INTERVIEW WITH TONI CLAPÉS

"A Barcelona for 'cool' people is being projected, and not for Barcelonans"

The journalist Toni Clapés considers the Catalan capital to be the best city in the world, but laments the urban changes and the attempt to turn the city into a village, which translates into a permanent collapse. He denounces the "anything goes" policy and the failure to penalize bad behavior.

Jordi Cabré

december 26, 2022 - 02:33

--- What has caught you with Barcelona? --- It's not a recent thing. I've been in love with her, forever. I've always liked her, I've always been interested in her, and I love her. And when I see things I don't like, I say so. And if I do it through Twitter, it's because before I could only do it through the radio, but radio has a problem: from RAC1 I can't talk so much about the city if I don't want to be accused of Barcelona-centrism. --- You are a resident of Esquerra de l'Eixample. They have also put a Superblock there. --- Let's see: the Superblock idea is good, the problem is that the works are executed without taking into account the side effects. Neither current mobility is taken into account, nor the fact that cars that used to go through Consell de Cent will now have to detour through Gran Via (which is already an unbearably congested artery), nor the traffic increases we already suffer: we live in a collapsed city because arteries are being cut off, as if important veins in a circulatory system were clotting. Gran Via is an aorta! --- Therefore, is the problem the how? --- The problem is that the side effects are not considered. We are proactive in creating green areas, for example, but there is great neglect and very low maintenance. They covered the Can Vies area to make a promenade, but now we find ourselves with a neglected promenade. When you do a project of this type, it requires maintenance: there is no point in buying a spectacular house if you cannot maintain it afterwards. Everyone knows this. In the interior blocks where garden areas have been enabled, now it turns out that where there was grass there is now sand. What I say is that we should take care of what we already have before undertaking new projects. Maintaining what we had already cost us enough, imagine now! --- Does this problem not occur in all cities? --- We want to turn a city into a town, and turn towns into cities! Well no, a city is a city and there are wonderful towns if you really don't want to be in the city. --- Are we destroying the Cerdà Plan? --- Years ago you would go to Madrid and what they would tell you was "how well one drives in Barcelona, what envy!". Well, this was thanks to the Cerdà Plan. But, of course, if we destroy it, the result is like a permanent collapse. Therefore, these reforms can only be implemented when you have already resolved the issue of the city's entrances and exits. --- So, is the Cerdà Plan still a valid formula? --- I am a great defender of the Cerdà Plan. Look, Fabià Estapé told me that he himself had to take care of keeping the remains of Ildefons Cerdà in a suitcase, in his house, because I believe the man died in Cantabria. And here, no one recognized him then. Of course, since his plan was imposed from Madrid, it turns out that it didn't quite convince us. But it's a marvel! I suppose it wasn't nationalist enough, or "ours" enough, I don't know... But it's worthy of New York! And luckily, in the end, very late, he was able to have that tomb in Montjuïc with the entire grid sculpted. The only thing he failed at was saying that Plaça de les Glòries would be the nerve center of the city. In everything else, he was a visionary. But they don't respect him, and they ruin his plan, because the current managers must think they are smarter. And it's not just that these reforms ruin the Cerdà Plan...

--- What else? --- On top of that, all these reforms increase housing prices! Now, returns are sought in tourist apartments, and people who enter and leave Barcelona because they can't afford to live there must commute every day! Without us being able to mention a single new means of transport created in recent years to access the city! --- Only the car remains. --- And wait, because by car everything is penalties! And collapse. And that's paying our road tax, huh? If I take the car it's because I also pay my fees, and therefore I have to be able to take it! Right? --- It seems logical. --- Do you know what the result is, ultimately? --- Tell me. --- Now Barcelona is an unfriendly city for Catalans. Catalans who do not live in Barcelona, it is understood. They cannot access, every day there are problems with Cercanías, they cannot park, parking lots are expensive… Evidently there are fewer attendances at the theater in Barcelona, if the rest of the country cannot come! We have focused on tourism coming from abroad, and not on a Catalan capital.

--- But elevating ourselves to a bird's-eye view, what is the worst thing that has happened in Barcelona in recent years? Why that feeling of stagnation? --- For impunity. --- Impunity? --- Anything goes. Bad behavior is not penalized: you can graffiti heritage sites, for example, right now that we are in La Pedrera I could graffiti and nothing would happen to me. Or you can pee in the street, you can ride a scooter on the sidewalk, and the ordinances are not applied. Only 37% of fines are collected! And unfortunately, a firm hand is necessary or otherwise we don't learn. In this I agree with Montserrat Tura in her time as a councilor, when she spoke of the stick and carrot policy, people learned to wear seatbelts through fines. Now the dynamic is: "my freedom is infinite, and you'll find yours." --- There is no general overview of things. --- Nor is there a long-term view. Speaking of peeing in the street, each mayor wants to leave their mark. Trias brought more tourist apartments, more hotels, until the city burst with tourism. People felt that the essence of the city was beginning to be lost, but this happens with all long mandates. --- Trias's was not long. --- I mean at the end of the terms: mayors rise like a balloon, they remind me of Cobi's balloon at the closing of the Olympic Games, I now see Collboni and Jordi Martí as if they were on a boat-shaped balloon that is deflating. Do you want proof? The tantrum Ada Colau threw when a student asked about her way of dressing. Is that understood? Everyone wants to leave their mark, to become a figure, and they end up forgetting the priorities that are more important. --- Is Barcelona dirty? --- It cannot be that Barcelona still has containers on the street. Just look at Tokyo, New York, Amsterdam... They don't have them! And yet in Barcelona, with an ecosocialist government, people are still going to make shitty offerings to the containers. Waste from apartment renovations goes straight into the container, you find toilet bowls and everything. We haven't developed selective collection, like in Switzerland or Canada, where for twenty years they've been charging another twenty cents for each plastic. We haven't done anything, just kept putting out containers of all colors. Oh: and since there are no public toilets, everything is done on the street. --- Public sinks are bars. --- Or the hotels. Oh, and please take out the wastebaskets. In Tokyo or Geneva, people throw things away at home! Where have you seen, throwing things outside the house? But here we even put the garbage bag inside the wastebasket! Wastebaskets that have notices only in Catalan, when they should be in more languages so that people don't leave garbage bags.

