The Battle for Barcelona

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 14 July 2016

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Barcelona is one of the most visited cities in Europe, but has it become a victim of its own tourism success? Millions of tourists visit every year, crowding the narrow streets and public spaces, bringing noise and anti-social behaviour to once peaceful residential neighbourhoods. Local businesses have given way to tourist tat and multinational chains, and some residents are being driven out as apartments are rented to tourists. Tourism is a huge economic boost for Barcelona, but as well as those who are benefiting, Pascale Harter meets locals who are taking to the streets in noisy protests about the impact on their neighbourhood. Are they right to blame home-sharing websites like Airbnb? And all eyes are on Barcelona’s mayor Ada Colau, a former activist and one of the key representatives of the so-called “new politics” in Spain. Can she resolve a tension being felt by cities around the world - between the economic opportunities of tourism and keeping the soul and character of the city that its residents cherish. Pacale Harter/James Fletcher

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a BBC podcast. You can get all our podcasts and our terms of use at BBCWorld Service.com
0:06.8	slash podcasts. This is the sound of Barcelona on a Saturday night in July.
0:25.0	A group of about 2 to 300 residents of this working class seaside neighborhood in Barcelona have succeeded in blocking the main
0:35.8	road to their neighborhood in protest that what they say is an invasion of tourists. I'm Pascal Harter. In this week's assignment I'll be
0:48.2	looking at why so many residents of Barcelona are saying that tourism has to be
0:52.3	taken in hand and asking what the new
0:54.9	activist mayor is doing about it. Why are you taking part in this demonstration?
1:01.2	I'm trying to get here. part in this demonstration. This lady is telling me, look, we all love to travel, don't
1:07.4	we? We love to go and see other places, but the magic of traveling is the coexistence with the people who live there and when a city is given over totally to tourism
1:17.2	You can't find that what do you mean like too many tourists wrong kind of tourists, hotels.
1:23.0	What?
1:24.0	She's saying that the people who come here are very disrespectful.
1:28.0	It's a very dense, tightly packed neighborhood while they're getting the kids ready for school
1:34.7	and you've got a little two and a half year old I'd say here on your hip. There are people here coming
1:39.8	on hen and stag dews. They're getting drunk. She says they go to the toilet in the street
1:45.1	which does happen a lot here and they're out partying at all different times. They're chanting. They've taken our port, they've taken our beach and now they want our homes.
2:02.0	They seem to single out Airbnb in their posters,
2:05.0	saying don't be fooled by Airbnb.
2:10.0	The Barcelona, there is a lot of tourist apartments and it is a speculation that the people who
2:18.4	lives here more and more they have not home because the prices of houses in growing month by month.
2:27.0	For decades Barcelona was seen as something of a slum by outsiders. Then came the Olympic Games in
2:35.2	1992 and developments including an artificially made beach right here.
	...

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