions to the visible deterioration of the neighborhood and they formed an association that demanded that the democratic city council would relocate them on site. In 1984 the Patronato Municipal de la Vivienda

1978. Informal Settlements in El Carmelo, abandoned military bunkers and facilities.

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delivered 161 housing units on site and relocated the rest of the families to other ‘cheap houses’. According to the iaioflauta Pere Cuadrado (2016), the new ‘cheap houses’ were very poorly constructed and they crumbled after a few years, in addition to being affected by aluminosis (the degeneration of cement used in construction) and causing illness.

All the measures taken by the city council, the housing minister or the neighbors themselves resulted in a shift in the urban landscape. When such a shift is initiated by the government, there are elements that are not being taken into account such as the labor needs and the emotional feelings that these people have towards their homes and neighbors, especially when relocated to the periphery without resources near. The old ‘horizontal’ shack problem was becoming a vertical one in these new cheap houses and big industrial housing units.8 By 1974, there were still 1.460 shacks in the area of Barcelona (the case of el Carmelo was amongst the remaining shacks). Most of these shacks were now owned by gypsy families who were excluded from the reallocation project and were suffering a very intense marginalization and degradation. The city council was not calculating the reallocations correctly: the families who were assigned cheap houses and vertical shacks with no resources, degraded land and no city close by, were the families that needed the most support, who are forced to come together from very different backgrounds and levels of precariousness. The most recent example of this happening is la Mina a very poor and marginalized neighborhood with only cheap housing that creates a ghetto of drugs and danger, alienating people living in these neighborhoods and stigmatizing them with a racist tint.9 Thus, by the end of relocation and eradication of the shacks, there was no efforts towards social inclusion. By the 90’s, the city council of Barcelona considered the shack problem resolved and prepared the city to host the Olympic Games.

8. When referring to ‘vertical’ shacks I am not only talking about top-down ordinance but also talking about the poor quality and overcrowded of the buildings.

9. For more information about the recent situation of La Mina and their recent problem with Venus, a poor quality cheap housing unit: http://www.elmundo.es/ cataluna/2015/05/12/ 5522438ca474163098b4581.html

Anarchism and Okupas

Numerous neighborhood movements and organizations have a long history of anarchist resistance that has given the name to Barcelona, la Rosa del Foc (the rose of fire). In the 1970’s there was a lot of fighting and movement around reconfiguring the city, relocating people and creating hubs of culture and production. Neighbors were organizing amongst themselves to counter the government and developers’ urban speculation projects. Each neighborhood was undergoing different renovations, reflected in the ways various associations tackled and resisted city plans. Historically, residents tackled their fight with direct action, assemblies and horizontal self-management, without leaders.10 We can see with the examples of Can Tunis and Somorrostro, how

10. Público el doctor Miguel Ángel Martínez López, author of multiple studies and books about anarchists’ organization structures.

Barcelona, la millor botiga del món 57

people mobilized and carried the anarchist ideology forward when fighting for the right to a home.

11. From 1975-1978, the period of transition from the dictatorship to democracy is a model of one of the most peaceful and nonviolent transitions of history. More information: http://www.historiasiglo20. org/HE/16a-1.htm 12. In May of 2015 the unemployment rate for the youth scored 51.36%. (Torrus, 2015)

In the 1980’s, the neighborhood movement that had bloomed alongside the Transition from Franco’s dictatorship to Felipe Gonzalez’s democracy fell away. During the transition,11 the PSOE of Felipe Gonzalez succeeded in disarming and coopting social and neighborhood movements. The unemployment rate among youth was 40%.12 According to Alejandro Torrus (2015), at that time, and even now: It is easier to find a gram of heroin, the kind that will get you high up to heaven and away from the reality of a country that still has the power to send you to the ‘mili’, than to find a damn space to share and experience forms of collective life.

There is no space for the youth to enjoy life’s pleasures or to practice some music if they cannot afford to pay for a studio, there is not a space for people to hang out: ‘‘the control of public authorities is almost absolute, tyrannical.’’

(Torrus, 2015) During the 20th Century, in Europe there was a movement that began to spread, known as squatting. The world renowned community of Christiania, Copenhagen, DK was born in the 70’s and became a catalyst and inspiration for the liberation of spaces around the world. As explained in the website okupatutambien (squatyoutoo), in Spain, squatting became a habitual practice, especially amongst gypsies and workers, through the anarchist CNT (Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo).13 The practice was influenced by squatters in the rest of Europe and was spread in the urban and rural context. For this matter, I will only talk about the urban context.

13. Main anarchist workers union, brief explanation about its brief role in collectivization during the Spanish Civil War 14. It is very important to keep the usage of K in okupa as it is one of the main distinguishers of meanings from the conventional ocupacion, as the K denotes the anarchist ideology as well as the political connotation of the act and the people. (Metropolis, 2015) 15. These are also referred to as CSOA, Self-managed Okupied Social Center. For the sake of clarity, I will refer to them as Ateneus

In Spain, two main squatter movements began with the okupas movement of the 80’s, spelled with K.14 One movement that challenges property ownership as well as social conventions attracts people with an anarchist and punk ideology. Okupas gather in social centers that they create around the city and open them up to the public.15 The structure of these social centers is the following: the first two or three stories are dedicated to public use and they host activities and the last stories are for housing (what they call an ateneu, inspired by the anarchist social centers existent previous to the Spanish Civil War). The usual profile of the okupas is from the 80’s was mainly young people. This movement was born out of the abuses of private property and the lack of public facilities and lack of resources for marginalized communities and youth. Moreover, at first, squatting was a form of protesting the cooptation of the neighborhood movements as well as a call to resistance and for the community to return to self-managed associations from the pre and post war periods. Squatting and

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okupas can also be considered born out of the informal housing struggle that Barcelona underwent.

The first seed of the okupa movement was planted a little over thirty years ago. In 1984, the first house in Barcelona was officially okupied by squatters.

It was started by a group of young people, ages 16 to 24, holding assemblies where they would discuss different empty apartments liable to be occupied.

The afternoon of December 7th, they took over apartment #41 on Torrent de l’Olla in Gracia because it had been abandoned for over 18 years. This first action was carried out with the intent of disobedience and music. They decided to get together and okupy a space where their aesthetic of punk and creativity could take place: ‘‘our demand was: it’s not possible that while there are plenty of empty houses, we do not have any space for us to develop our own lives’’ (Joni D, Bernal, 2015). The grouped called themselves ‘Collective Squat of Barcelona (CSB)’ and they occupied that apartment for two hours before the police were notified of their actions and came to arrest them.

Although there was already some okupacion precedents throughout Spain this group of youngsters claimed something that nobody was willing to give up: empty houses destined for speculation. These actions made by small groups of people had a radical message: the spaces were to be characterized by a total denial of authoritarianism or affiliation with any political party, and with a will based on the DIY movement. In previous assemblies they had agreed on facing the police with passive resistance, as the police force was coming from the military and the Transition (from Franco) (armed, lots of them and with very conservative mindsets), which resulted in a pacifist eviction. One of the other okupied social centers in Gracia, Ateneu Llibertari de Gràcia, showed support by holding a press conference and calling lawyers for help and support while spreading awareness amongst the neighborhood.

From its punk origins, the okupa movement has transformed and adapted to different issues arising in the metropolis by collaborating more with other social movements. One of the oldest collaborations between okupas and workers began in 1988, when a group of workers of the printer company

1990’s Ateneu Cros10, Sants, Barcelona.

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16. The workers were occupying the factory because they were striking for better jobs and also wanted to avoid the printer to be broke. As workers lived in and near the factories, they started by occupying their own houses and thus the factory premises.

Hijos de E. Minuesta16 in Madrid okupied the factories and were supported by the okupas and other movements, such as mothers against drugs, antimilitary, antiracist, feminists etc. In 2003, it gave support to the protests against the Iraq war and, in the present, it is more than ever focused on fighting rampant housing speculation. The movement’s principles have always been self-management, decision by assembly and defense by direct action.

17. A recent example is Can Vies, okupied for 18 years in Sants, the summer of 2014, when police and a wrecking ball came and encountered an angry Can Vies and angry protesters that set Sants on fire for almost a week.

The government backed up and stopped the demolition. This action showed the importance of the Ateneus within the neighborhoods.

According to Alejandro Torrus (2015), up until 1995, squatting was regulated as a civil process without any penalty. A decade after the first official squatting action and a number of follow up actions, the public authorities began repressing and criminalizing the movement okupa through a change of law that converted the occupation of housing into a punishable offense. The law intended to cut down the occupations but it backfired when the Ateneus responded more and more aggressively. What were once peaceful evictions now became violent confrontations between okupas and police. The media picked up on the increasingly violent response of the okupas and the movement began to have a bad reputation amongst civil society. One of the main ‘‘solutions’’ implemented by the government was to demolish any important Ateneu with violent police confrontation.17

1992. Olympic Games urban renovations. Creation of the sea shore and cleansing of shanty houses.

Jordi Roca, aka El Gos (the dog), former singer of L’odi Social, was an active participant in the assemblies pre-skuat and was one of the main characters that okupied Kasa de la Muntanya (Mountain house) in 1989. He claims that ‘‘Nowadays it is normal to okupy houses, but earlier it was seen as the most utopic, the most wild, it looked as if they were all high’’ (El Gos, 2015). The okupa movement has gained mass since their beginning and today’s fight has honed the energy of the 80’s into the current struggle against speculation, homophobia, racism, and all the injustices and biases. With the crisis of 2007, there was a squatting dichotomy differentiated by spelling the word with a k or c. The main ramification of the squatters comes along with the crisis, where

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people begin to occupy out need, versus okupa as a choice. This is important because then there is less stigma around the actions, as this state of emergency affects a wider variety of people who then get involved. The profile of squatters has diversified, and now encompasses families that suddenly do not have a job, mothers with their kids, youngsters out of college etc. Nowadays squatting is a wide spread phenomenon, no longer solely related to the anarchist and punk ideology nor to the leftist radicalism of the okupas of the 80’s or the current okupas with K. This phenomenon empowers people: residents reclaim the empty property that is technically theirs and organize a support network to uplift their lifestyles.

Rebranding and renewal

Concerning the urban tissue there are still two important moments in history that need to be mentioned in order to understand the current situation of rebrand and renewal that Barcelona is facing. In 1992, for the first time with no political boycott in three decades, more than 9.300 athletes representing 169 countries participated in the Olympic Games in Barcelona. The Olympic Games are known to create drastic changes in the city in which they are held. In this case, it had a positive effect on Barcelona’s image. For example, the city started a new development program on the waterfront from 1993-2004, demolishing industrial buildings to create 5.2 km of beachfront and a modern marina for leisure and to provide a good image for the Games, Villa Olimpica. The new beaches and waterfront facilities not only transformed the urban landscape, a regenerative narrative from Plaza Catalunya to el Port Vell connected through la Rambla del Mar; it became a new leisure attraction for both locals and visitors. The effort to restructure the city had an economic impact revealed by the investment in infrastructure from new roads, new sewage systems to new green areas and beaches. Montjuïc was also remodeled in order to fit the Olympic

2004. Universal Cultural Forum Exhibition

Barcelona, la millor botiga del món 61

18. For more information about the urban planning and design technicalities, check http://urban-networks. blogspot.com.es/2012/05/ intervenir-en-la-ciudad-consolidada-la.html#more and http://urban-networks. blogspot.com/2012/05/ los-grandes-eventos-como-catalizadores.html

19. These permanent jobs are part of the culture of production and leisure that the neoliberal agenda was and is pushing for.

Games in its stadiums. The great urban idea behind the redefinition of the city taking advantage of the financial backing provided by the Olympic Games was not only to open the city to the sea but mainly to invest in the poorest neighborhoods, and improve them by displacing the poor. Both the renovations of Villa Olimpica and Montjuic involved shanty town cleansing18 and the connection of downtown with las Rondas, highways that connect the ‘‘four corners’’ of Barcelona and the rest of Catalunya. ‘‘We earmarked the biggest part of the Olympic budget for the ring roads, a Pharaonic piece of infrastructure that allows more cars to enter Barcelona every day than Manhattan and that has made us one of the most polluted cities in Europe.’’ (Bravo, 2015, p.47) The density of Barcelona facilitates the mobility through the city by walking or public transportation but it also means that it is more vulnerable to the impact of traffic.

These investments had social and financial impacts, providing over 20.000 permanent jobs.19 According to different studies, from 1990 to 2001 Barcelona went from being ranked the 11th ‘‘best city’’ in Europe to the 6th –being the 12th most popular city in the world. The Games increased the investment, expanding it through different sporting facilities and trainings funded by governments and private sources all over Spain, turning Spain into a ‘‘sports steamroller.’’ Barcelona shifted from the typical industrial city to a mix-use city.