--- Has Barcelona lost economic strength? --- Fortunately, Barcelona is above those who govern. It's like Barça, you can have bad managers but the members move forward and it remains an attractive club. Now Barcelona attracts many investors, it is a great pole of economic attraction, despite its public management. How is it that new stores open where no one enters, and yet the lifelong establishments have to close because they cannot pay the rent? It is shameful, but an absolute shame, that Vinçon closed. That chimney, do you remember? --- Ramon Casas. Of course. --- How did you allow Massimo Dutti to keep it? You can't let Vinçon escape, period! Or at least keep the space, the floor, and think of some other destination. What I think is that there is no appreciation for our heritage, with the cost that this entails for the city. --- There is heritage and there is economic dynamism. --- 800 million euros in deficit! I believe these are figures from 2020. It's insane, I remember Trias left the city council with a surplus! I mean, how will we pay for this? --- And the tram along Diagonal, what do you think of it? --- The same thing we were saying. No, I don't imagine a tram on Fifth Avenue. We do works that seem like true embezzlements. --- For example? --- The Plaça de les Glòries. How many millions of euros have we spent on this endless project? Since there's no long-term thinking, patches have had to be applied. And yes, I believe not thinking long-term should be a type of embezzlement. In the time of Acebillo or Bohigas, there was perspective, what's needed is to respect this and not think oneself better, more modern, and more "cool." --- Come on, take off your Mister Scrooge costume for a moment. Is Barcelona still the best city in the world? --- Barcelona is the best city in the world. Less than two hours from the Costa Brava and the snow. Spectacularly well located. But what we must invest in is precisely connectivity with the country: access, trains, cooperation, exchange. I even believe that municipal management should be decentralized.

--- How? --- Yes, yes. Autonomy for the neighborhoods. Ada Colau lives in the Eixample and, no matter how much she talks about Nou Barris, she has no idea about Nou Barris. I myself know thousands of corners of Barcelona that I don't know. Do you remember when Maragall used to sleep in some peripheral neighborhoods? Since you never finish exploring the city, I believe it is necessary for neighborhood management to have much more autonomy. --- Is this viable? --- It's just that otherwise, again, patches are made without vision: now if I want to go from Plaza España to Gran Via/Aribau, on each block they make you turn right and then you have to go another block to get to the point you were heading to. Leave neighborhood matters to neighborhood managers, and don't give us solutions "from above" that in the end are not solutions to anything. --- Does the Barcelonian feel displaced? --- What I believe is that a city is being projected only for young people. Cyclists, skaters, and digital entrepreneurs. But what about the traditional Barcelonian? Moreover: what about the elderly? Cerdà's chamfers are precisely for that, to facilitate the mobility of services and people. Loading, unloading, stopping. Now we want to make a city too "cool," full of pedestrian zones and bike lanes, but where scooters go on the sidewalk and where the streets are dirty on top of that! --- Now they say they have changed the cleaning contract. --- And they increase spending, yes, but Plaza Universitat is a dump! And meanwhile I keep paying my taxes, huh? Good thing they are a left-wing government, but of what we call the gullible left.

--- Is Madrid winning us? --- The only thing that happens is that we have been getting smaller. I mean, everything we do, we do it apologizing and trying not to bother. But commanding has always been commanding, and if you have to put up Christmas lights, you put them up seriously and not halfway, turning them off at ten at night. There is a political correctness complex that makes us small. Now we don't want Formula 1, because it seems it smells bad and smoke... The City Council wanted to get rid of it! And with the America's Cup, luckily for civil society! Faced with this, Madrid has said "now it's my turn!" and has cast its net for Primavera Sound, has facilitated the opening of businesses... Torrons Vicens, on Las Ramblas, had to close for some reason related to ordinances that limited licenses for food establishments. Well, very good. I, now, on Las Ramblas, would not enter any restaurant. And so everything. --- Do you see it that bad? --- It's that "progressive" thing, which drives me crazy: living like the rich, but above all without it showing that we are rich. Instead of a formal suit, New Balance sneakers that make you more approachable and cool. And the craziest thing is that people fall for it! --- Meanwhile, there is more poverty than ever. --- This is perfectly visible on the street. But no: the big issue must be to create Superblocks.

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About the author

Jordi Cabré

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