Cities have diverse times: electoral cycles, school years, European holidays, Christmas consumerism, sales, Holy Week... Before, these seasons were very marked by natural cycles (seasons, animal breeding, harvests, worship of deities), but increasingly they have more to do with productivity and consumption. It is Anglo-Saxon cultural hegemony, which makes us celebrate Halloween instead of the castanyada.
Even parks, when designed, end up generating very artificial programs, with abundant children's games and urban furniture, as if green and planted spaces were a potential boredom to avoid them. In dense cities like Barcelona, it happens even more, and any free space is filled with beach bars (how horrible not to be able to consume for a few hours) or plastic and metal artifacts with stairs and slopes for children to play safely.
Walking through a landscaped space allows one to disconnect from daily noise and observe the slow time of nature, which follows the ancestral law of the sun, earth, and water. Large parks, landscaped hills, or the Carretera de les Aigües allow one to meet diverse people looking for the necessary distance to mentally move away from the impeccable laws that govern the urban economy.
These days, at home, we have played Monopoly and, after a couple of games, the girls have understood the basic principles of real estate investment: rents enrich owners and impoverish tenants. It is a counterintuitive phenomenon, because the initial investment when buying a certain plot decapitalizes the player, but as time passes, the children understand that it was profitable to buy, especially the most expensive plots. If lucrative uses (hotels, leisure, luxury) are added to the location, the combination is perfect to explain how the urban economy works: places where many people pass through always end up being good investments.
As a game, it is thrilling if one enters the investment fever, but quite boring if the players' mentality is uneven. If the player decides not to invest, they have no chance of winning, because they will always lose, forced to pay the rent marked by the game cards.
And yet, cities are much more than real estate businesses. That is why, even though the players of the urban economy will never promote it (developers, real estate agencies, hoteliers, etc.), there must be counterpowers to stop the real estate madness. There are plots that are cultivated as urban gardens that will never be profitable from the point of view of urban agriculture. But they are important because people go to take care of the plants and, above all, to distance themselves from routine logic.
Walking through a landscaped space allows you to disconnect from the daily noise and observe the slow pace of natureIt is when you stop for a while, when you realize that there are many people who do not benefit from or understand the rules of the planetary Monopoly that has been articulated around attractive cities. The shacks that proliferate in the vicinity of Collserola, Garraf or the rivers of Barcelona, are oases full of people who enjoy the spectacle of photosynthesis. They trellis climbing plants, cultivate seeds, store rainwater, grow vegetable pergolas that provide shade, turn arid land into rose paths full of scent...
There is nothing more beautiful than seeing fields sown or trees pruned by someone who has spent hours doing it. In the Clota neighborhood, in Barcelona, there is a historic greenhouse where I have spent hours looking at plants. It is a shop, far from the urban streets, that does not cost the treasury money, because it is a family business. It sells plants, flowers, seeds, shrubs, seedlings... Very special goods for a type of Barcelonian fond of gardens and calm. Walking and observing the flowered balconies and private gardens makes one realize that people take much more care of green spaces than of stones. There are many hands that plant the corners of the city spontaneously and without written rules or obligations. Perhaps they are not the most prized squares on the Monopoly board, but they are undoubtedly highly valued by people who do not count everything in euros.
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