It planned the Olympic Games project strategically so the investments could be also used after the games, minimizing the ‘‘true cost’’ of the games and investing in infrastructures for the people of the city. The Olympic Games were a good strategy for Barcelona to ‘‘market itself ’’ and attract investors that recognize Barcelona’s availability of services and labor, giving priority to its market and the overall competitiveness. In 1999 Barcelona received the Royal Gold Medal, awarded by the Royal Institute of British Architects: the first time this was awarded to a city instead of an individual, as recognition of Barcelona’s dedication to Architecture.

Furthermore, in 2004, in order to host The Forum, a big cultural event for the city, Barcelona created an urban legend by building a new complex on the seafront, in the limits of Barcelona, tidying the center with the extra radial. From the different architecture and urban design and planning events we can see a trajectory of how urban design is now used in a more systematic way to market the city, creating a dynamic meeting place for business and leisure. The neoliberal policies that contribute to the cleansing of the city also contribute to the further marginalization of

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population in risk of exclusion, the same people that are currently organizing and looking for networks of support to protect them.

marketing of the city It is important to analyze the results of the neoliberal policies reflected in today’s built environment. In the global world, tourists and investors choose their destinations and their markets according to very competitive conditions and this encourages attractive characteristics in cities. Today’s cities compete with one another to attract flows of capital (through tourism, investors and new residents). Urban management and development has played a big role in the advancement of the architecture and the branding of a city to promote an appealing image and win the tourist competition.

In this era of late capitalism, older neighborhood culture and traditional cities are being destroyed by a consumerist and iconic postmodernist architecture.

According to Jameson (1991), postmodernism is the cultural dominant of late capitalism, and it is defined by the combination of different architectural elements, which translates into the production of an aesthetic. Once integrated into the commodity production, architecture has a different position within the market: it is no longer considered primarily about use but rather as a commodity. There is a tight connection between architecture, economy and politics. Architecture is determined by users, and the people living in it, and can produce liberating spaces as much as oppressive spaces. However, there is a new culture of image, of simulacrum and superficial consumerism that arises.

And in consequence, space becomes more and more politized. The power is held within the government and banks rather than being with the people ‘from the streets’. Even though the power has never been held by the people, the situation has reached the extreme of people being disregarded completely and the government approach has been on focusing on maximizing profit and benefitting corporations.

2014 Posters promoting Barcelona by the City Council.

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‘’Poblenou for the residents not for the tourists!!’’

Hegemonic structures shape architectural space at every scale. According to Reinhold Martin (2014) there are economic systems behind the architectural form that have shaped architectural agency.

Two philosophers, Chantal Mouffe and Hannah Arendt talk about a shift in politics, from a public space of appearance to the private economy of the household. Martin (2014) expresses an interest in domestic space, arguing that the problems in the public sphere are destined to be repeated unless we as individuals restructure the private repetitions of the social: the “small, technical acts by which we are governed.”

Financial capital is deterritorialized, therefore cities fight to locate the financial capital in their location. In order to do that they have to adapt themselves to the demands and needs of the system of production. Politicians no longer have to plan, it’s the market that imposes what’s new, establishing the new trends and the evolution of the space in the city. The city therefore becomes a product, a spectacle of appeal and seduction. Spaces are created and regenerated in order to attract more visits, reaching the levels of altering the preservation of historic centers almost converting them in theme parks. It is no longer a city for its citizens, it is a city for window shopping. In the city, it is very clear that ‘‘technocracy has been the governing force of Barcelona. Experts and the powers that have made top-down decisions, ignoring the needs of the people’’ (Bravo, 2015, p. 46). It is unacceptable that the neoliberal policies have reached the extreme of selling the city to tourists and investors, putting the construction sector and architecture to the service of speculation and accumulation rather than the satisfaction of citizens’ needs.

1st dish: abandonment 2nd dish: revaluation 3rd dish: gentrification

In a study about how Barcelona’s image is redefined by the Urban Tourism Planning Model (Valls, Falcón, Banchini, et al) Sobrino (2002) is cited stating that ‘‘we understand competitiveness as a process for creating and disseminating skills that depend on micro-economic factors and the region’s ability to foster economic activity.’’ In order to be an attractive city for the financial and tourism sector, the city needs to offer the best and most profitable services. A space that is clean, safe and appealing. In consequence, the space goes from having productive activities to being the product itself.

Marketing in urbanism enables the city to be identified and promoted as a competitive advantage.

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The experience of the space enhanced by modern architecture and urban design attracts people and intensifies the competitive characteristics of the city.

Urban marketing identifies and promotes different resources around the city as a competitive advantage. Nonetheless, it also has a cost for the workers, as it demands a cheap, flexible work sector that the businesses won’t be afraid of firing if needed, or there is a change in business plans. The government usually tackles the issue by subsidizing the installation costs, giving public land to multinationals, facilitating credit with low interest rate or reducing the taxes that should contribute to the economy. In order to take advantage of these key elements for competitiveness, the city needs faster communication infrastructures, modifying the metropolitan area with new highways, roads, trains or airports to reduce the displacement time of the citizens. Input is also made in logistical infrastructures –technological parks, security enterprises and surveillance in the street: measures to control the population and the flow of visitors in the city. It is a system to attract money and residents/visitors, increasing the economic value of the city. It is based on administration directing funds that were supposed to be used for public equipment and benefits, towards a better looking/appealing/sexy city for tourists. In simple terms, we can find multinationals competing against the collective local consumption of the public sector. Whereas this is not a new phenomenon, it is more visible and tangible as the neoliberal agenda gets stronger and applied. The rankings cited at the beginning of the chapter show the competition of cities to appeal more investors and more tourism, taken into account by the corporations.

‘’We want a digne neighborhood!!’’

''Vallcarca is speculator$''

fighting

against

This increase of competitive advantage demands globalization-ideas-action from the government side, such as flexibility in the border to transport goods and businesses. The city assumes a role of state control, and therefore the patriotism that a country would generate is found in the city itself.

Barcelona’s urban design and architecture are key players in its marketing image, created through an attractive urban imaginary. A very key value

Barcelona, la millor botiga del món 65

associated with the city is the cultural value, from Roman settlements, Catalan gothic style, to modernism and the most contemporary works. The cultural identity and what differentiates cities from each other is key to Barcelona’s model. Image and value fusion in Barcelona as the architectonic icons that have been part of the regeneration of the historical city are cultural infrastructures.

Until the 80’s downtown was a marginalized space given that the workers and rich people moved out to the peripheries and the financial capital was no longer there. To change the historical downtown in Barcelona, a plan of regeneration was intended to attract a numerous financial/business audience, investors, but ended up bringing an extra load of tourists. There have been laws and regulations to control the flow as well as keeping the capital flowing. Barcelona focused on the tourism instead of focusing on the local social demands. When Barcelona’s image is privileged, some residents are left out of the picture: as locals are forced to move further away from the tourist and gentrified downtown. Different projects revolving around beautifying Barcelona –from art in the streets, to new museums and cultural centers- question the notion of what it means to improve the living conditions of the city. The city therefore adapts invisible borders: downtown belongs to the commerce and the tourist business, marginalizing the rest of the neighborhoods. The idea is to get rid of the local social life, erasing any trace of relations that are not desired by the national and international market.

gentrification and tourism

20. *** Hotel + hostels: 0.75 € pers/night **** Hotel: 1.25 € pers/night ***** Hotel: 2.50 € pers/ night (Generalitat de Cat, n.d., pernoctaciones en establecimientos turisticos)

In less than 25 years, the number of tourists in Barcelona grew from 1.7 thousands to 7.5 thousands per year. Every tourist that enjoys a hotel around Spain has to pay a fee of around from 0, 75 € to 2, 5 € per night (depending on the establishment).20 In the country, 30% of the money raised is distributed towards the local authorities, and the city of Barcelona distributes 50% of the money raised. The funds are destined to promote tourism in Catalunya as well as preserve and develop tourism infrastructure. The taxes contribute 34.4 thousands of euros annually, 16.6 thousands for the establishments located in Barcelona. There’s a monopoly of business from the hotel sector. Different political actors fight

La Ramblas, one of the most walked streets in Barcelona. Main tourist attraction

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Parc Guell, Gaudi. This public park was privatized in 2014 to regulate mass tourism. Now it costs 8€ to enter.

the monopoly, claiming the money gained and redirecting it to improve the city and the residents’ communities instead of promoting tourism. There have already been petitions to change the law that applies nationwide. One can observe a similar top-down to urban designers of 1850 and last century that I have been discussing in previous pages.

This political mobilization is born from local initiatives. Lately Barcelona’s locals have been in the streets protesting about the invasion of tourists in the area. Tourism is a double edge sword. It increases the economic capital flow and attracts investors, keeping the city in constant regeneration, but funds are not used for the common profit of the locals, leaving a city with an empty image created for the leisure of the foreigner, and turning its back on the neighborhood life and community. We can see different agents taking the lead in this contested urban space: locals versus multinationals, community life versus tourism profit. There have been several actions such as protests and demands to change the law but locals have to suffer on a daily basis from the exhausting activity of hosting and dealing with tourists housing. The city, aware of this very economic profitable problem, has decided to change the audience and users of Barcelona. Gentrification therefore plays an important role in shaping the landscape of the city, cleaning any undesirable sights or situations. But this cleaning of the city, claimed to be for the locals and the sake of getting high class tourists is an excuse to keep going with the image of progress of the city, dehumanizing the cultural identity by creating and selling a product. Furthermore, Bravo (2015) explicitly urges us to realize that ‘‘gentrification and urban sprawl are two results of a single process that must be actively counteracted, as it takes us away from a city model that is more mixed and compact, and consequently more just and sensible’’ (p. 46). Factors such as the hotel boom, the increase of the police force, the illegal tourist apartments, show how the government is taking advantage of the situation and increasing surveillance and investment in the name of progress. There have been initiatives to shift the power or integrate tourism in a more beneficial way to serve the people. The local community frequently exerts it, reclaiming a shift in the priorities of the city, claiming the importance of the neighborhood life and community.. Busses are filled with people going towards the Sagrada

Queue of tourists waiting for the tourist bus, which runs more frequently than a normal bus.

Booze cruise in Barcelona. Tourists bar crawl and trash the city meanwhile disrupting with noise and intoxication.

Barcelona, la millor botiga del món 67

Familia, Park Güell, Plaza Catalunya, Montjuic etc, tourists that are on holidays. These take the space of the people that have to go to work every day, wearing out the energy of the neighbors and using the public infrastructures without respect for the public. But that example of everyday life is nothing compared to the excessive numbers of illegal apartments created for tourists that invade the neighborhood: according to Blanchar, C (2014) by 2014 the government set the limit to 9.606 licensed existent apartments in Barcelona, in contrast with the 2.059 tourist apartments registered in 2011. The narrow downtown streets are constantly flooded, the local artisan shops are replaced by souvenir shops, the prices go up, and the smugglers appear. Public space is also invaded by the bars and restaurants’ terraces… Barcelona is well known for the night scene, hosting drunk people that leave their waste everywhere and disturb the locals with noise and undesirable interactions. This is a very common trend in Barcelona called ‘‘drunken tourism.’’ Neighbors have protested claiming that they want their dignity and their city back. Barcelona has reacted to the protests by increasing the number of police in the streets, making clear that tourists have preference as they increase the flow of capital.

Tourism represents around 14% of the GDP. The main argument for tourism is that it creates jobs with 42% are created by the restaurant industry- but the working conditions are precarious. There is a possible repetition of the pattern of the housing crisis being reflected on what is happening with the tourist sector. A hotel and tourist apartment economic bubble that is predicted to burst within this upcoming year.

Barcelona is generally a mid-rise city, a key part of Cerdà’s plan being the consistent scale of seven to nine stories. Despite this precedent, the city has hosted strategically located higher buildings. An example can be Jean Nouvel’s Torre Agbar. Another, in 2008, W Hotel was constructed in the beach area, changing the skyline of the city and setting a scene of high class tourism.

The old fishermen neighborhood of La Barceloneta lead to one of the most attractive tourist locations, in between downtown and the beach. As the city gets profit out of this tourist business, locals try to get their part too, participating by opening illegal tourists apartments everywhere in the city and taking over the city by Uber. As Bravo (2015, p.47) states, As the streets care less for their citizens than for their customers, they are filled with mechanisms to shoo away the poor and become more exclusive and excluding, more at the service of profit and luxury than of equal access and free movement. Excessive rules and regulations suffocate spontaneous expression and criminalize any protest, while giving wings to commercial propaganda, social control and a strong presence of the powers that be.

68 Barcelona, la millor botiga del món

The city does not know how to deal with the changing city space and instead of using the changes towards a construction of the neighborhood life, malls and businesses keep growing and appearing.

