There are multiple ways to interpret a city. One is in terms of a constant struggle for space. Homes, industries, shops, and offices vie to conquer their place, and among them, green areas make their way with great difficulty. The use of public space is also a struggle between citizens—pedestrians, musicians, and street artists—and economic and social activities. In fact, when we sit on a bar terrace, we are buying, through our consumption, the right to temporarily use that portion of public space.
In recent years, in global cities, a fierce battle for public space has emerged between tourists and locals, which sometimes creates tensions and a contradictory feeling. On the one hand, the tourist brings economy, but is also annoying. This dichotomy has fully manifested itself in these times of confinement, masks, restrictions, and curfews. Tourists have practically disappeared from cities like Barcelona, which is ruining many businesses, but has also given locals the opportunity to rediscover their city.
A few days ago, I read a report about it in the Financial Times on New York, where this summer many citizens have chosen to wait for better times to travel and rediscover their city. Some of the testimonies collected were very eloquent. Given the prospect that New York will never be like it is now again, New Yorkers have turned their city into a kind of large playground where they are the stars of their own movie.
In New York, many citizens have chosen to wait for better times to travel and rediscover their cityThe report was about New York, but the journalist could have written one not very different about London, Paris, Barcelona, or any other city usually taken over by tourists. One only has to walk a little through Barcelona to deduce that Barcelonans are also rediscovering their city.A few days ago, I was walking with some friends through the Barri Gòtic and took the opportunity to explain details about the Plaça del Rei, the cathedral, and its surroundings. They enjoyed it like I had never seen them do before. Why had they never before been interested in the stones with Hebrew inscriptions, the coat of arms of the Inquisition, or the columns from Troy in the Palau de la Generalitat? Probably because these are spaces we have ceded to tourists.
These days I have tried to objectify with data that Barcelonans, like New Yorkers, have decided to reconquer the space ceded to tourism and return to museums, visit monuments, and enjoy cultural and leisure activities that many had turned their backs on. It has not been easy for an obvious reason, so obvious that I was not aware of it, and that is that those who measure the impact of tourism in the city analyze the behavior of tourists, not residents, therefore, we do not truly know the behavior of what we call domestic tourism. Overwhelming logic. It reminds me of Johan Cruyff's simple conception of football. When they warned him that the danger of an opposing striker was his ability to get unmarked, he simply said: "Well, you don't have to mark him." Simplicities like this made him a genius.
Even so, I have found some clues in the latest Barometer of the Barcelona City Council, in which Barcelonans express a greater willingness to engage in local activities, such as going to the theater (from 53% to 63%), to museums (from 65% to 70%), and to concerts (from 50% to 57%).
It seemed that tourists were returning this summer, but the latest outbreaks of infections have changed these plans, so we face another August for ourselves. Good news for tourism detractors and terrible for those who depend on this sector, which are many. I am not at all in favor of criminalizing tourism, but I am in favor of better regulating and ordering the coexistence between tourists and residents, and that the rediscovery of Barcelona by Barcelonans has taught us that the future will be better if we learn to share public space instead of fighting for it.