Catalonia is stepping up to move forward two of the country's strategic projects. This Tuesday, in the executive council meeting, the Government will approve the declaration of the future Clinic Campus and the new Health Campus of Girona as projects of general interest. This measure will eliminate bureaucratic hurdles and accelerate the launch of these two health hubs. "It is a message of confidence that the Government will do everything possible to make Trueta and Clinic a reality," stated the Minister of the Presidency, Albert Dalmau.

Francesc Magrinyà (Barcelona, 1963) is a civil engineer and the country's leading expert on Ildefons Cerdà. A figure about whom, he says, an incomplete narrative has been imposed for years. To try to turn it around and coinciding with the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of his death, he has just published the book "Teoría Cerdà (Polytechnic University of Catalonia), a monumental work that brings closer the work, but also the thought, the environment, and the history of the creator of the Eixample. Magrinyà is also the curator of an exhibition about Cerdà that will be shown soon in Centelles, Barcelona, and Madrid.

Jaume Collboni has saved this Friday one of the last hot potatoes he had on his table this term. Junts per Barcelona has announced its favorable vote for the new Ciutat Vella usage plan, the mechanism with which the City Council can influence the commercial fabric of the district. A document that had caused a stir among neighborhood associations and left-wing groups in the council – they consider that it consolidates the tourist monoculture of the area – and that the district councilor, Albert Batlle, has defended once the necessary support has been secured to move it forward.

Ten months after reaching an agreement to reduce cruise terminals, the Port and the Barcelona City Council once again have an open melon on the table. It was placed this Wednesday by the mayor, Jaume Collboni, when he defended in an interview with Betevé that he aspired for scale cruises – those that only spend a few hours in the city – to disappear completely in the coming years. This Thursday, from the Port, they have responded to the mayor, defending the importance of this type of vessel and emphasizing that eliminating them will not solve the problem of tourist overcrowding in the Catalan capital.

More pressure on cruise ships that do not have Barcelona as their home port and only make a stopover. The mayor of the Catalan capital, Jaume Collboni, announced this Wednesday that his objective is that in the coming years this type of offering does not exist in the city and that only vessels that have the Catalan capital as their home port dock in the Port of Barcelona. In an interview with Betevé, he advocated for "reducing cruise stopovers to zero" in the coming years. "We have to start making brave and very clear decisions in this regard," he said.

The Generalitat has assumed this Wednesday before the Barcelona City Council a commitment to the rehabilitation of buildings at risk in the Besòs-Maresme neighborhood of the Catalan capital. The meeting of the Bilateral Commission between the two institutions has served to solemnize the pact by which the Catalan executive will contribute 150 million during the next decade to recover some 4,000 poorly maintained homes in the area. An agreement that must accelerate the rehabilitation of 200 buildings in the neighborhood that until now has not progressed at the expected pace.

In search of the formula for Barcelona to reclaim La Rambla, the mayor, Jaume Collboni, launched an advisory council at the end of 2024 to rethink the promenade. A team led by the businessman, designer, and jeweler Joan Oliveras, which for a year and a half has tried to find a solution that would bring Barcelonians back to one of their most emblematic streets. The result is a document that was presented to the public this Tuesday and which, among other things, proposes using culture as the lever to transform La Rambla and the possibility of converting empty buildings or disused hotels into social housing so that residents gain weight in the city center.

The conservative tsunami that seemed to point to the result of the 28-M elections in Spain –with the vast majority of autonomous communities and large cities dyed the blue of the PP and the green of Vox– could end up becoming a wave that dies on the coast this July 23rd. The push of the populars, who dream of surpassing 160 deputies, seems to have been diluted in recent weeks, and, according to the survey that the Opinòmetre Institute has done for ARA, despite winning the elections with between 125 and 140 deputies, Alberto Núñez Feijóo would have it very difficult to access Moncloa. Not even the sum with Vox (between 22 and 30 deputies) would be enough to surpass the 176 seats that mark the absolute majority in Congress. Even at the high end of the range, the two parties only add up to 170 parliamentarians.

Last March, social third sector entities once again carried out a In these meetings, the ombudsman has detailed his proposal to tackle homelessness. Sources indicate that it is a pilot plan project called Pla Zero Carrer (Zero Street Plan) which, initially, should be implemented in two neighborhoods – one in Barcelona and one in another city, which is expected to be L'Hospitalet de Llobregat – and which sets the ambitious goal of halving the number of people sleeping on the street in just over a year. To achieve this, it calls for the administration, entities, and the private sector to work together, sharing information and objectives so that most people who are currently homeless can move forward with their own projects.

