Barcelona was governed for 8 years by Ada Colau, from the alternative left. They brought many interesting initiatives. But were fiercly attacked by all the other parties. It became a culture war, with the major newspapers against these measures and the conservative parties promising to remove every sign of "Colauism" from the city.
As in Catalonia there is additionally a quite strong independence movement, and Colau's party took an equilibrated position calling for negotiation instead of polarization, conflict and hate, they lost the support of leftwing pro-independence parties. A feeling of disillusion by the core electorate, because the promises to solve all problems of Barcelona could not be uphold (a major is no king and it is still capitalism*), lead to a change in the City Hall. The current major of Barcelona, theoretically the lesser evil, a liberal social democrat, promised to "bring back normality".

A pity, because Barcelona had achieved to become an international example of urban planning and could have shown first steps of how to tackle the social ecological transformation that is so necessary to enablen our survival while making cities a more liveable place.

* one problem was, e.g., that in these pedestrian superblocks the rent prices exploded, forcing local people and traditional businesses lo leave. It is a perfect example that we nee need strong of social and economical politics, because by improving life quality, the major consequence that happens in our dysfunctional neoliberal market economies is gentrification. And it was not the idea to create beautiful city centers that only tourists and the wealthy can afford 🤨.

[Edited around 100 typos 😅]
#Barcelona #Superbloques #Superblocs #Superblock #UrbanPlanning #Gentrification #AdaColau #Catalunya #Independència #BCN
@BrentToderian