Organising how we live together amid the population and economic growth of our towns and cities is a constant challenge of citizen participation, political will and sustainable perspectives.
A little history
Living in a city differs from living in a village, but the differences are narrowing over time. Political participation and the general level of technology in society also shape the expectations and needs of neighbourhood residents, which is all of us citizens in general. As such, we always seek to gradually improve our standard of living, which translates into greater comfort, safety, leisure and employment, and also better health.
Our customs, fashions, needs and services in megacities and medium-sized cities have changed noticeably since 1900, as we can see in paintings and photographs of the time, not to mention small towns, where the transformation has been very marked especially since 1980, when running water, electricity and telephones arrived to dignify rural life and bring it closer to city life.
General features of our neighbourhoods: economic status and population
Income level defines neighbourhoods in any city in the world. Shanty towns on the one hand, and mansions in exclusive gated communities on the other, look alike in America and Europe, in Asia and Africa, because globalisation lets us learn about all the comforts, technical devices and home adaptations on the national and international market, through e-commerce, for the kitchen, the bathroom, the garden or the living room.
We live according to our financial means and tastes or proximity to work, and we find that access to local government is more flexible in small towns than in large capitals, although the latter offer more opportunities for leisure, employment, housing and training and more independence (and also more indifference from neighbours). Likewise, in less populated towns the road network and local produce are very good, and so, of course, is the enjoyment of parks, local festivities, libraries, grants or jobs.
Other features: equal services and scattered neighbourhoods
European cities, and in particular most Spanish ones, even small towns that knew glory in other times, do not have an orderly urban layout. They were not built along straight lines, quite the opposite. They grew up around parish churches, often in circular clusters and in order of arrival, on top of old settlements, temples or walls, seeking common defence, which is why historic centres tend to be a maze of small, winding streets, always wonderful, but which have necessarily become pedestrianised after a 20th century determined to drive through them.
Growth in recent decades has produced very scattered neighbourhoods, built far from the centre in search of open space. This creates a sharp difference between neighbourhoods in the inner core of the city and those on the outskirts, the latter inhabited by two social classes: immigrants and locals on the one hand, and the well-off and wealthy on the other.
The city spreads out across its outskirts, working its way around roads, railway lines, industrial estates, woods, state facilities, rivers, paths, bridges, chapels and landmark buildings to be protected, since the merciless wrecking ball of forty years ago, or even centuries ago, has been held back by the laws we have passed to protect buildings and places of historical and geographical interest, such as old banks or factories, convents, walls, palaces, barracks, castles, groves, deltas, beaches, dry stream beds and riverbanks. Thanks to these guidelines enacted by town councils and regional governments, buildings and natural areas of great historical and environmental value are being protected.
The inequality of public services between some neighbourhoods and others is proverbial and doesn't seem to matter much to anyone, but it is obvious to outsiders, investors and young people looking for work or a flat to live in. Refurbishing housing blocks, improving paving, daily street cleaning and rubbish collection, and subsidies for installing lifts and gas pipes, among other measures, help to even out the infrastructure available in different neighbourhoods within the same district and the same city.
The well-being of older people, young people, children and families with small children is crucial as a measure of liveability. Here the sensitivity of the mayor and their political group, even more than their party, determines whether budget is prioritised for care homes, nursery schools, free leisure activities for teenagers, free cultural activities, parks and gardens, or whether the funds for these social groups are left unallocated.
Residents' demands
New neighbourhoods, inhabited by young couples, tend to have glaring infrastructure shortcomings, such as public transport, access to major roads, and car parks, markets, primary and secondary schools and health centres. Banks, and sometimes places of worship, are the first to set up in newly built streets or long-vacant plots, to the detriment of schools, shops or doctors.
Town councils grant building permits to developers who lay pavements, fence off plots for housing estates or children's play areas and install street lighting (even benches, swings and traffic lights), but they tend to delay providing primary and secondary schools and shopping centres, leaving small businesses that dare to venture in to pay astronomical prices for premises.
As a result of all this, residents' associations and parents' associations spring up to ask the council to speed up and approve public works or partnerships with private companies for schools, gyms or hospitals. Both members of residents' associations and organised parents have won improvements not only for their members or children, for their neighbourhoods and schools, but also for their streets, the façades of their homes, their shopkeepers and their most vulnerable neighbours, such as immigrants or families on the edge of or within poverty.
Young people in our cities struggle alone to find work, and many of them form gangs. Some of these turn to violence to make up for the unemployment they suffer and their poor prospects for social advancement, since the old support for the integration and leisure of teenagers has disappeared and young people face a highly competitive and individualistic world where instant consumption is the norm.
In the 1980s a generation of young people in Spain was decimated, struck down by drugs and AIDS. Their younger siblings and children have faced the 2008 economic crisis, the Covid pandemic of recent years and a drain of emigrants abroad in search of work and better pay than in our country.
On top of this, excessive screen use, consumption of pornography and alcohol, and violent gangs challenging each other on neighbourhood walls stigmatise their prospects. Improving these young people's working conditions and offering more affordable rents are measures that are sorely missed. Rural young people, in turn, dream of emigrating to those cities where work, cheap housing and fast medical care are a myth.
Neighbourhoods in the city centre are essentially different from those on the outskirts, as hardly any new building takes place there. Their population usually consists of older adults (mostly women, and women with few resources, as opposed to a minority of very wealthy people), and their cultural, institutional and leisure offering is at its greatest. Because of this, visitors, tourists and sales representatives abound, and there is a huge range of restaurants, hotels and offices of the three levels of public administration.
Life in neighbourhoods must therefore move towards fairness, efficiency and easy access to public administrations, goals stated in their own regulations. The will to achieve them depends on residents and governments.
Teresa Álvarez Olías
Writer, Nationale Nederlanden insurance agent and ING mortgage advisor