Current situation Madrid is the capital of Spain but Barcelona is considered the second capital, due to its size and popularity. Barcelona is the capital of the richest area of Spain, Catalunya, and has a higher density than Madrid, which affects demand and supply due to its higher concentration and a lesser amount of new construction. By 2014, Luis de Guindos, Minister of Economy, and Cristobal Montoro, Minister of Real estate, happily announced that housing prices started to rise in 6 of the 10 districts, whereas in Madrid only two out of 21 districts were undergoing ‘progress’ and gentrification. According to Lamet (2014), the neoliberal policies were applied more efficiently in Catalonia’s capital, due to its interest in the tourism industry and in the renovation of the city. Barcelona’s boom districts were Ciutat Vella (13%), Eixample (6,3%), Les Corts (2,1%), Sarrià-Sant Gervasi (1,8%), Gràcia (1,2%) and San Martí (0,2%).

In consequence, in the same year, Catalunya registered an average of 43 evictions per day, and since the crisis it sums up to 500.000, according to a study made by la PAH about poor housing conditions of energy poverty, excessive evictions, and number of unused buildings in consequence of the high prices of property. They announce that there are registered 450.000 unused dwellings: 100.000 under corporation’s names, 80.000 under construction and 270.000 private owners (Matyszczyk, 2014). It is important to notice the correlation between the evictions and the lack of basic resources and energy poverty, such as electricity and water, which are cut as an announcement previous to evictions.

On May 15th of 2011, through a call of action under the slogan ‘‘we are not merchandise under the control of politicians and bankers,’’ summoned by Democracia Real Ya!, thousands of people gathered in the main squares of 50 cities around the country. The turnout exceeded expectations but this is not surprising given that the working class keeps on growing. In Barcelona, there were so many people that showed up out of curiosity or to start talking

2012. Plaza Catalunya. Indignados Movement.

2012. Action by the Indignados Movement.

Barcelona, la millor botiga del món 69

about alternatives. People gathered but, in opposition to Madrid’s indignados who the same night stayed over and started the occupation, los indignados de Barcelona took until Monday to start the occupation, when a group of 40 people came together and spent the night in the square, and stayed until May 27th, when they were evicted violently by the police. The indignados came back out to the square to show the strength of the movement amongst the people, and seeing that it was not sustainable to keep occupying the square while fighting against police brutality, they gathered within neighborhoods and started forming local assemblies. One of the main characteristics of the movement is a huge grassroots mobilization aiming to stop the foreclosures that forms under the acronym PAH (Platform of People Affected by Mortgages).

The activism of Barcelona’s inhabitants and their political interest has a long history and has been possible through the confluence of different left sectors such as the Asamblea of Barcelona, the occupation of Banco Santander during the period of general strike or the occupation of the Palacio del Cine, the neighborhood associations and anarchists social centers. But these instances are few compared with the vastness of the problem. Only militants show up to the rallies for the right to housing due to the feeling of helplessness that of the economic situation in Spain. There was apathy mixed with fear of speaking up and losing their jobs, and a lack of ideology to counteract the neoliberal agenda and denounce its practices. Nevertheless, as Bravo states in Barcelona Metrópoli (2015, p. 50), in the past decade we can see that there are five different areas of housing proposals that offer different solutions. There

Okupa Social Center. Kasa de la Muntanya. Near Parc Guell, Barcelona.

70 Barcelona, la millor botiga del món

are proposals from the solidarity economy, La Borda and Sostre Civic, at Can Batlló and Carrer de la Princesa respectively. They propose the cession of use of land by the city council and a cooperative model as housing solution.

Then, we can find grassroots and counterculture proposals which would be composed by the okupas and la PAH. Thirdly, there are proposals regarding social policies, such as the Arrels Foundation’s ‘‘Pis Zero’’ (Zero Apartment), a home for homeless experiment, and ‘‘Arquitectes de Capçalera’’’s call to architect’s social role through their response to emergency situations. Moreover, there are proposals regarding sustainability and materials such as the Resò Project, winner of the Solar Decathlon competition in 2014, by architecture students from ETSAV, Barcelona, a solar community house for social rehabilitation. Lastly, there are proposals based on architectural form, architectonic works exposed in _Export Barcelona that explore new concepts of residential architecture, and the ‘Casa sense gènere’ (gender-neutral house) project and publications. In the next chapter we are going to explore more deeply the first two proposals, solidarity economy as public-private partnerships, and the grassroots and counterculture proposals as networks of support for people facing risk of social exclusion through evictions and lack of housing.

August 2014 was characterized by a lot of protests against mass tourism.

Barcelona, la millor botiga del món 71

73 74 74 75 78 79 80 81 85 88 88 89 91 92 93

3

DWELLERS’ RESISTANCE AND COUNTERCULTURE

Initial residents’ direct action Start of the conversation, planting the seeds Talking about housing as social justice La PAH’s model ILP: towards the abolition of the eviction crisis The Spanish Revolution Squatting empty units Towards a more just renting system Alternative ways of accessing housing Self-management and cooperatives: Sant’s history Repurposing abandoned factories Towards a new model of architectural practice Towards a housing cooperative system Surrender of property: the public and private management

72 Dwellers’ resistance and counterculture

3CITIZENS’ RESISTANCE AND COUNTERCULTURE TO THE HOUSING AND EVICTION CRISIS ‘‘The right to the city is far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city.’’

(David Harvey, 2008)

In this chapter we are going to see how the various neighborhoods of Barcelona tackle the housing and eviction crisis. In the previous chapter I discussed the layout of Barcelona’s housing, where issues are reflected in different ways. Some neighborhoods, like Nou Barris, have more evictions and others, like Gracia, have more tourist apartments. According to Pere Julia (2010), a member from Prou Especulacio, social movements ‘‘are collective efforts to establish a new order in life and to change norms and values to achieve social change. They are a logical way to encourage citizen participation.’’ Barcelona is a city characterized by a history of social movements, and by the organization of middle/low social class workers, mainly by districts. It is a healthy sign to see different groups spread across the city that tackle different symptoms of the same core problem. In this chapter I am going to talk about different movements across the city that counter the same main issue, housing, but that respond to specific neighborhood problems that reflect their neighborhood’s unique histories. These movements spread across the city the contagious power of the people. They also politize space and its inhabitants.

Map 3) a. Map of Barcelona with the three neighborhoods mentioned in this chapter.

Dwellers’ resistance and counterculture 73

As David Harvey (2012) reaffirms in Rebel Cities, ‘‘Indignados occupies the squares of cities, spreads with strength debates and political fight to the public space, which is transformed because of the social action, a common good of the movement.’’ Social movements take over public space and reclaim it as theirs. There are two ways of working with the people and injustice: the first one is by forming grassroots organizations that are autonomous and completely based on the power of the people, without any political affiliation or engagement, and have few contacts with the government. The second one is by forming social groups that initiate a long term conversation and relationship with the government as they try to legalize an alternative to access housing. Both methods prove to be effective when it comes to spreading awareness and getting people engaged and political, but they still differ in ways that shape the population.

Initial citizens’ direct actions Start of conversation, planting the seeds

1. For more information refer to chapter 1.

2. This is a participatory process where citizens propose a new law initiative backed up with at least 500.000 signatures to prove the need of the law to be passed. The ILP is then proposed to the government and revised and eventually passed (or not).

During the summer of 2007, the different protests and sit-ins that had increased over the past years, consolidated and formed a network under the name of V de Vivienda (H for Housing) that hosted the different branches and other allied organizations. Leal reported in an El Mundo article (2007) that this movement was initiated in over 14 Spanish cities. It was the first movement that denounced the existence of the housing bubble and the violence that the speculation of housing created against citizens, making it real and alive. They denounced the lack of resources and consequential problems that youth face finding housing, which then sparked a conversation about housing speculation and housing as a right. Their coalition with other neighborhood associations and their actions in the street, gathered the needed media attention and the impact it had reached to Miloon Kothari, spokesperson of the ONU that met up with the group and wrote a report on housing accessibility, denouncing the situation that Spaniards face.1 After this, the government of Zapatero, PSOE, approved a fund to help young people with renting, and the movement started to fade out. Activists tried to keep the movement alive through fighting to pass the ILP (Popular Legislative Initiative)2 for a universal social renting policy but it never came about and the movement eventually died out.

Although some of the main claims differ, V de Vivienda was the seed of la PAH (Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca – People Affected by the Mortgage). Some of the activists that met each other at V de Vivienda analyzed the impacts and effects of the housing crisis and got together in 2009 to create la PAH. Their fight was quite similar but the people that constituted

74 Dwellers’ resistance and counterculture

the groups were different. V de Vivienda was composed of young workers with precarious salaries that organized to be able to emancipate themselves, whereas la PAH was formed by families already immersed in evictions. The group was a way to resist the legal framework that protects banks and financial entities above citizens and their right to housing. As the crisis deepened, la PAH started to include stopping evictions in their plan of action and stirred up talk about the eviction crisis in the media. People from the outskirts and surroundings of the city came to ask for support and learn from the structure of la PAH. After some time of working together, people would go back to their hometowns and create branches of la PAH. Carlos Macia (2016), an active member of la PAH Barcelona reiterated that PAH’s model was easy to replicate, it had a multiplier effect. By the time they began to work, the 15M movement started in the squares: this social burst of protests, in addition to the constant and growing evictions happening around the country, catalyzed the creation of PAHs everywhere (195) in Spain (Betiko, 2014, p. 6).

Talking about housing as social justice ‘‘In the past five years, many people have realized what we proposed 30 years ago. Actually, the PAH is doing what we started:

¡STOPPED EVICTION! #SiSePuede #YesWeCan #LourdeSeQueda #LourdesStays

La PAH occupying the premises of la SAREB at Barcelona Meeting Point

for more information

Where: Carrer Lleiva 44, Sants When: Mondays 6-7 + Tuesdays 7-8 Who: Meetings with a mic so everybody can hear and be heard. In Spanish so everybody can understand. Or with translators. Groups of around 50 people. www.pahbarcelona.org organize individual demands ... and act collectively. We were not visionaries, but we put on the table the issue and a real solution’’ (Joni D., 2014, La Marea)

Dwellers’ resistance and counterculture 75

From the very beginning, PAH has managed to cover the basic needs that the public authorities have overlooked and failed to support. Every PAH operates under the same two premises: they are apolitical and offer free, collective, nondiscriminatory assessments around the housing situation. PAH welcomes everybody who is affected by any kind of issue related to housing and allies and acts as a meeting point for people to plan actions and support each other, creating a solidarity network. It is a movement that declares openly its fight against the judicial and political framework in place in Spain currently.

It works in an open assembly structure, initially meeting every two weeks, where everybody is welcome to explain their case and ask for help. PAHs work with lawyers, studying the possibility of putting together demands to denounce the abusive practices present these past few years. They also carry on a diverse range of actions to spread awareness amongst the population, voicing the problems and the emergency situation in which lots of families find themselves.

According to Carlos Huerga (2015), a member of la PAH, by 2010, once all the PAHs were organized in their autonomous regions, they began three main campaigns: Stopdesahucios (Stopevictions), motions in municipalities; and the ILP - Popular Legislative Initiative for payment in kind, the suspension of evictions and social rent.

Stopdesahucios (Stopevictions): This campaign focuses on the creation of a network of support that acts accordingly to achieve the full termination of evictions. Their way of working is through the action of neighbors and activists. They either put pressure on the entity that will execute the eviction, provide full legal support, or directly organize a ‘‘picket’’ that will physically stop the eviction and force negotiation.

Motions in municipalities: This project works on achieving compromises with town halls to stop evictions through passing different laws regarding the eviction crisis. Even though some PAH’s gathered more than enough signatures for the petitions to pass, it was just another step that proved how the government was under the control and service of financial institutions. When working to change the institutional structure, PAH realized how signatures were not enough because at the time of applying petitions, the city councils over Spain ‘‘rung their hands’’ and kept encouraging financial entities to manage resources that they should be managing themselves (Huerga, 2015).

Although it does not seem to have been such a successful campaign, it did set the groundwork for further discussion and provided more reasons to demand the third project.

76 Dwellers’ resistance and counterculture

The Popular Legislative Initiative for payment in kind, the suspension of evictions and social rent: This last project proposes three measures: • Retroactive Payment: it is called payment to the action of delivering a house to the financial institution with which it holds the mortgage in exchange for being free from debt.

• Termination of evictions: whenever it concerns conventional housing and the non-payment of the mortgage loan is due to reasons beyond their control.

• Social rent: the debtor is entitled to continue living in the home paying rent that does not exceed 30% of their monthly income for a period of five years.

By June 2010, PAH and Observatori DESC brought an ILP, Legislative Popular Initiative, which is regulated in a national and provincial scale in Spain. The ILP is a democratic tool put in place since the Spanish Constitution in 1978, stated in the 87.3 article and in the Organic Law #3 put in place in 1984. In order for the ILPs to be revised by the State, they need to have at least 500.000 credited signatures, which is equivalent to 1.26% of the population (CERMI). The work done by PAH recruited around 1.400.000 signatures (more than needed and expected, which showed the extent of the emergency) but the content of the ILP did not convince the State to pass it, PP and PSOE denied it.

