The mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, held a conversation this Saturday with his counterpart from New York, Zohran Mamdani, one of the most popular politicians in the United States. In their meeting, it was once again confirmed, according to the Barcelonan, the good rapport between the two cities both in terms of fighting for affordable housing and combating the impact of climate change.
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This time, however, there was more than just a mere connection. Once that face-to-face meeting concluded, held within the framework of the Urban 20 mayors summit, where city leaders work together to find practical solutions to rising housing costs, the climate crisis, and migration, the socialist Collboni announced that, inspired by Mamdani and a “genuinely New York experience,” the city of Barcelona will begin next year the deployment of a network of affordable stores in the neighborhoods of La Marina.
“The goal is to guarantee basic essential goods affordably for working families and the middle classes,” emphasized Collboni himself after the meeting. When asked if the Catalan capital was inspired by the Big Apple, the mayor of Barcelona replied that “we had a very similar idea and we will finalize it based on the experience of both cities.”
Supermarkets with products at reduced prices were one of the proposals of the electoral campaign that brought Mamdani, affiliated as a socialist with the Democrats, in his program that led him to take office last January first. Three months later, at a rally marking one hundred days of government, he announced that each of the five boroughs of the metropolis will have one of those public markets, but privately managed, by the end of his term. The opening of the first is scheduled for 2027, in the Bronx.
Mamdani’s proposal has garnered considerable support but also no less criticism from the commercial sector, which considers this initiative unfair competition.
“We see a very parallel evolution,” Collboni clarified, since the openings on both sides could occur in parallel in 2027.
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“For now, we only have a pilot project planned, the first to be carried out in the La Marina neighborhood as part of the neighborhood plan, although it is not necessary to have all the information. In La Marina, we are building 12,000 new homes. It is a new neighborhood, half of them are protected housing and the buildings are public,” said the Barcelonan leader.
“Therefore, in the commercial premises on the ground floors, we also want to influence the type of businesses that are established, to ensure that basic products reach everyone,” he insisted.
“It is part of this new vision on how to also intervene in the commercial sector, to guarantee commercial balance and ensure that essential products reach everyone in the most affordable way possible and with all the necessary guarantees,” Collboni reiterated.
The housing challenge
Collboni also highlighted that he had agreed with Mamdani on the need for large cities to be connected to learn from each other. And he stressed that one of the great challenges is the housing crisis: “to make sure that working families and the middle classes can make it to the end of the month.” In that sense, “we have shared the initiative and experience of Barcelona in terms of rent regulation, tourist apartment forecasting, and we will also offer experience in school air conditioning.” Regarding that ban on tourist apartments, Collboni stated: “I believe that a mayor’s priority should be that the city’s apartments are used for living. In a housing emergency like that of Barcelona and many other cities, the most important thing is to have more housing,” he emphasized. “Does it have consequences? In the case of Barcelona, it will mean, for example, that in some neighborhoods the coexistence within communities of neighbors will change, and even the commercial landscape of some neighborhoods in our city, because the presence of people who currently occupy these tourist apartments also alters coexistence in our city,” he stressed.
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