Barcelona is not green

Let's be clear: the Consell de Cent reform is not green. It may be sustainable, ecological, smoke-free, car unfriendly and whatever else they want, but green is a color. In the new Consell de Cent there is little green, apart from some flowerbeds and obviously the trees (which were already there). Let's be clear: Barcelona is not a green city and, seen from above, the only greens that stand out are Collserola and Montjuïc. Not even our potential Central Park, which would be Ciutadella, is a very green park: it mostly contains sand and concrete paths, and a couple of artificial lakes. If you want expanses of grass, you have to go to the rehabilitated area of the Besòs river, already in the municipality of Santa Coloma. Therefore, no: Barcelona is not a green city.

Barcelona is a gray city. It is a city of hard plazas and reinforced concrete Superblocks, of parks with sand and palm trees and of walks on asphalt bike lanes. I was recently looking at a photograph of Paseo de Lluís Companys in the 70s, with carpets of green grass from top to bottom and even around the monument to Rius i Taulet, which at some point it was decided would be changed for flat and solid tiles. Turó Parc has (had) a small English-looking corner, like Hyde Park, on the side closest to Bertrand street, but this small extension of grass is simply not watered and is now a regrettable field of potatoes. The reform of Via Laietana, so green that it appeared in the renders, surrounds the Cambó monument with a real track for skaters with four small trees planted in a corner so that it is not said. Under the tram tracks of Diagonal, grass is placed precisely so that citizens do not have access to it or, more probably, to disguise the horrible scar that they will mark on our artery.

No, Barcelona is a city of a thousand vibrant colors, like a surf and turf paella or a Gaudí trencadís, but it is colorblind when it comes to green. We are not just a city without parks, or that only has the problem of having few parks: it is that, the ones we have, do not have grass. Since I don't know why, I open the topic in case I find an answer.

We may have a climate not conducive to grass. I don't know, Rick, see if Madrid isn't capable of maintaining a lush Retiro. That answer doesn't work for me. Maybe they want to save water, like with the fountains, but we haven't always suffered drought and the lack of greenery in our city is more structural and has been going on for decades. It could simply be that it's cheaper to maintain, agreed, but then building the tram is also economically much more expensive than leaving space for cars. I would say it's a matter of bad taste, of having fallen in love with hard plazas and unarmed cement, of considering that stone aesthetics are more egalitarian and less bourgeois than the greens of an English landscape architect, and that simply our taste for gardens ended with Forestier and Rubió Tudirí.

I would say it's a matter of bad taste, of having fallen in love with hard plazas and unarmed cement, of considering that stone aesthetics are more egalitarian and less bourgeois than the greens of an English landscape architect