What is the identity of New York? Because its connection to the country is relative, like letting the air flow, a kind of living apart together that binds and liberates her at the same time; her identity is not based on a tradition exactly shared with the rest. It does not come from the past but from the future, not from the backcountry but from frontierMore than a distinct culture, it's based on a shared energy, a temperament: speed, ambition, diversity, and practical tolerance. The city offers opportunities, not roots. That's why the streets and avenues have no names, but they do have a soul. That's why it aims so high and looks so little at the ground. The idea is that it's a place where everyone can be themselves without having to participate in a... us Previously. And this, which may seem like a lack of identity, is paradoxically its hallmark.
In this context, the victory of the newly elected mayor, Mamdani, is not a triumph over New York's own identity, but rather a triumph that emerges from and reclaims it. In this sense, Mamdani is more authentically New York than Donald Trump and his Fifth Avenue tower. He suggests that being a global city is the opposite of being a luxurious backdrop (and certainly not a sublimely tacky one). Defending New York, therefore, means preventing the city from weakening precisely in what makes it unique. This is the profound message that Mamdani has understood: many things can be done from the top down, but identity can only be built from the bottom up, or it will inevitably break down.
Barcelona is a different case, but it can learn something: Barcelona's cosmopolitanism has always failed when, from above, it has ignored the intrinsic Catalan identity of the capital. Not out of deference to any stubborn, fundamentalist, rural backwater, but because Barcelona can only be Catalan. It has opened itself to the world in its own way, with its own personality,my way"That's why it's laughable that the city council's sports councillor says that translating 'the Women's Race' into Catalan might be 'provincial.' This would be precisely the opposite of the openness, pluralism, and cosmopolitanism that Mamdani proposes: that's why it ends up seeming like a ridiculous, tacky, and overly Madrileño act."wannabeIt's embarrassing. This Olympian apathy, this innate self-hatred, devoid of any substance or substance, doesn't take into account the reality of the underclass but rather ignores and homogenizes it. (itself), is Castilian Spanish.
This is the paradox: in a certain version of cosmopolitanism, openness is so selective that one's own culture is sidelined. That's why the comparison with New York, despite all the differences, is illuminating. If there plurality is identity itself, here plurality is only possible if one's own culture triumphs over homogenizing forces. Barcelona, too, must be open to everyone who wants to live and contribute, but, just like in New York, this shouldn't turn it into an artificial stage. Those who arrive must be able to mix healthily with those who are already there, without stepping on each other's toes, without making life impossible (also in terms of equal opportunities), and above all, without ignoring each other.
Opening your arms is the opposite of living with your back turned. Too often, newcomers and locals coexist but don't connect: we know who they are, but we don't really know them. They know perfectly well that we're here, but they don't dare or don't have the time to get to know us. And this leads us to be like extras inVicky Cristina Barcelona(Joel Joan, Paco Mir or Jordi Basté looking at paintings), while for us they are just caricatures ofbrunchand ofrooftop partiesThat void, that vast space that is neither hostile nor shared, is Barcelona's true challenge. The problem has never been diversity, but rather the precipice and the silence that some want to carve between one another. In New York, Mamdani wins precisely because he defends urban cohesion without homogenizing. In Barcelona, the challenge is similar: while embracing the world, it must maintain its strong roots. Therefore, Catalan identity should be neither a nuisance nor a museum piece, but a living relationship between those who are already there and those who arrive. It should be what fills the gap in the middle. The invisible identity card. A new us.