After realizing the power that they have, la PAH created another campaign in 2012, called la Obra Social.3 La Obra Social, direct action, consisted of occupying4 -in their words, recuperating5- empty housing units from banks and relocating evicted folks. In cities across the state, entire buildings have been recovered and now host relocated people who claim the building to be transferred to them under a social housing rent that allows them to have a second chance. In addition, it intends to denounce how in a country where there are more than 500,000 evictions, hundreds of thousands of empty housing units are held by banks that have been rescued with public money. Today, more than 1,000 people found in this formula a possibility of getting housing, for example the reclaimed building of la Bordeta6 that houses 8 squatting families. This campaign has forced the government to act on the problems they presented while stirring talk in the media and government about addressing the housing crisis. Getting the housing problem talked about as a problem is already a victory for them. This campaign is an added element that shows how it’s only by direct action and civil disobedience that la PAH achieves their propositions.

In these almost five years, injustice after injustice, PAH has tried to adapt to the situation providing an answer, either stopping evictions, showing who the culprits are, creating alternatives or arranging for those affected to be able to empower themselves and find a solution to their problems. La PAH’s actions and campaigns have had an impact on the Spanish population, as terms like

3. Named ironically like the charity actions that Banks host–it is a way to denounce specific bank entities and their empty housing units.

4. According to Lucas from Banc Expropiat, these squatting actions are not carried by okupas but by people who is their first time squatting in Barcelona. He emphasizes that the group of Sabadell for example does have more squatter’s ideology and antecedents. But this campaign has not officially been started nor affiliated with the okupas.

In addition, this action is only carried out once all the legal actions have been exhausted.

5. They generate their own collective imaginary towards what squatting means.

They are taking back what is supposed to be from the citizens, reclaiming that housing is a right. It is very important to note that these actions started once families demanded to fight and execute the actions, none action is imposed onto anybody.

6. This block –owned by the SAREB-hosts 8 families. After months of negotiations and touching ups, they managed to get water and electricity.

Now they are in the process of negotiating social rent.

Dwellers’ resistance and counterculture 77

‘‘payment in kind, forgiveness and social rent’’ have been normalized, with less stigma and more popularity amongst the citizens. Language has been a very important aspect for la PAH to work on, as some terms and expressions were not accessible to everybody and created confusion, shame, and stigma.

La PAH is not envisioning slowing down or growing, because the problem is structural and has no instant resolution. The spokesperson, Ada Colau is advocating for a ‘‘stable’’ future that ensures families and descendants the right to a home. She is denouncing the fact that families end up in the street or with less access to housing and believes this is a structural issue that needs to be changed in order to provide a stable access to housing.

La PAH’s model

Every PAH across the territory is different, and even though some general principles and actions are used by all of the PAH’s, we will focus on the one in Barcelona. The key element for their work practice is how connected all activities and actions are amongst all the PAHs as well as their similar work structure and yet how local and centralized their work is. Another key element is their working system: accusing those responsible for the situation, un-a shaming families, and pointing out the speculators, financial entities and administrators, actions that are reflected in their network of mutual support as well as their actions and campaigns. Thus one of the strengths of la PAH is how they empower people, people who turn from victim into affected and from affected into activists by having a voice and a space to learn about their struggle and grow as activists. These three phases reflect a transition, social transformation, and ultimately, empowerment.

7. It is easier to occupy whole blocks to relocate families together and have a stronger bond between activists.

Even though there are plenty of empty housing units it is more difficult to find entire empty blocs in Barcelona than in the outskirts.

It is also interesting to talk about the main differences between two PAHs, one in Barcelona and one in Sabadell –a small city in the outskirts of Barcelona. In Sabadell they tackle more problems than just the mortgages: they cover rental issues –due to the number of people facing that problem. They also emphasize squatting –as the affected might not have to pay a mortgage anymore but still find themselves in a precarious situation. Sabadell’s PAH has taken over two/ three blocks, whereas, in contrast, Barcelona’s PAH works mainly on mortgages issues and has la Obra Social that squatted only one block.7 Contrary to Sabadell or Madrid PAHs that are decentralized and work by neighborhoods, Barcelona has just one local in Sants. Having the work ‘centralized’ makes it more difficult for (activist) people to coalesce when they are in other neighborhoods.

Additionally, the success of la PAH is hindered, which shows that each neighborhood has their own issues that cannot be tackled by one entity in a

Locations of PAHs distributed around Spain, 2015.

Source: PAH.org

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single neighborhood. This is why other social movements have been springing up to intervene when and where la PAH cannot.

PAH’s current meeting structure works on separating different cases through the week, starting on Mondays when they have collective consultancy: open meetings for everybody to come by and explain their cases, where volunteers of la PAH welcome them and explain the three different phases that one goes through when facing a mortgage that cannot be paid and encourages everybody to learn them and be conscious of what phase they are in: ‘‘you are your best lawyer.’’8 During the end of the meetings people who already faced issues discussed by the newcomers are given feedback as to what to do next in their own cases. This collective consultancy is the heart of PAH’s base of operation: it encourages the feeling of community at the expense of individualism and assistencialism.9 Within this system, everybody gets a chance to feel part of the movement and engage themselves with the cause, which makes the movement stronger, it works very well. After that, Tuesdays are for the coordination assemblies that gather old and newcomers to discuss actions happening as well as updates: how they organize on a local level and discuss new strategies as well as coming actions within autonomous (la Catalana) and state government PAHs.10

8. Encouraging slogan used in almost all meetings 9. Instead of a service of ‘‘one stop’’ window approach which fosters a dependency of needed assistance, where one person alienated from your problem tackles your issue without getting you involved (Macia, C, 2016) and (Adell, M., Lara, A., & Mármol, E., 2014, January) 10. They meet once a month all the Catalan PAHs and then once every three/four months in a general assembly with the delegates of each PAH in the state: these assemblies look more like cleaning up and taking care of the movement meetings, where they draft future actions and take decisions communally.

ILP: towards the abolition of the eviction crisis

La PAH has become more well-known since the first ILP attempt, and has enabled two main things: 1) to provide support nationwide to the state movement, a big campaign pushed forward by all the PAHs of the Spanish state, and 2) to allow the subject of housing crisis and abusive mortgage laws to be in the political and media agenda with hours and hours on TV, pages and pages of articles, constant mention in debates: they manage to reach everybody. Even though the first time they proposed it to the government with a double number of signatures than needed to pass, it got denied, la PAH kept fighting and reorganizing their proposal until this past July, when they proposed the law again, this time just to the Catalan Autonomous region, which changed the scope and importance of the proposal but also was more likely to be successful, and was agreed upon by the Catalan government under the name 24/2015.11 As @luchomasan (2015, Dec) points out in a letter to the Mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, this law fights the housing emergency and energy poverty through actively protecting the right to housing of the citizens.

This law is reactive rather than proactive: it states that if someone is going through an eviction12 the owners who are evicting them have to secure them an alternative house unit to live in. In order to be under the law, the ‘‘victim’’ needs to not have another housing unit and be within the parameters of residential exclusion. Thus, if the owner is considered ‘‘big’’, meaning it being from the investment funds or owning and renting/selling at least 17 other

11. “LEY 24/2015, De 29 De Julio, De Medidas Urgentes Para Afrontar La Emergencia En El Ámbito De La Vivienda Y La Pobreza Energética.”Noticias Jurídicas.

Retrieved from http://noticias. juridicas.com/base_datos/ CCAA/557694-l-24-2015-de29-jul-ca-cataluna-medidasurgentes-para-afrontarla-emergencia.html 12. This encompasses any kind of eviction due to rent, mortgage and okupation.

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housing units, they need to be the ones providing for an alternative. If the owner is ‘‘smaller’’, meaning they only own 1 or 2 more housing units, then it’s the public authorities that need to provide an emergency housing unit in order that the victims of the eviction not to end in the streets. Thus, one of the main characteristics is that the weight of housing emergency does not fall as much on the public authorities but rather on the main culprits of the action, such as big developers. The action carried through the proposal of the law demonstrated the power of the people when they mobilize as well as their desire to claim their rights. Their main slogan is the 5 of la PAH, 5 basic demands such as stop evictions, basic amenities, social and public housing, accessible rent and payment in given.

Having one of la PAH’s main organizers now in ‘‘opposition’’, on the side that la PAH is fighting against, is an interesting evolution for la PAH (and the government!). Being apolitical enables them to put pressure and critique the politicians, even if it involves confronting one of the main organizers-they have to be alert and still call her out whenever is needed. This stance is more difficult than imagined as the media does not talk about la PAH as much, as they consider Ada Colau’s work an extension of la PAH, and it is also a great opportunity to silence la PAH’s work –which is picking up its’ pace. In addition, la PAH is feeling a wave of apathy from the citizens who are taking the same stance that the media and feel like they won’t need to keep claiming their rights as Ada Colau will fight for them (Macia, C. 2016). I will analyze and discuss this relationship and its impact on both government and citizens in Chapter 4.

The Spanish Revolution In May 15th 2011, an unprecedented number of people gathered in the main squares of the big cities in Spain. They reflected the social unhappiness from the crisis of 2008: the social economic cutbacks and lack of public funds that manifested in an indignation and disbelief in public powers. This is reflected in one of their slogans ‘‘they do not represent us’’. Five days later, they reconvened and decided on their goals and proposals. Soon, after resisting violent police encounters, they decided to leave the squares voluntarily and decentralize their movements and expand them within the neighborhoods, with the slogan ‘‘Pren els barris’’ [Take the neighborhoods] and posters announcing popular assemblies (Robledo, P. 2013). La PAH benefited enormously from this apolitical and syndicalist movement, and their activity grew and spread across the state. In addition, other social movements started to manifest and collaborate with their neighbors, expanding the work first started in the squares. According to architects Gaya and Seró (2015), ‘‘2012, the year of deprivation; 2013, the year of protests against the

May 2011

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cuts and austerity and of the democratization of poverty; 2014, the year when even in Davos talk turned to the need to reshape capitalism.’’ (p.68) Now people have started to mobilize more and to be more vocal and loud by expressing their desires and needs out in the streets.

Squatting empty units Back in October 2011, there were some houses in the La Salud district that were under an eviction threat and a group of people gathered to protest in the streets. Together they decided to take over a bank from Catalunya Caixa, and the following Sunday, during a meeting, 30 -40 people committed to the plan of holding a social center in the okupied bank. These energies were fueled by the 15M indignados movement that was still in the air and very much present, starting as a temporary idea to denounce the amount of empty buildings and spaces in the city but becoming a definitive okupation. The Bank Expropiat is home of the indignados movement of Gracia that started during the protests of May 2011 in Plaza Catalunya. After a couple of months, the group decided to break off according to the geography of the city (Asamblea de la Vila de Gracia, etc) and work at a neighborhood level rather than city level.

The Asamblea de la Vila de Gracia identified different issues they wanted to work on when it first started in Plaza Catalunya. They split into commissions and began to hold workshops and classes. Nowadays, each of the activities are self-managed and are supported by the management assembly that supervises so that activities do not overlap, and so that people have someone who is there to listen to them. There are different types of activities and commissions that deal with core issues. The main ones are networks of the food market, the free clothing store, language programs, sewing programs, and a space where different collectives get together. Holding these activities is a way of resisting

Banc expropiat at night.

Banc Expropiat. Occupied bank open as a okupa social center since 2012.

Gracia, Barcelona. for more information

Where: Travesera de Gracia 181, Gracia, Barcelona When: Wednesdays 19-21 h Who: Small group sitting around a table, language spoken is mainly catalan. https://15mpedia.org/wiki/Banc_Expropiat_de_Gr%C3%A0cia#Documentos https://vimeo.com/113681131 Dwellers’ resistance and counterculture 81

the neoliberal policies of privatizing hobbies and learning and a way to thrive and create a healthy and holistic community.

