The mayor of Barcelona answers to opponents who accuse her of "mismanagement of the city". Ada Colau is also hoping for a third term in the May municipal elections.
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| Ada Colau, the Mayor of Barcelona |
Barcelona is attracting an increasing number of visitors, which is a thorn in the side of inhabitants who complain about a lack of space, violence, and street trash. If Mayor Ada Colau runs for re-election in May, she will be faced with the onerous task of resolving these difficulties. But don't forget that tourism is the Catalan capital's mainstay.
Ada Colau, the incumbent mayor of Barcelona, is running for a third term despite widespread criticism of her attitude to tourism.
*Barcelona attracts more than 27 million tourists every year , especially in the summer when the streets in the center are crowded.
*While tourism is the mainstay of the city's economy, it also leads to fierce complaints from residents.
*Mayor Ada Colau has already come clean by closing thousands of “ tourist condominiums ” rented out on platforms like Airbnb and has banned the opening of new downtown hotels.
*She now also wants to limit cruise ship access to the port and opposes an expansion plan for Barcelona-El Prat airport.
*“The central government says that the plan (for the airport) would mean an increase from 50 to 70 million visitors. About 20 million additional visitors who will be mostly tourists,” said Colau. “Where are they going? The citizens of Barcelona will run out of space.”
A third term for Barcelona's mayor, who was elected in 2015 as a member of the Barcelona en Com party. A "community movement" is how the party is described. On May 28, municipal elections will be conducted.
*“The big challenge is tourism. Barcelona is a very densely populated city, sandwiched between the mountains and the sea, with a limited amount of space,” Ada Colau told The Times . “We cannot accommodate an infinite number of tourists. There should be a sense of boundaries and order. We need housing. We need residents who live in the center.”
*It is a direct response to critics who say that Colau is responsible for Barcelona's so-called "decline".
*Its critics say its tourism policies have hurt the economy, its “green zones” have increased traffic congestion, and most importantly, it has helped create a dirtier and less safe city.
*Ada Colau is currently neck and neck in the polls with her main rival, Xavier Trias, a member of the separatist Junts party. But it is more the abstention rate in the elections that worries the current mayor.
According to the mayor, rising fear about the city's security is a perception rather than a reality.
She cites current police figures showing that the number of robberies decreased by 26% last year and violent street robberies decreased by 13% compared to 2019. "A city with so much tourists promotes a certain form of crime, particularly stealing," she explains. About the dirtiness, Colau admits that there were concerns due to a change in contractor, but that they have been remedied.
In recent years, the city has seen both an urban exodus of inhabitants fleeing security concerns, the bustling downtown, and rising rents, as well as an outflow of businesses. Since 2012, around 6,300 enterprises have packed up and departed Catalonia, particularly Barcelona, the region's economic core. Catalonia "lost" 181 firms in just one year.
With the entry of 191 firms in 2022, Madrid will profit the most from this migration. A trend corroborated by Geam Costa, Dean of Catalonia's Faculty of Architects: "Many (real estate) builders leave Barcelona for Madrid, where they have the possibility to grow," away from the Catalan capital's restrictive rules.
Opponents accuse Ada Colau of being mute on the delicate matter in the run-up to the 2017 independence vote. Her coalition has now said that it would be "anti-separatism" in the short term. The same is true for her separatist opponent, Xavier Trias, who was advised not to mention independence throughout his campaign. Separatism is terrible for business and has led to Catalonia's departure of enterprises.