Catalonia: we have been short on everything

1. Lluís Bassat made the "We are 6 million" announcement in 1987. It was a magnificent slogan that, with just three words and in the first person plural, brought everyone together and immortalized the demographic snapshot of a historic moment. In 2023, Catalonia surpassed 8 million inhabitants for the first time, and the serious thing is that it seems no one had foreseen it. We are another two million people who were here thirty-five years ago, and we have burst at the seams of the country because short-sighted politics has led us to the current situation. Political parties, without exception, when in power, basically work to get votes for the next term, fill their mouths with medium-term initiatives, and forget to plan for the world of their grandchildren. They forget that they will pass away, Catalonia will remain, and future generations will suffer the consequences of these trickle-down policies that, at this moment, are suffocating us.

2. The result is that we've fallen short in almost everything, regardless of the area. It was obvious that with eight million people there would be a shortage of doctors, and this hasn't been remedied. Once again, it's the most sought-after degree program for those finishing high school, but many students have been left out. Barely 200 future doctors are entering the Clínic, 325 at the Autònoma University, and every day passes, the year continues. Without changing our health priority, Catalonia is short 20,000 nurses to reach the European ratio. Did no one foresee that if we went from 6 to 8 million people, there would be a shortage of housing? Did no one plan that if people are more metropolitan than thirty years ago, and have tended to live towards the coast and the pre-coastal, the roads would be clogged and more trains, more tracks, and more highways would be needed to provide air to the population? With the absence of the Mediterranean Corridor and the chaos of the commuter train system alone, we're a quarter of a century late. And the solutions they're now promising us—once again—with a half-baked transfer of commuter trains, sound like patchwork solutions meant to fool us for another generation. Did no one foresee, either, that with so much climate change, we should prepare for severe droughts? And when one hits, it seems we're left with the Balthazar method: going to Montserrat and praying. No one thought that if a quarter of the population was already born outside of Catalonia, Catalan would be the mother tongue of an ever-smaller percentage of the population? Did no one foresee that children with a different culture and language would arrive in schools—perhaps mid-year—and that this would require a change in classroom management? From what we've read in recent months with the news surrounding the DGAIA, no one was able to foresee that their childcare service would be overwhelmed, and now the results are what they are. Didn't anyone realize that more families would be needed to temporarily host children in juvenile centers? Should we talk about the justice system's dead end? Should we once again discuss the airport expansion? Or would you rather we talk about the single file of trucks on the AP-7, from Salses to Guardamar? Shall we continue?

3. There was a time, at the beginning of the last century, when there were far fewer of us and Europe hadn't been distracted by devastating wars, when someone thought about how to bring electricity to the entire country, and they had the ingenuity to regulate the energy generated by the rivers, and a road system, both main and secondary, was planned to connect the country. And they didn't think it was for the movement of the people of that time, but rather these were works and infrastructures that already anticipated the demographic growth of the future. Where are those politicians today capable of anticipating their time and considering the needs, of all kinds, of Catalonia in 2060? By then, there will surely be more than 10 million of us.