13. Referencing the failed attempt to demolish Can Vies and the support the community showed towards it.

1.4 In addition they claim that the transaction between the buy and the deal with Manuel Bravo Solano is actually beneficial for the owner himself, as he does not have to worry about the legal side and he receives the rent that the okupas owe through the government, with taxes money. According to Directa, Manuel Bravo Solano is receiving 66000 Euros per the year (5.500 €/month) of 2015 and holds an unknown and inaccessible rental contract. (Bancexpropiat, 2015) and (Mora, 2015)

The ‘Bank Expropiated’ is set in a very popular street in front of the market, a location that has boasted its success. A wide range of different people across cultures, social class and ideologies have come together and engaged in this social center that bloomed in the heart of their neighborhood. Therefore, when the city council and the owner of Catalunya Caixa Bank threatened to evict the social center there was a lot of backlash and community support towards the okupa center: the center kept organizing large protests. The number of people attending and supported were a constant sign of the expropiated bank’s success and impact. Catalunya Caixa has brought to trial the okupas of the bank three times and all three the bank has voluntarily withdrawn from the trial. Eventually in 2014, they sold the property to Antartic Vintage through the representative Manuel Bravo Solano. (This person offered 11.000 euros for them to leave, which they refused). This past year, 2015, after some incidents with other social centers, the previous mayor of Barcelona, Xavier Tria’s CIU (Convergence and Union) government began to support the ‘Banc Expropiat’ for a whole year, behind their backs, in order to avoid possible evictions, as reported by Europapress, & Redaccion (2015). The government’s strategy is to gain some time and support this space that serves a dynamic function through its workshops and classes. The okupas of the space are not so soft on the issue and claim that the city council is afraid of confrontations13 and it is a way to buy them out in the same year elections were taking place.14 As they write in one of their announcements on their webpage ‘‘It is very clear that they wanted to buy social peace in a year of sensitive local and regional elections in which neither she (Maria Fandos, Regidora de Gracia) nor her party (CIU) were prepared to face another eviction conflict as happened in Can Vies’’ (2015).

Around the city there are different helping programs such as Caritas that are based on an assistance premise, which consists of people queuing to get something such as food or clothing, where there are donors and receptors whose difference is very clear and rigid and although it covers some problems it does not cut to the root of the problem. This system perpetuates patterns of hierarchy, and power domination. Neighborhood movements such as this one, break through the dichotomies formed in other conventional and assistentialists groups such as poor/rich, in need/no in need, deepening and emphasizing solidarity and bonding, and counteracting individual mindsets fostered in the city. In the next chapter I will explain in more detail the importance of organizational work and its individual and collective impact.

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Grup d’Habitatge was created to provide alternatives to the housing crisis in Gracia. Gentrification, mobbing and tourist apartments result in locals having to leave their houses. The range of people that came through this group included students, people without resources, migrants, lots of families and old people. In short, all the people who have been expelled by the housing policies. The principle of this group is to present a model against speculation and challenge private ownership practices through providing a network of mutual support and engaging different people. Their premise is to transform the housing question into a collective issue and to get all the groups engaged.

Grup d’Habitatge is a self-managed group that shows their ability to offer solutions to the housing problem. Their main solution is to okupy empty buildings and reach out to people to be squatters. Their practices are very tied with the okupa and the anarchist movement present in Barcelona’s citizens’ resistance and counterculture.

This group dissolved a little over a year ago after squatting two or three blocs successfully: people were burned out because of how demanding it was to train people in squatting a building.15 Little by little they were also having less participants/people showing up. Coincidentally, there was a new project of hotel construction in one of the main squares of Gracia, Plaza del Sol, which touched the tourist issue that the neighborhood is facing. Different collectives of the neighborhood, amongst them people participating in Banc Expropiat, squatted the space where the hotel was supposed to be built, claiming that another hotel could not be built in Gracia. This squat action fostered a new group to tackle housing problems, named ‘‘Oficina d’Habitatge’’- ‘‘Housing Office’’ (the same name as the official city council’s housing office). This group continued with the work that Grup d’Habitatge started. The hotel’s owners evicted the collectives and the Oficina d’Habitatge got back with the Banc Expropiat and has been working there for almost a year now.

15. Squatting is not easy and there are some misconceptions around how to do it such as ‘the only entrance is the door’ or ‘when you see a cop, start running asap’, which hinder the overall performance of the group when squatting.

The difference between these two groups tackling the housing problem goes beyond their names: the ‘‘Grup’’ took on a perspective and way of doing things from the squatters and focused on creating a network of mutual support based on the okupas ideology and practice. The ‘‘oficina’’ kept on the work of mutual support and created a network of squatters but decided to expand the vision and work on two other main projects, which are creating a collective consultancy network that tackles renting problems such as lack of legal protection of both sides for tenants and renters, which leads to the last project that Lucas V. (2016) describes as a ‘‘very ambitious project of creating a tenants union –which has never existed but has antecedents in some other European countries. Even though the percentage of tenants is small throughout Barcelona, there is a high % in Gracia.’’ According to Lucas V, the three main core practices of ‘‘la Oficina’’ are: tackle mobbing (consultancy and

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support in relation to mobbing, rents and supplies -sometimes as an eviction threat they cut electricity and energy-), squatting as an emergency alternative, when all the legal ways of accessing a house have been tried and failed, and they are going to start a stronger campaign, not only for self-defense, including demands such as higher amount of VPO units and more cases of cesión de uso (surrender of property).

The evolution and expansion of their proceedings has led to a more inclusive and open practice that welcomes a wide range of people, disregarding their age, social class and previous political/activist involvement or lack thereof.

The practice of squatting is still very present but it is not their main one anymore. With their role as support and creation of a network, ‘‘la Oficina’’creates awareness as well as a healthy web of contacts and participants. Therefore, after noticing how people in need of housing would come one at a time, they began to encourage collective squatting versus individual squatting, as it is an easier practice and a collective work that speaks to the collective cause, like a political action (interestingly enough, there are more individual or couples that are interested to squat vs ‘conventional’ families. In consequence, they put all these people in contact and encourage them to squat together and help each other out by going on walks to check empty buildings and by spreading the word and solidarity. The ones that want to squat then get together and learn about the different characteristics of the movement such as how assemblies work, the importance of collective decisions, no squatting till everybody is in, etc. These workshops and intermingling of different ‘‘squatter’’ experience levels reflect the inclusivity of the movement as they welcome people from different experiences, cultures, ideologies etc. The workshops are very important, in order for everybody to be in the same page and be aware of their actions.

The physicality of the environment of a city can provoke its users and in this case, from the architecture and urbanism point of view, a key element of the success of the Bank and its inclusivity has been the big glass windows in its premises that have enabled literally total transparency and the welcoming of the people who are around. At the same time, they have communally agreed to keep the inside free of symbols in order to include more people. Besides, the structure of the organization is based on a goal of anti-capitalism (reflected in the different solidarity networks formed). Another key to their success is their location, in a very walkable area next to the market. They have lots of visitors every day, people who come frequently and attend workshops and help around, and newcomers that have heard of it, that have a housing issue and even though they might not know how, know that they will get help if they show up. The most common way for them to spread their word, and actions is the mouth to ear method which works way better than Facebook,

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email or any media platform, according to Lucas V. In addition, the audience and participants in their protests spread the word amongst themselves which leads to a wider range of people informed of the actions and participating in them, like a multiplier effect.

In short, this group within the “Banc Expropiat” umbrella is very successful and carries on healthy and much needed work that provides the material needs of the community and that the government fails to provide. People have a better perception of it, mainly because of its wide range of users and lack of ruling ideology or stigma, its welcoming of a diversity of people, and activities and number of participants. Even though they do not have a precise count, they have many users and allies’ every day.

The main goals of the Oficina d’Habitatge are to create three groups that feed off of each other and that are self-managed and autonomous. Lucas V. expresses the need to create a network so that newcomers do not have to wait for the main ‘‘motivados’’ (invested) that would lead and show the main around the neighborhood. The Oficina aims to create a horizontal structure that welcomes all sorts of people and that creates a constant learning loop of people networking together. They believe that this situation is healthier and will create an ongoing project, whereas squatting is an emergency measure, where they have a building for a couple of months of squatting till the people in need of housing find a better situation. They also want to win all their campaigns. For example, their most recent one is a demand for the city council to ‘‘transform’’ one of the buildings owned by the SAREB in Upper Gracia, into social housing.

Towards a more just renting system

According to their introduction post in their website, Per a què lluitem a 500×20? (2014), First, we must say that we understand housing as an unquestionable vital necessity and we believe it should be a commodity to be out of the market and speculation. For this, they must develop policies for the common good, understanding institutions and citizens as actors in the management of this “heritage of all” through associations. This development should include an implementation of the short and medium term as well as a transparency issue.

In addition, this group reclaims the following demands also found in their website:

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16. Associacion de Vecinos y Vecinas - Association Of Neighbors

• the estimation of the reduction of the Spanish population and the consequential reduction of the creation of family unities (shift towards uniparental or monoparental).

• tackling urbanism as a global and sustainable process, to become more compact rather than spread out, and with green wild spaces within a city as well as urban gardens in the proximity.

• the promotion of a culture of the ‘right to housing’ based on financial regulation, sustainability and decrease.

• the conservation, renovation of existing buildings as well as the construction of new ones when there is poor edification.

• starting a justice procedure to protect residents against mortgage debts and laws.

• starting a negotiation process with the financial European institutions to alleviate the economic debt of families, socials and Spanish state.

Back in 2006/07, there was a meeting in the Ateneu de Nou Barris, between different collectives and associations such as V de Vivienda or the AVV16 de Nou Barris. They created this platform called “Prou Especulació”, (No More Speculation) which denounces the housing bubble that was already present, a defense of decent life and housing. After the meeting, a group of affected families started gathering, creating a network of support and trying to stop evictions. They okupied apartments of evicted families, apartments that would be empty instead. They were demanding to be given 500 apartments that would cost no more than 20% of their salary (Espacio Colectivo, 2014). They claim that the right of housing can only be guaranteed if there

Assembly after having stoped an eviction. 2014

May 12th 2013, Nou Barris occupyies Plaza Catalunya for more information

[Districte de Nou Barris & Barcelona].

Where: Centre Comunitari PortaSóller c/Estudiant s/n – pça Sóller Barcelona When: Thursday 18-19H (welcome meeting) & 19-21h 86 Dwellers’ resistance and counterculture

[Districte de Sant Andreu ] Taula

Habitatge i emergència Social de Sant Andreu. Punt d’acollida i Assemblea:

Where: Avv Tramuntana Passeig Torras i Bages, 103

When: Wednesday 18-20h [Ciutat de BadalonaSta Coloma ].

Plataforma Afectadas por la Crisis

Where: carretera antigua valencia 60, Badalona When: Tuesdays 19-21h

is public housing available, as we can see in other countries of the EU, such as Denmark, Germany, and the UK. When they started recruiting families to organize them, they realized that many families came from Ciudad Meridiana, which is the district next door. They started a relationship with associations of residents and activists from Ciudad Meridiana and began to work together, as well as with 15M Nou Barris under the campaign called 9barris Cabrejada (Nou Barris Angry) (Desahucios Nou Barris, 2013). The day to day is discussed in intern assemblies of 500x20 movement but the specific actions and their agenda to act globally happens when all the movements get together to organize activities. They work very closely with the neighborhood association as they believe that it represents the most important voice.

They meet every Thursday in assemblies, that act as collective, free of charge, where every person and family explain their case and all together they try to help and support, in addition to the help brought by the lawyer Jose Angel.

It seems like their meetings were configured with a table of three people on a side that act as sort of mediators. Moreover, they also discuss actions to defend the housing right as well as protests, concentrations, sit-tins in front of banks, teach in day or evictions calls. Their profile of people are mainly families that already spent all their legal alternatives to access a house from not having income/resources, and sometimes even people who have been redirected by city council itself. This brings back the question of why they are fighting for public housing that is 20% of your income when they receive people who do not have any income. Their support network has been a transformative experience for people who once felt shame and failure from once feeling ashamed and failure, and now they find to find a space to voice their problem and find hope, find a way to work things out, temporarily.

500x20 have changed the discourse of the 15 M, ‘‘No nos representan’’ to ‘‘Si se Puede!’’, the same slogan la PAH uses. They also stop evictions and perform their actions with the same green shirts of la PAH. However, they encourage people to claim their own 500x20 in your neighborhood, which is one of the differences between them and la PAH. They tackle specific regional and territory issues of the neighborhoods, such as rent evictions and mobbing in contrast to la PAH, that works in the whole city and nationwide.

They claim their already existing relationship with the government, due to the work they have been doing, and the fact that they are already positioned as a point of reference for people to be reallocated in an empty building (Espacio Colectivo, 2014). In 2013, 90% of evictions are from renting, families that do not have work or very low income.

Barcelona is known to organize through neighborhoods, which is in contradiction to la PAH’s centralized practices. This is the result of multiple forms

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17. For more information, check the Comuns urbans a Barcelona study made by the Observatori Metropolita de Barcelona (a Barcelonabased research group) that recorded fifty self-management initiatives across the city.

18. In May 2014, there was an eviction order form the city council Xavier Trias, for the social center Can Vies, self-managed center, which did not come to fruition due to the reaction of the neighbors.

After the first night of the eviction, there was a gathering in the square of Sants were people blamed the mayor, Xavier Trias, and the alderman of the district, Jordí Martí, for not being aware of the importance of the center’s social impact amongst the neighbors: the history and relevance of the diverse workshops, cultural and entertainment activities that the okupas of the center were holding. The eviction resulted in almost a week of cacerolada (once the sun sets, people make noise banging metal objects against their pan: this action has been one of them most present as a form of activism amongst neighbors in Barcelona) (Alguacil, F. 2015)

of citizen resistance and organizational practices all around the city. Each neighborhood has different needs to be tackled and different demographics that determine the type of direct action performed by the movements. This is a common thread that we can observe between 500x20, Banc Expropiat, Okupas and other movements within the city. Another contrasting characteristic amongst the three movements presented above is what they ask for, their demands. La PAH asks for social rent, whereas, 500x20 asks for public rent.

