The discreet urbanism of the bourgeoisie

Poblenou en 2006, foto de Horacio Capel. Para la referencia, haz click en la foto

As writes José Mansilla, our colleague in OACU, in observing how an ancient industrial neighborhood like Poblenou (Barcelona) was surrendering to the neoliberal urbanism that decided it should become a district of technology and tourism, he used to think at José María González Sinde‘s movie Viva la clase media, “Long life to the middle classe” (1980). It tells the stories, the adventures and contradictions of a group of middle-class members of the Communist Party in the Sixties: and this is because in focusing on the rising, the growth and evolution of the middle class – and especially the leftist middle class that took charge of the City Council – we understand how the so-called “progressive” urbanism in Barcelona took this turn to real estate speculation and privatizations (as we have also seen regarding Bon Pastor). It is not surprising, though, that the daughter of the director of the movie is the minister Ángeles González Sinde, the author of a tremendously unpopular Law in defense of intellectual property rights. The big question is: will this process continue, or will we have the chance to see some change?