Barcelona is a city with a strong identity. The city is not just its streets and buildings, brilliantly illustrated in this year’s Mercè poster. Barcelona is its people, its neighborhoods, and its shops.
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The soul of Barcelona is found in family-run shops, in markets, bakeries, bars, restaurants, or bookstores that bring neighborhoods to life. When a landmark or deeply rooted neighborhood business closes its doors, we lose a part of our collective memory. Having a city project means having a society project. Mine is to make a city for the people: to guarantee the right to stay in a city that is recognizable to all those of us who have lived and grown up in it. I want Barcelona to continue being Barcelona. That is why we are building more public housing than ever, why we will eliminate all tourist apartments, and why we are finishing the works to transform La Rambla.
The market exerts unbearable pressure on small businesses. It is necessary to protect them
In recent years, the city has been experiencing many changes of a global, economic, and sociodemographic nature. In this context, commerce has to face an increase in commercial rents that threatens to expel viable businesses that are part of the city’s and its neighborhoods’ heritage, of its neighbors. The market is exerting pressure that can be unbearable for many small businesses. It is necessary to protect them. Just as we protect historic buildings or natural spaces, we also have to care for the shops that give identity to our streets. We cannot leave this challenge exclusively in the hands of the market. The market must be regulated to protect the general interest, as is already done in other areas.
We need new tools to act before it is too late. We have to anticipate so we don’t have to regret later. That is why, from the municipal government, we have proposed modifying the Urban Lease Law to be able to regulate and moderate commercial rents in certain situations and also the creation of a right of first refusal mechanism to acquire premises with the aim of preserving emblematic shops. Hopefully, these measures would have been adopted years ago. They must be instruments that help avoid new irreversible losses.
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The protection of local commerce will be one of the major debates in European cities over the next decade. We must take advantage of the fact that this year we hold the European capital of local commerce to send a strong message that resonates everywhere: Barcelona regulates the market to protect its commerce and its identity. We have the opportunity to be pioneers again, promoting a model that reconciles economic activity, the general interest, and property owners’ rights. To do this, we need everyone’s collaboration. Just as the City Council has revitalized municipal markets, now we have to help preserve shops and establishments, hand in hand with commercial axes and property owners. We will not save local commerce only with regulations, but with the boost from the axes and the collaboration of the owners. Both must feel co-responsible for protecting the city’s commerce.
Barcelona’s future does not only depend on what we create anew, but on what we decide to preserve. And we want to strengthen the city’s identity, its memory, and its soul to project them into the future. Preserving local commerce is not about looking back or idealizing the past, but about ensuring that future generations continue to recognize their neighborhoods and a way of life unique to their city.
Barcelona is undergoing a transformation, but we still have time to protect what identifies and distinguishes us. We will preserve the soul of the city.
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