Public rent in public housing responds to the income per person. In addition, La PAH and Banc Expropiat focus on abolishing the eviction crisis, la PAH through publicly demanding changes of law by the city councils and the central government and Banc Expropiat by facilitating squatting the empty apartments resulting from the eviction crisis.

Alternative ways of accessing housing There are also many groups that are working with the government that offer a different pathway to access housing. These groups of organized residents and citizens also fight for housing justice and often face the same consequences of the housing bubble. However, their analysis is different from the groups discussed previously, as they construct a different relationship with the government. This raises the question of whether reform and working within the structural government versus working autonomously and radically different from the capitalist alternative is more effective. Architects Gayà and Seró (2015, p.69) reiterate that in 2011, Barcelona saw ‘‘the birth of a citizens’ empowerment movement that turned Barcelona into an urban laboratory of cooperative groups and self-management.’’17 Self-management and cooperatives: Sant’s history

Sants is a district in Barcelona that has possibly the most ‘asociacionismo’ (associative activism) and is set in an impoverished area that lacks public services. The almost demolition of Can Vies in 2014,18 a social center held by Okupas that existed for more than 18 years, brought to the attention the solidarity, strength and unity of the neighbors. Since the XVIII and XIX century,

June 11th, 2011. Popular lunch at Can Batlló the day of the occupation.

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Today, there is only one allegory of the industrial activity that took place in Can Batlló: an arrow made out of coils of sunthetic thread, found in a room that used to be a knitwear workshop and built by the neighbors.

Sants has undergone an industrial transformation from being mainly agriculturally based. This ‘‘transformation’’ reflects the change of character in the inhabitants of the neighborhood, where labor movements grew, to the extent of hosting the first congress of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) in 1918.

Repurposing abandoned factories

In the neighborhood La Bordeta, in Sants, there is an industrial enclosure of 22.000 square meters known as Can Batlló, an old textile manufacture that takes over a third of the neighborhoods space. Even though this enclosure has been abandoned by the real-estate company Gaudir, the neighborhood’s spirit of labor organization is still present, uniting neighbors to act on Can Batlló’s inactivity. According to a report by Alguacil, F. (2015), in 1976, there was an urban plan that defined Can Batlló as a potential zone for urban equipment with social housing and a green zone, but the administration-city council never executed it. In 2009, the neighbors announced a squatting action in response to the inactivity of the government in relation to the site. If the city council was not going to give what they promised, the neighbors said that they would do it themselves: ‘‘Nosotros ya estamos cansados de incumplimientos/ We are already very tired of the continual breaching of contract,’’ said Jordi Falcó (2011) in a report by Alguacil, F. (2015), one of the neighbors who entered the abandoned enclosure June the 11th, 2011 at 11 am, along with a group of people. This day full of cultural and entertainment activities, typical of neighborhood parties, went on for two extra days. These 72 hours were full of different workshops, exhibitions, communal food, assemblies, projections and concerts. The action was the beginning of the takeover, as residents insisted that the city council give them part of the enclosure, building Bloque 11. This Bloque consists of a library, a sala polivalente and an auditorium, all self-managed by the people of the neighborhood.19 Today, they have gained over 5 more buildings that host a bar, wood and structure workshops, the printer and the local beer workshop. Opening up the spaces, tear walls down, make the streets accessible to everybody is a result of the anarchist-syndicalist background of Barcelona and the different intersecting cultures and

Self-constructed bar in Bloc 11

19. Once a month, last Wednesday of each month, neighbors from Sants, Badal, Hostafrancs, la Bordeta i Font de la Guatlla, get together and organize activities for the spaces and actions to take over more spaces and spread awareness. ‘‘Can Batlló és pel barri’’.‘‘Can Batllo is for the neighborhood’’ 20. It is important to mention that this group welcomes everybody. The core of the group are people who have long been exposed to assemblies and squatters but there are people who have never been and are as active participant as them. This is a key point of how it works as it is a very inclusive system.

‘It’s a heterogenic space’’ (Gamboa, Cristina, 2016)

Self-constructed interactive meeting space

Dwellers’ resistance and counterculture 89

experiences of people.20 The action aimed to reclaim the spaces used by workers and host workshops on activities that were no longer provided.

21. Every Thursday the commission of coordination host a representative of each group and talk about ideas and projects that will be further discussed at the monthly general assembly.

22. Barcelona Activa is integrated in the Area of Employment, Enterprise and Tourism at Barcelona City Council; it is responsible for promoting the economic development of the city, designing and implementing employment policies for citizens, and encouraging the development of a diversified local economy.

23. This name comes from a play of the word local being reversed as lacol.

How has this action worked? Can Batlló is composed of different commissions and work groups that propose projects and manage the activities happening in the center, keeping it alive. Its email list includes around 170 contacts, people forming part of the different projects, administrations etc and their own assemblies –though not all of them come to the general meetings, which are open to everybody.21 They also have subsidies from the city council (which help them pay water and electricity) and work according to the principles of Barcelona Activa22 through programs of labor reinsertion by giving work to people that have been out of the labor market for a while. As the mayor of Sants, Jordi Marti, explains in 2011, in a report by Alguacil, F. (2015), We entered the City Council on July 1, 2011, nearly three weeks after the occupation of the site, and then began to negotiate the road map with the entities. We negotiated with the majority owner of the buildings, the real-estate company Gaudir, the acquisition of the large private complex, (It cost 13 million euros), something neither PSC nor ICV had done during all the years they ruled. And after urban paperwork, we started to work with the neighbors to reach an agreement in relation to the use of the site. For four years, we met every 15 days to negotiate the terms of the leases and demolitions. We even agreed on what buildings had to avoid demolition and be left standing.

This illustrates Can Battló’s relation to the administration and redefines their concept of self-management. As neighbors get involved and have a say into the actions and the use of the space, they demand support from the government to encourage social and proximity economy. City council representatives come to talk to them during general assemblies and their relationship is described similar to a relationship of a person who rents with the owner: whenever there is a problem with the infrastructure of the enclosure, the administration is the one in charge of bringing the resources, as long as there is no remuneration (Jordi Falco). This relationship leads to a redefinition of the concept of “self-management” used so much in Can Batllo. “We have never talked about self-management. It is rather a model of agreement between the municipality and the entities. There, the civil society they do not do what they want, but after an ongoing dialogue, agreements are drafted. From a legal point of view it is not a self-management model, outside the law, as was Can Vies.’’ Even though the collaboration with the government has been an essential component, the initiation of the project by the neighbors and their actions have been the foundation of the project.

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Towards a new model of architectural practice

La Col,23 a group of young architects, started renting out a space in Sants to do their projects and work together. Their work dynamic was influenced by the different associations and cooperatives around. When the time to write their Senior Final Project arrived, their partnered work on abandoned and unused industrial complexes in Barcelona stood out from the rest of the projects that were not tackling any real concrete issues in the city, something that reflects the a-politization of the architecture school as well as its characteristic of being an architect producer machine versus thinker. Their project about the industrial complex was the beginning of a long collaboration with the Can Batlló movement. Once they finished their Final Project and began to work as a cooperative of architects, the relationship with the neighborhood began to be reflected in the type of work they were getting. Alongside their last year of school, in 2009, a platform for demands and proposals started at Can Batllo ‘‘whereof we join the claim and we provide the technical component, we also help with negotiations and it all but overall, it was like something very fluid and natural’’ (Gamboa, Cristina 2016) They joined the cause as neighbors, and allies as a cooperative and as architects, offering their technical skills and acting as mediators. In addition, they all come from different backgrounds within architecture as some focus more on urban issues, biology or psychology.

This cooperative of 14 young architects believes in and works for an architecture of social transformation ‘‘using architecture as a tool to intervene critically in the environments that are closest to us,’’ as stated in their website. Their system is based on a horizontal and assembly-based structure of labor. Under the principle of collaboration, active participation and purposeful action in order to transform the city, their work touches on issues such as quality of life of all citizens sharing a city. La Col has a tendency to work within these five areas: rehabilitation and new construction; issues of participation; issues around planning; housing plans to mobilize and use empty houses, a more political component; and finally, they do consultancy. They encourage debates and discussion of architecture and urbanism’s role regarding uses and management of urban spaces, different models for existing cities and claims of heritage rather than demolishing and constructing from scratch.

They support the power and the voice of the people and they consider themselves as much neighbors as architects. They define architecture as ‘‘helping to translate city-dwellers’24 concerns and putting them to paper; providing criteria for defining objectives and strategies, as well as tools for interpreting and communicating ideas through graphic design…’’(Nosaltres, n.d.) They gather and listen to neighbors, they also work with neighborhood issues such as when the benches of the area were replaced by chairs, they got together

24. This emphasis on ‘‘translation’’ is born out of the need of changing the language that the city council uses to make it more available to the rest of the community.

25. They attend the general assemblies of Can Batllo, but host their own assemblies for the commission.

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and came up with an action, such as putting pallets stacked together in order to make benches again.

Towards a housing cooperative system

Inspired by cooperative housing projects in other countries such as Andel Model in Copenhagen, DK and the FUCVAM in Uruguay, the Can Batllo assembly formed a commission25 of 15 people who advocate for cooperative housing. When exposing the main logistic characteristics of La Borda cooperative housing, ‘‘it would replicate Can Batlló’s principles,’’ as explains Cristina (2016) in an interview, ‘‘the intention is to generate a model that is not speculative, that is in the margins of the market that could little by little overthrow the market, and of collective property, heterogenic.’’

26. They need to gather 2.500.000 € so in addition to their own money, they are working with the cooperative bank Coop57. (Aznar, L. 2015) 27. They stopped the Project for about two years when they encountered people squatting whose buildings were being turned down for Can Batllo to work and live on them.

Sostre Civic Proposal for housing units in el Born, Barcelona

The first roadblock they faced was the fact that Can Batlló’s land could only be used for equipment and it would take 2 years to change the regulation to allow one of the spaces to be used for housing. So, instead of taking over a building and renovating it, they had to change the scope of their work and start from building grounds. This decision was very important and structural, as their first vision of the cooperative would have been in an already existing building that had perfect views and good orientation where 20 units would fit.

As they were only 14 families, the project would have to grow and was pretty affordable. With the change of scale, the project became more expensive.

Even though the original plan was a small project that could be replicated, the government gave full support for this new scope of the project to become a pilot test, which encouraged the group to keep moving forward. The economic aspect of the project became another roadblock as it was more expensive than the original plan.26 In the current moment they are still working27 on the promotion of the cooperative and they are enjoying the process, as they get to know the people who are living there and customize the building for specific needs rather than just responding to numbers. This is in contrast with social housing, whose standard profile is set based on a family of two kids. The coop is giving significance to

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aspects that a promoter from city council would not consider important, e.g. type of work and income of the people living there as well as mental health issues. They are still looking to secure their credit and finances 100%, and are taking credit from the bank cooperative in the neighborhood. As Cristina mentions in the interview, this project is full of contradictions. The site where they wanted to build cooperative housing was okupied by people and they had to ‘‘evict’’ them. They could not include them in the project due to the economic scope. They were migrants who lack resources, but the coop managed to relocate all the families into other types of housing. Another contradiction involved the initial price that people have to pay to get into the project: 15.000 € each to gather a fund of 300.000 € that enables them to ask for a bank credit.

In addition, the user profile is actually pretty narrowed to people who would get along and are willing to share a space as they do in La Borda. This project should be completed by 2017.

Surrender of property: the public and private management

Since 2010, Sostre Civic, a nonprofit cooperative, promotes what is called ‘‘right of use,’’28 which comes from a model widely used in the northern European countries29 but barely known in Spain. They propose a model where cooperatives do not have to buy or rent housing, but rather pay a more economically viable monthly quota, for ‘‘usage.’’ It is a public-private model that puts into use empty housing units and prevents the city council from getting deeper in debt. They claim to give more mobility and freedom to the ‘‘users’’ by sparing them mortgages and even guaranteeing indefinite stay as well as inheritance. The monthly quotas are lower than renting, for example in Barcelona the cooperative rents 150-450€ whereas renting goes 300-700€.

The main drawback is the initial deposit that cooperative users have to put which is around 15.000 -20.000€.30 In order to make such exclusive prices available for citizens, Sostre Civic negotiates with the city council. They reach agreements on empty buildings and housing units which the government cannot afford to use yet. These cooperatives are thus on public land and hold an indefinite contract in exchange for paying a fee to the city council. Sometimes, Sostre Civic also negotiates with private owners in exchange for a symbolic fee, and renovates underused public buildings. The cooperative Sostre Civic ends up being the final owner of these units, meaning that tenants themselves are responsible for the buildings.

