The city is its trade

The ability of commerce to sustain the life of the neighborhood and maintain the personality of a city like Barcelona, vulnerable to globalization, is extraordinary. As we reported in the ARA, a set-menu bar has opened right in front of the newspaper, serving lunch a few meters away, but it was looking for a larger space. I've seen this place every day for more than two years from my desk. Since the ground floor of the building juts out and is further inland than the main facade, the sidewalk has served as a daily refuge for homeless people who set up settlements that were evicted every morning by the Guardia Urbana (City Police), or for drug addicts who shot up right there, just steps away. The windows of the establishment have been permanently smeared by scribbles. Today the windows are clean, and at 8:30 a.m., people are having breakfast at the tables of what is now the bar's terrace.

Clearly, the problem of homelessness is not only not disappearing, but is increasing and changing location. But now what was once a painful sidewalk is a meeting place that brightens the lives of everyone who lives or works in this area of the Raval.

Urban commerce acts like farmers, preserving the landscape. In a city like Barcelona undergoing permanent and extensive construction, commerce suffers and even stifles if the transformation takes a long time, as is often the case. Governments should know how to compensate for all that commerce means to everyone.