Balearic Islands: total urbanization

In yesterday's article, and you'll excuse the self-quote, this sentence appeared: "In the Balearic Islands, the PP and Vox have approved the construction of housing on rural land, a measure that could disfigure Mallorca in a short time. The destruction caused by the nationalist right, in language, in education, and in urban and territorial planning, could be irreversible."

What the nationalist right-wing groups approved this Monday in the Balearic Parliament, with the force of law, means simply giving the green light to the construction of one million residential places in the Balearic Islands, thanks to - as Jaume Perelló explained to theNow Balearic Islands— the possibility of building on rural land in municipalities with a population of more than 20,000, and in the so-called intensification of urban land in Palma. The Sierra de Tramuntana is not spared either, where construction is also deregulated, despite the regulations protecting this area and despite UNESCO declaring it a World Heritage Site, in the category of Cultural Landscape. Building in the Serra de Tramuntana is the joy of the crown: there is a sad, yet evident, aftertaste of revenge in this. As if to say: you thought this couldn't happen, well, here it is.

Of those million residential spaces, more than 600,000 will be built in Mallorca. This entails a territorial impact and a transformation of the island's physiognomy so radical and profound that right now we probably can't even begin to grasp it. What we can say is that all the changes that have occurred on these islands in the last fifty or sixty years will seem small compared to what may happen in the future. The same can be said of the demographic or population change that this old, new model may entail.

I write "old new model" because the land acquisition law, which is the name given to this feature in territorial and urban planning, is nothing more than the realization of an old dream: the total urbanization of the Balearic Islands. Previous governments might have imagined it, but until now none had legislated to make it possible. The justification given by the Minister of Housing, José Luis Mateo, according to whom (you can read it in Anna Mascaró Nadal's article, also in Now Balearic Islands) This law "will alleviate the housing problem" in the Balearic Islands, almost sarcastically. There is a severe housing crisis in the Balearic Islands, caused primarily by speculation;

As an anecdote, during the plenary session that approved the deregulation law, two Vox representatives got into an argument, with insults heard by everyone and offers to meet "outside." Gabriel Le Senne, the Speaker of Parliament indicted and awaiting trial for a hate crime, failed to keep things in order. These are the partners with whom a PP governs, which, according to its propaganda, "deeply loves this land."