28. It can be translated as ‘‘surrender of property.’’

This right is actually written under the Civil Code.

29. Up in the north of Europe this system has been working for over 90 years, Copenhagen, DK having its 30% of housing units under this model.

30. If the user wants to move out, they get back all the money spent on the cooperative, from the initial deposit to all maintenance costs that have been payed for. In addition these quotes can vary and go as low as 6.000-9.000 euros as initial deposit, like in the new project called ‘‘la fase born’’. (Castillo, D. 2015) 31. People from around Spain are looking up to them and desiring to promote this model across Spain.

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32. The maximum of renting years has gone down to 3 years, since last year.

Sostre Civic now operates 9 projects, 14 projects in renovation and negotiation, mainly in Barcelona and around Catalunya. There are 286 partners in total31 who have complete agency and power to make decisions as to how they want these spaces to be –and usually opt for more sustainable and inclusive spaces (Castillo, D. 2015). Raul Roberts, fellow from Ashoka, was the initiator of this project and the main team partners are architects, jurists, engineers, economists and urbanists (Emprendimiento Social, 2011). They encourage users to be responsible for their building by demanding their engagement in the project.

As the property is Sostre Civic’s, they encourage the users to feel at home, so that ‘‘they can appropriate the housing unit from a psychological standpoint, of improving and taking care of their housing unit.’’ (Raul Roberts, 2015) It is very important to note the need for these cooperatives to be nonprofit in order to start negotiations with the city council. It is definitely a model that can be put to better use than the VPO that is already in place and is clearly not working (0.2% of the housing stock is VPO). In addition, even if these systems are more socially oriented and achieve a lower monthly quota than rental housing or ownership, they still exclude the people who cannot afford to pay anything and those who at the moment have no income. Even so, it is important to point out that these systems are a good transition from individual ownership mindset to collective ‘‘ownership.’’ They do not promote housing as a speculative investment (owning) nor as a temporal usage (renting)32 and they create accessible housing stock for present and future. These two different systems are pilots, and evidence shows that another model is possible, a model that empowers people, does not demand much engagement from the city council and tries to change the politics of housing in Spain, and the accessibility of public spaces. They also encourage social and geographic mobility. In the next chapter, I will deepen my analysis and touch upon the current context and the former mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau’s work.

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Agora del Raval, Espacio Benito Juarez, used for residents to gather and support each other.

Abandoned space repurposed by BAM. Now it is a gathering space as well as an urban garden.

Arquitectos de Cabecera is a project run by students to help residents with engineering technicalities free of charge.

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97

97 98 101 103 105 109

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4

CONCLUSION

Reactionary versus Reformist movements Importance of organizational activist work Ada Colau: ‘‘The Voice of the People’’ Hábitat 3 Foundation Housing as a right?

References

4- CONCLUSION Reactionary versus reformist movements ‘‘And all of this involves a type of city planning that puts people at the center. Putting them at the center, physically speaking, means letting the working class repopulate the mixed, compact neighborhoods from which they have been pushed out by the market. Putting people at the center, politically speaking, means involving citizens in decision-making, so that they stop being affected by technocratic city planning and become the protagonists and beneficiaries of democratic city planning.’’

(Bravo, 2015, p.47)

In the first two chapters I presented some historical facts that outline the effects of the crisis in the Barcelona context. They help the reader to picture how the crisis formed and burst (laws & policies) and how visible the consequences of the recession now are (unemployment and evictions). The third chapter offered the results of the field work I carried out during the early winter of 2016 in Barcelona. This chapter combines both the data collected and discussed with important stake holders and some speculation about the near future. The chapter is a mixture of general observations drawn from my short participation and engagement with some of these movements and a follow-up with open ended questions and hypotheses concerning the future.

There are different philosophies about how to improve this society, how to overthrow abusers of power, and how to make a real change in a capitalistic structure. Most pose the question of what is better revolution, abolition of the existing system or reform? I have come to the conclusion that in Barcelona there are three types of organizational movements arising: (1) The antigovernment autonomous grassroots approach which is a-political and more and more welcoming to people without an activist background.

This approach is well grounded in Barcelona’s history that can be breathed when walking down the streets. It is the result of historically grounded anarchist and worker’s movements and clearly reveals the need of the people to voice their issues and concerns. Since the crisis, these movements have gained more adherents, united by hunger and anger and frustration. These groups organize networks of support against eviction and are usually pro-squatting. [la PAH, Oficina d’Habitatge] (2) The in-collaboration-with-the-government approach also shares the goal of empowering people, while alleviating the governments’ work and funding.

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1. Inhabitants that do not reach the minimum financial requisites for accessible housing.

The goal here is to attack the root of the housing crisis by offering alternatives ways to access housing, like ‘cesión de uso’ (surrender of property) cooperatives and more. Even if they are non-political they reach a consensus with the public administration that does not require dependency or debts. Even though I feel positive about the work done with the government, there is still a problem that I observe, which is how to include non-adherent citizens1 in these spaces that are still not available/accessible for everyone, such as the homeless and families or individuals with no income. These groups are ‘‘supported financially’’ by the government [cesión de uso], but they nevertheless operate on a horizontal structure. They strive to be autonomous, to not depend on the bureaucracy of the government and to counteract the housing speculation and empty housing mindset promoted up until this summer.

(3) The new city government (Barcelona en Comú) affiliated groups and/or government actions and events. The government has gone through an important shift, becoming more focused on economic, cultural and social rights as opposed to its previous city council’s cases of corruption and urban speculation. Even though there are important changes happening, from ‘‘opening mindsets’’ to new laws instituted, one thing that is becoming more and more clear is how tied the Barcelona mayor’s hands are to the Spanish government’s decisions and to the European’s surveillance.

These three types of mobilizations are a good and healthy sign of a society that is concerned and wanting to be empowered. But this is not enough, as the media and people in the street are talking about a new recession and a new housing emergency crisis. What are the main distinctions between the social movements back in the 50’s, the 80’s and now? What were their impacts socially, culturally, and legally? How do these impact society’s mindset? How/ where do these movements arise from? How can Barcelona avoid a new crisis? People are focused on the present and are aware that the near future may bring a crisis that they cannot stop now, so how will Spain face a second crisis when people have not been able to overcome this previous crisis? How have social movements changed the government’s approach to housing policies? How has the reality of operating within the political world changed Ada Colau’s perspective and persona? What is the best way to increase accessibility to housing to equal that of social housing when there is not any social housing available? What is the future of public-private housing? These questions prompt us to learn more about the importance of the organizing work and the impact on the people.

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Importance of organizational activist work The different networks and mutual support groups created throughout La PAH, Oficina d’Habitatge, La Col (discussed in Chapter 3), have a common thread centering on human relations, experience and empathy, and not organizing around ideology anymore. These relations strengthen the movement and the cause. The capitalist system has encouraged and nurtured us in direction of independence and self-sufficiency that fosters an individualist mindset and behavior. From history and experiences, citizens have started organizing, but this time they have included another layer to their movement: relational organizing.

This culture has become individualistic, isolating and exclusive, shaming people because of their individual situations. In the Spring of 2016, I attended a workshop of Culture of Radical Engagement, where they spoke about the importance of humanizing the organizational experience. It is about unlearning individualism encouraged by capitalism, and being more humble, practicing vulnerability, empathy and promoting equity through sharing and listening.

This act requires a web of interdependency and trust, created through a community of supportive healing and empowerment, in which there is shared leadership and collective action. From observing the meetings and talking to members, one could argue that social movements such as la PAH, Oficina d’Habitatge and La Borda include ways of organizing that fall into the practices of relational organization. La PAH (mainly against evictions + ILP) and Oficina d’Habitatge (mainly supporting squatters + against mobbing) have open inclusive meetings and host mutual support meetings. La Borda (housing cooperative), born from Can Batlló, has an inclusive and diverse selection of members who are creating a space where they share and listen, and practice empathy and vulnerability. Even if they cannot stop all the evictions, they have an impact on the individual and the collective.

Moreover, it is important to note the two different levels of impact that these movements are having on Barcelona. On one hand, there is the individual/collective mindset, explained above and in Chapter 3, in which where individuals go through the transition from being victimized to feeling empowered. This is created through the networks and the relations fostered, but most importantly it creates a new sense of we, a ‘‘collective I’’ where people understand that they are part of the struggle and their engagement is needed, as their own liberation is intrinsic with everybody’s liberation. On the other hand, we can observe an impact when ensuring that social rights are guaranteed and respected. La PAH has already succeeded in getting the ILP approved and this is proving effective although not fully successful. It is not implemented as often as it should be, because some lawyers and some judges do not know

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it. In addition, social movements had a definite influence when it came to the elections and voting for Ada Colau as Barcelona’s Mayor in 2015, someone residents felt ‘‘represents them.’’

It is important to analyze the effects of social movements that practice relational organizing, which focus on listening and empowering everybody. It is crucial to recognize the healing effect that they have on individuals and communities, and the impact of taking over the streets and reaching out to the political structure while creating their own autonomous structure. It is interesting to see how these movements have evolved and developed as well as how their focus on radical engagement is manifested differently. Let’s not forget their main goal: empowering people and creating a network of support that will last ‘‘long after people are no longer hungry nor angry.’’

2. CAB was born February 21st, 2015 in Barcelona under the approval of the city council, in order to give voice to the 32 entities of popular culture and asociacionismo.

For more information, visit: www.cab.cat/ and www. lavanguardia.com/cultura/20150221/54427482648/ constituido-en-barcelona-el-consejo-del-asociacionismo-cultural.html

Figure 4) a. Topics of associations; Association percentage per district in Barcelona, 2015.

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In addition to the human relations component and its great impact on the citizen + collective’s mental health, a better housing system is a system that does not speculate within the housing market, that produces housing that is affordable and accessible to all citizens (both physically and financially). These movements’ autonomous structures seem to point in the direction of a system that would be managed by the citizens themselves, where citizens would be heard and attended to when necessary, and where the city council would collaborate with the social movements and cooperatives rather than let the market rule all.

According to a study done by Panoràmic, from La Vanguardia (03/16/2016), the asociacionismo in Barcelona is increasing. This study is run every year by the Consell d’Associacions de Barcelona2 (CAB- Council of Associations of Barcelona) and shows how by 2015, the sector of associations has doubled: this past year shows an increase of 3.35% new entities and 2.47% more active volunteers. It is estimated that 26% of the associations are invested in social justice (In addition, 22% concentrate in the cultural sector, 15% are youth entities, 12% neighborhood associations and 7% focused on sports). We can

see from the following figure 4) a the percentage of associations per neighborhood, which usually gather in public amenities (community centers and casals –a type of community center). Contrary to popular belief about how they are financed, 55% comes from their own funds, 14% from private investments and around 31% comes from the public authorities. Interestingly enough, the study shows that most entities were born during one of the three most important moments in Spanish history: Francoism period (24% of existing), the decades of the 80s and 90s (38%) and the beginning of the XXI century (38%). In other words, 4 out of 10 associations are less than 16 years old.

This study is very important because it recognizes the ‘‘informal’’ work that associations are doing as well as documenting the historical precedents of such movements. In order to understand the current political context and the impact of the climax of citizens resistance reaching on political power, let’s take a look at what is happening right now politically and consider the importance of Ada Colau’s presence as the mayor of Barcelona.

Ada Colau: ‘‘the voice of the people’’ The same woman that had been arrested for trying to stop evictions in 2013, who a decade earlier was squatting or as she refers to it, was a ‘‘neighbor who occupies’’- as reported by Ester Requena (2015), Ada Colau presented herself as a candidate within the political party BARCELONAenComú and was elected on May 24th 2015, becoming the first female mayor of Barcelona.

This mayor’s story underscores her activism and her desire to give the power back to the people, where it belongs. In 2006, she was the main coordinator of Miloon Kothari’s visit to Barcelona and in 2007 she began to be part of Observatorio DESC, reporter for the Housing Area. She was one of the main precursors of la PAH and its main spokesperson up until 2014. Her rise to power has given a lot of hope to the people whose voice has been silenced throughout these past decades. Her resumé can be found in the city council’s website, posted by July 24 2005, as a way to demonstrate transparency in her persona and to encourage others to get involved and participate in the conversation about creating a more ‘‘networked and community-based’’ Barcelona.

Since she has been in power, Colau has already implemented a few laws that aim to address Barcelona’s housing situation. One of them involves fining

2007. Ada Colau and her partner Adria Alamany. They went all around Barcelona as the Superhousing Superheroes, denouncing the housing and eviction crisis.

2007. Ada Colau as the superhousing superhero. ‘‘Housing needs to be out of the market, like education and healthcare.’

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2009-2014. Ada Colau was one of the main spokepeople of la PAH (Platform for those Affected by Mortgages)..

