We read in the ARA newspaper what the Sant Antoni neighborhood council's solution is to improve coexistence after complaints from residents about conflicts: "Remove 30% of the furniture from the superblock". That is, planters, benches, or basins that have "the duality of being used during the day by neighbors and at night by addictive consumption."

The 10 kilometers separating the Tres Torres neighborhood of Sarrià-Sant Gervasi and the Ciutat Meridiana neighborhood of Nou Barris represent the distance between the two Barcelonas, the richest and the poorest. Invariably, for years, these two neighborhoods have been at the two extremes of disposable income, a fact repeated in the latest data—corresponding to 2022—published this Monday by Barcelona City Council. Residents of both neighborhoods are separated by about 30,000 euros, meaning that those in Tres Torres have 3.5 times more disposable income than those in Ciutat Meridiana.

The Catalonia of vulnerable neighbourhoods is an often invisible reality. Many prefer not to see it. Many have never set foot in an uncomfortable reality. This weekend ARA is portraying it: we have gone there, we have talked to the neighbours, we have asked the experts... The portrait that emerges is that of areas that feel forgotten and stigmatised, trapped in a vicious circle of lack of opportunities and urban degradation that does nothing but rot and prolong the problems eternally. Attempts to reverse the situation, which there have been, have in most cases never succeeded due to lack of continuity and resources. The two crises of this 21st century have been lethal for some neighbourhoods that are now living immersed in the drama of the pandemic. With the housing problem as a decisive factor, unemployment, educational and health deficits, the weakness of associations and commerce, and petty crime often associated with drugs are other factors that are repeated in many of these neighbourhoods, both in the metropolitan area of Barcelona (especially along the Besòs river) and other urban environments in the districts of Girona, Lleida and Tarragona. Among these neighbourhoods there are some very well known and marked, while others, which also suffer degraded situations, are directly ignored by a large majority of Catalans. As if they did not exist.

The Generalitat has identified 236 vulnerable areas throughout Catalonia. Many are neighbourhoods; others, specific areas of small municipalities that also require special attention from the administration. This list includes everything from the Congost neighbourhood in Granollers or Camp Clar in Tarragona, to the old quarter of Alfarràs, a municipality in Segrià with 2,800 inhabitants.

"Barcelona is more unequal than before. Despite the periods of growth we've had, poverty rates have not gone down", says anthropologist José Mansilla. Most of the most vulnerable areas of Catalonia are concentrated in the metropolitan area, along the Llobregat and Besòs rivers, while in the center of the Catalan capital, with the exception of Raval and Barceloneta, according to Mansilla, there has been a process of gentrification that has driven many low-income residents to the outskirts of the city.