Line 4 of the metro will once again suffer a summer with works. The director of projects for the Department of Territory, Encarna Ramos, explained this Tuesday during the neighborhood council of the Dreta de l'Eixample that the Verdaguer station on the yellow line will be out of service for two months. As she detailed, it will not be possible to access the platform of this line from July 6th and for eight weeks. The works, however, will not force the interruption of the train service, which will run through the station, but without stopping.

Just over a year remains until the next municipal elections, and in most municipalities, parties are already pulling strings to nominate their candidates and configure their lists. In the four Catalan capitals, a good portion of the candidates have already announced if they will run again, and new names entering the municipal dispute have also been revealed, but there are still unresolved unknowns.

The geographer Oriol Nel·lo (Barcelona, 1957) has just made, along with the Madrid architect Agustín Hernández and with essential infographics by fellow geographer Joan López, one of the most relevant contributions in recent years to the eternal debate between Madrid and Barcelona. The book Barcelona/Madrid, per un diàleg crític –which for now can only be found in Italian, but which will soon be published in Catalan by the publisher Tirant lo Blanch– was presented a few days ago at a conference of the Metropolitan Strategic Plan (PEMB) and is a commission from the Federico II University of Naples.

The Barcelona City Council received European backing this Monday for its intention to act against tourist apartments. In a press conference alongside the mayor, Jaume Collboni, the European Commissioner for Energy and Housing, Dan Jorgensen, stated that "there is no doubt" that short-term rentals have become a "major problem" in many European cities, not just in large capitals. He also explained that he is visiting the Catalan capital to "learn" about what is being done in housing matters.

Pepe's return home this Thursday after spending a week in provisional prison at can Brians has given air to the Bon Pastor neighbourhood of Barcelona. The case of this man in a wheelchair who killed a thief who wanted to rob him has altered the day-to-day lives of neighbours accustomed to living on the fringes of the city, but peacefully. For a few days, the unfortunate episode has put the spotlight on its streets, which have filled television hours with a portrait of the neighbourhood focused on security that does not explain, not by a long shot, the reality of a Bon Pastor that continues to be largely unknown to much of the rest of the city.

One of the most symbolic actions in the early days of Jaume Collboni as mayor of Barcelona took place on Pelai street. A few weeks after taking office, the mayor dismantled the tactical urbanism that Ada Colau's government had implemented on this main artery in the city center. Now, as his term approaches its final stretch, the municipal government of the PSC is once again setting its sights on this street. In a meeting with local merchants, the third deputy mayor and councilor for Ciutat Vella, Albert Batlle, committed to making the redevelopment of Pelai to make it more "pleasant" part of the roadmap for the next four years.

Barcelona got to work this Tuesday to resolve one of the city's pending issues for more than a decade: the relocation of the Eixample fire station, which since it left the historic headquarters on Provença street is in Joan Miró Park. A provisional location that, furthermore, the justice ruled was irregular because it is built on green space. To resolve this, the Urban Planning Commission has definitively approved the plan to build a new station in the block bounded by Sarrià Avenue and Comte d'Urgell and Buenos Aires streets.

The employers' association of tourist apartments continues to pressure to prevent the elimination of this type of offer in Barcelona and its surroundings from 2028. This Monday they did so by using Mobile congress attendees as a battering ram against the ban. The president of Apartur, Enrique Alcántara, and the general director, Marian Muro, have presented data from a GAD3 survey among attendees of the last Mobile to argue that congress attendees are against the prohibition of tourist apartments. Specifically, they point out that only 3% of attendees defend the prohibition of tourist apartments.

For the first time in more than two years of conflict, the foreign fund New Amsterdam Developers (NAD) is opening up to dialogue in the face of the crisis in the Sant Agustí street block, which it intends to use for co-housing. The ombudsman of Barcelona, David Bondia, announced this Friday that the fund has asked the court to postpone the eviction of Txema Escorsa, which was to be attempted again this Wednesday after neighborhood "pressure" managed to halt a first eviction three weeks ago.

For the first time in more than two years of conflict, the foreign fund New Amsterdam Developers (NAD) is opening up to dialogue in the face of the crisis over the Sant Agustí street block in Vila de Gràcia, which it wants to convert into coliving. The ombudsman of Barcelona, David Bondia, announced this Friday that the fund has asked the court to postpone the eviction of Txema Escorsa, which was to be attempted again this Wednesday after three weeks ago neighborhood pressure managed to halt a first eviction.

Junts per Barcelona gave the go-ahead this Thursday for a long electoral pre-campaign. With thirteen months still to go until the 2027 municipal elections, the party has launched a campaign against the mayor of the Catalan capital, Jaume Collboni, accusing him of "turning his back on the city". "He neither looks, nor listens, nor responds," denounced the leader of the juntaires in the City Council, Jordi Martí, at a press conference, where he presented the posters made with artificial intelligence that the group will distribute around the city, and in which Collboni appears covering his mouth, eyes, and ears.