2010. Action by la PAH. Colau was being arrested.

May 2015. Ada Colau gets elected mayor of Barcelona, Spain. ''It is time for people to be heard''

2015. Ada Colau reacting to la PAH's letter accusing her of not doing enough for the housing and eviction crisis.

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entities and private owners for empty housing units. The other is a moratorium on apartments for tourists. In addition, if there was no relationship between the previous government and la PAH or other organizations, that changed as soon as Ada Colau came into power: she convened a ‘‘table of evictions of the city’’ which gathered lots of social movements, such as la PAH, with banks, and city council representatives. This table has had a history of not actually doing its work properly nor moving forward in the cause. After the criticism of la PAH, Ada Colau proposed to break the group into three areas of work: empty housing, emergency housing and squatting. She proposed to broaden the problem and question institutional oppression (through what it is included in the definition of oppression). Little by little even areas that have yet to be addressed, such as ocupas or families without income, are being tackled. Another important action that Colau is addressing is the topic of squatting without taboos and without criminalizing the actions, recognizing that these actions come from a clear social problem.

Today, many Barcelona residents still face eviction, almost all of them in relation to renting. The law 24/2015 has been approved to fight against the housing emergency and the municipal governments play a key role in the implementation of the law. La PAH is not satisfied with Ada Colau’s work and her poor law enforcement is hindering their relationship. During December 2015, la PAH wrote a letter that distances them from Ada’s work (La Vanguardia, PAHbcn.org, bTv). They are demanding that Ada Colau apply the laws and take over the empty buildings from the SAREB. They say that the city council needs to start increasing the social housing stock, because when the 24/2015 law is applied, there is a lack of social housing available that puts people in the streets anyway. PAH demands ‘‘courage, Ms. Mayor!’’ (Carta de la PAH, 2015). A couple of weeks following the demand, Ada Colau achieved the transfer of empty houses

from la SAREB to public authorities. But Ada Colau is not alone in this political work. There was a coalition of nonprofit organizations created in 2003, that encompasses 34 social federations and organizations, which represent 3.000 nonprofit social entities, called the ‘‘Table of entities of the Third Social Sector of Catalunya.’’ This coalition created a study to compare the percentage of social housing in Spain versus Europe. According to a La Vanguardia article (2014) and bTv program (2015), Catalonia needs 230.000 social rent apartments for social housing to achieve the minimum European standard, which 15%. They currently have only 60.000. Let’s see what role this coalition plays in the panorama and how they support Colau’s work and citizens needs by working close with them.

According to Sara de Diego (2016) in an article published in El Confidencial, Pau Faus, is releasing a film about Ada Colau, called ‘Alcaldessa’, through Nanouk productions, which relates her story from being a street-level activist to becoming part of the political establishment. The film includes some of her own video diary entries where she explains the contradictions that she is facing, ‘‘I’m afraid that I will not like being in a political platform nor be nominated or be a mayor but I think it is worth going out on a limb’’, she says in one of her video entries 10 months before the elections. This movie is important, because it shows to the world Ada Colau’s human side and contradictory feelings, as well as the process of creating her own party. It also focuses on the impact that she has had on the community- the so-called ‘Ada Colau Effect’. Citizen resistance has for the first time achieved the political power. At the same time such citizen resistance is also resistant to her being in power. Such a situation of tension focuses on the relationship between establishment and resistance, highlighting the need for resistance even when the establishment consists of someone who represents the voice of the people.

Hábitat 3 Foundation

The number of empty units in all Catalonia has reached 450.000 -100.000 from financial entities (bank’s empty housing stock), 80.000 new units, and 270.000 private flats. These are the numbers that the city council should have acted upon already but is failing to do. In reaction, the ‘‘Table of entities of the Third Social Sector of Catalunya’’ created Habitat3 Foundation in December 2014. As stated in their own website, this nonprofit charitable foundation acts primarily in Catalonia, serving all 3.000 Catalan social entities in the Third Sector and Public Authorities (at the service of the country). This foundation acts as a tool for administrating social housing and seeks to put it at the service of social movements in need of emergency housing units. In addition, it is an administrative tool to tackle the continued lack of accessible social housing.

The foundation obtains social housing for very low prices and forwards the

3. ‘‘The consistory will pay the difference between social rent and the final amount you will receive the particular higher than in the case of banks. In addition, Barcelona will advance the money in the case that a reform is needed.

At the end of the contract that amount will be withdrawn each month from the rent to the landlord.’’ (Sust, Toni 2014) Read more: http://www. elperiodico.com/es/noticias/ sociedad/las-entidades-sociales-catalanas-crean-una-gestora-vivienda-alquiler-3775378

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units to other social entities of the Third Sector Table or to individual families, with the collaboration of public authorities.3 According to their own study (2015), a couple of months after Habitat3’s creation, of the managed 142 housing units that accommodate 407 people: 102 of these housing units have been assigned to individuals, 363 people that come from several months of being moved around by the government’s emergency housing social rights office; and 33 apartments have been negotiated with the Housing Agency of the Generalitat, and 44 people that come through the Third Sector organization. Habitat3 are mainly looking to host families, with two or three rooms. They also work with seniors, mentally ill people, and victims of abuse. Each rent is calculated in relation to the income of the family. They work with families who are chosen by the entities and city council. Josep Maria Montaner, the head of the department of Urbanism in the city council, states that if lots of these empty housing units were destined for social use, the amount of squatting would decrease. Thus, the city council announced that they will support the foundation by donating 1,6 thousand euros in addition to the 5,6 thousand that they invested initially (BtV, 2016).

Moreover, they have been negotiating with the private company Aigues de Barcelona (AGBAR) for them to support financially part of the monthly cost of water in all 160 social units of the city. Two months ago AGBAR also agreed to cover those families that cannot afford the basic supplies.

We can see that the city council’s position is starting to evolve and be more inclusive by seeking citizens’ participation and reforming their laws and policies. From her activist career as an organizer focused mainly on housing, Ada Colau has become a reformist since being in power because her hands are tied to Spain’s legal system in addition to European’s surveillance. The fact that she has been elected is key, showing the effects of citizen’s involvement, and by breaking the bi-party that has been in effect since the return of democracy.

However, Barcelona residents need to stay alert so as not to not let apathy take over. They must recognize that Ada Colau does not have full control over the laws and can do so little yet so much. Moreover it is important to look at all these movements that have been collaborating with the city council in search of alternative to improve access to housing. This includes cooperatives, and the recuperation of empty housing to renovate the urban fabric and make better use of empty and abandoned spaces. The wide variety of systems in place shows the wide spectrum of resistance and collaboration amongst citizens, from antigovernment and autonomous movements to reformists’ movements.

It brings to the conversation the different impact within the community that can be reached with either cooperation with the state or through power of autonomous neighbor based associations. The impact is very different as the

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first one, works closely with the government helping provide a basic need that the city council has failed to do. The second movement, based more on the empowerment of the people, plays a key role in the individual and collective imagination of resistance and solidarity networking, in addition to the actual impact within the political framework that is actually having.

According to the architect Oriol Bohigas (2015, p.57), Social housing is not just about building. It also means improving the housing and living condition of residents, rehabilitating communities and bringing in forms of urban recycling. It means thinking about the city from the inside out, putting people (the ones that are already there) and everyday amenities at the center of municipal policies, and promoting this kind of positive metastasis that has to link everything together. Starting with the people and ending in the city, and not the other way around as we have been doing recently.

The architect Bohigas points the intersectionality of the issue and the importance to cover both the physicality of the build environment as well as the agency of its inhabitants.

Housing as a right?

Since Ada Colau has been in power, housing has become a priority and put under the department of ‘‘social rights’’ or at least taken more seriously as a right, according to Ricard Fernandez, 2016. This strategic move, in addition to getting the empty housing units from la SAREB and passing the bill that fines owners of empty units, reinforces the need for a change in laws and priorities. Ada Colau recognized the need to talk and act on the squatting issue, making a space for families that are forced to squat to be attended to by the public authorities. Moreover, she also includes in the emergency housing table families with no income and unemployed youth, focusing on the people more in need and on trying to attack the problem at the root rather than letting housing speculation increase evictions and tourist apartments.

In addition to promoting the construction of new social housing, the city council needs to advocate, guarantee and promote other intrinsic basic needs, such as education and the local economy. The right to the city is intrinsic to this fight, yet urbanism is not taken into account within the department of social rights. Barcelona’s land is becoming more and more privatized and the fight for decent housing also accompanies the fight for public space and social centers. The city council supports and does not want to evict existing ateneus (Can Vies) and cooperatives (Can Batllo) squatting in public and private land.

It collaborates with urban processes and in certain cases reaches a ‘rent’ agreement that is supposed to be accessible –although we have seen how it is not always the case.

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Because most rental contracts end within a year and Barcelona’s housing price increase again due to a good economic year and tourism, many people agree that the city is about to face another crisis or another recession in which people will not be able to afford housing. As reiterated by Carlos Cols (2016), this new crisis is highly correlated with the mass tourism problematic Barcelona is facing, which, alongside gentrification and urban sprawl, affect the active housing stock prices. Therefore it is very important that the city council complies with its guarantee of social rights. The key is to shift the economy from the construction and tourism sector, to foster a different local economy and the essential DESC. Many questions continue to be raised. Will these ‘cesión de uso’ (surrender of property) actually be more affordable and accessible?

Will the thresholds to access them include people who do not receive any income, who do not have a job? These questions are important to keep in mind along with the importance of a healthy counter-culture based on the empowerment and agency of the citizens. The counter-culture’s role is one of constructive criticism and a voice for still silenced people. In addition, I want to stress the importance of working on the physicality of the built environment (sustainability, materiality, physical accessibility…). If it is possible to change the collective imagination of the people, together we can change the state’s economic and political priorities and interests, forcing the government to put people above monetary speculation and transactions. Barcelona’s context is not unique but it is important to not to jump to conclusions and to universalize the context. I urge us to pay more attention to the historical precedents in the city and to always look for a structural model to be inspired by rather than a structural change. In other words, what is happening in Barcelona is highly rooted in its antecedents of grassroots organizing, anarchism and collective imagination.

In addition, it is important to identify the different groups that can ally or contribute to Ada Colau’s power and stem the new crisis. Looking back at the movement studied in throughout the thesis, the organizational work is important in order to keep people aware and awake. There are different levels of work needed to be done (from political to social powers), and it is key to recognize the importance of holding movements that are non-partisan and that can disengage with the discourse of welfare of socialist countries like in Northern Europe. Today, Northern countries that preach Welfare for everybody are facing a social crisis as to who is actually entitled of such welfare, showing signs of xenophobia and racism through policy reforms that exclude marginalized and immigrants. It is important to keep that in mind and strive for movements that are inclusive to the most vulnerable groups. Because the system is pushing for a nationalistic, anti-immigrant, Eurocentric white supremacy, Ada Colau is having and will have trouble being 100% inclusive.

Nonetheless, Colau and the grassroots countercultures are provoking a shift

106 Conclusion

of mindset amongst the citizens that insist that inclusivity is needed and possible. Even though Barcelona’s case is clearly rooted in a history of resistance, one can observe that similar housing and eviction crisis are happening around the globe. Therefore, it is highly important to contemplate Barcelona’s case and learn from it, as well as noticing the patterns that are also emerging all over the world.

The current situation raises many questions. How are these movements going to evolve during the next three years of Ada Colau as a mayor? How much of the work promised is Ada Colau going to achieve? How can these movements be strengthened? Will this relational organization method be practiced within “Barcelona en Comú”? How can these movements involve more participants, reach out to a wider audience, and spread the message about the importance of human relations? How is the government going to react within the next couple of years? How can the citizens’ interest in owning multiple housing and speculating in the market be counteracted?

Furthermore, the left parties in Spain have always been divided so it is key to connect Ada Colau’s candidacy to Madrid’s new mayor Manuela Carmena, two women advocating for the power of the people, and the resulting effect on the general elections and the emergence and popularity of Podemos. What happens when the left and the voices of the people take over the political power?

Ada Colau’s presence is paradoxical because of the possibility that people will fall into complacency and disillusionment. In general terms then, do we need to be realistic or unrealistic about the climax of citizens’ resistance reaching the political power? The fight is not over and, even if the left is more present than ever it is still fragmented and de-radicalized when aspiring for power. It is important that we keep dreaming of a better future and to keep fighting, to be critical and spread the hope that comes with the struggle. Barcelona and Spain are not unique cases that demonstrate the rise of voices that have been silenced for so long: the women, the poor, the marginalized, the migrants, the left, the queer…

March, 2016. Ada Colau talking at DiEM25 (Democracy in Europe Movement 2025): a paneuropean movement that demands more transparency Union.

to

the

European

https://www.wemove.eu/

your-campaign-starts-here

Conclusion 107

108

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