Barcelona, seen by four of its former mayors

Housing is one of the main concerns of former Barcelona mayors Xavier Trias, Jordi Hereu, Joan Clos, and Narcís Serra. This was stated by the four of them in BCN Diàlegs, an interview space of Rethink Barcelona, the think tank promoted by Foment del Treball where various personalities share their knowledge and experience on the importance of municipal governance and the future prospects of the region.

For Trias, this issue "will only be solved with a grand agreement that cannot be just for the city, but metropolitan." "This requires constant investment in rental housing," he adds. The former Convergent mayor emphasizes that the lack of housing, both public and private, is the biggest challenge facing Barcelona and its metropolitan area, along with social exclusion. Trias points to Raval and Ciutat Meridiana as some of the most affected neighborhoods. "There has to be a twenty-year agreement, like the one that has worked in healthcare. Different governments have passed, and for more than twenty years, the work done by the previous one has been respected," he stresses.

Hereu agrees with Trias on the need to reach an agreement on housing policy, after the pandemic has highlighted the importance of the home where one lives and its healthiness. The socialist advocates for "building thousands and thousands of new homes." To do so, he indicates that intense work is needed for the State to provide the necessary resources and to demand that the Generalitat fulfill its part, of which he criticized that it "does nothing" in housing matters. He also aims to create a common housing pool, with a metropolitan lottery.

Serra believes that one of the main problems surrounding housing is related to income. "If neighbors who are forced to leave their neighborhood could live in another, there would be no protests. The issue is that they are sent to marginality. It is called gentrification. The weak are expelled," he reasons. Like Trias, the former socialist mayor believes that housing policies with horizons of ten years or more are needed.

Beyond Barcelona

Likewise, Clos believes that housing, like policies related to the environment, infrastructure, and transport, should be left in the hands of a metropolitan vegueria. In this sense, Trias asks to clarify whether they are moving towards a vegueria system or not. "If it's serious, it implies the disappearance of the provincial councils and that the territorial power will be held by the veguerias. That does entail a very large decentralization of power," he emphasizes.

For his part, Hereu believes that "it would be necessary for the maps of the government of Catalonia to be decentralized and for local governments to be able to carry out coordination tasks," adding that, unfortunately, "Barcelona still has not incorporated a metropolitan region perspective." For Serra, metropolitan power "must be built from the bottom up, from the metropolitan area to the metropolitan region."