The Left of the Eixample in Barcelona is a neighborhood with its own life, but whoever walks through it at lunchtime knows that finding a plate of Catalan cuisine among so much brunch, poke and franchise offerings is increasingly difficult. The offerings have multiplied, yes, but not always in favor of those looking for a fricandó, some well-made bravas, or a Sunday rice dish.

A man in a trench coat and hat strolls incognito through the aisles of Alibri until, when it's time to pay for the novel he wants to give to the friend accompanying him, he can no longer conceal his identity: it'sArturo Pérez-Revertewho didn't want to miss the centenary of one of Barcelona's oldest and most beloved bookstores. The author ofThe Dumas Club He ended up signing a copy of the latest Captain Alatriste installment at the Alibri team the same week they celebrated their 100th anniversary, the culmination of a long and eventful journey that began in late November 1925, when Anton Schaedel, a German bookseller trained at the Institut Herder in Barcelona, opened Herder –Alibri since the late 1990s–, which everyone knew by the nickname "the German bookstore." The establishment, located on the first floor of number 22 Balmes Street, was mainly dedicated to the import and sale of books in Spanish and Latin published by the Herder publishing house, founded in 1798 in Freiburg.

Enric Llorens Grau was one of the most prominent industrialists in Barcelona a century ago. Linked to the world of cocoa, Llorens left his mark on the city of Barcelona with his home, a stately home on the corner of Còrsega and Enric Granados streets. The Enric Llorens House was designed by the Extremaduran-born master builder José Pérez Terraza, and the result was so extraordinary that the City Council recognized it in 1907 with an honorable mention in the annual competition for artistic buildings.

The case occurred two academic years ago, and they are still suffering the consequences: "It's about two girls, sisters. They were at home when their family was evicted and they saw the police vans and the judicial procession arrive, enter their house, and evict them. Two city workers took them to school. They arrived at a safe school and were taken to a worker; they didn't arrive at a safe school and were taken to a worker. When they were late, they had no home to return to." Anna Pérez, director of the Jacint Verdaguer School in the Poble-sec neighborhood of Barcelona, recounts this case, still emotional. "There's always a case that makes you jump, that makes you say enough, and for us, this was it," she continues. This year, there are 18 other students at the school in the same situation, in the midst of eviction proceedings.

The history of a city's shops is also the history of its signs. And the history of its signs is also the history of the times when they were labeled and hung on the facade. And the history of when they were hung on the facade is the history of when they couldn't be labeled in Catalan. This succession of causal chains is enough to begin the story of Mantequería Lasierra, which has been operating since 1953 on the corner of Rosselló and Aribau streets in Barcelona's Eixample district. The mantequería is that business, halfway between a delicatessen and a grocery store, that is neither one nor the other. It isn't the former because it doesn't produce pork products, nor the latter because it only sells food products. "They were the stores that had the products of the pork fat", both Ramon Lasierra, father and son, tell me.

Methamphetamine, ecstasy, ketamine, cocaine, pink cocaine, GHB, MDMA, marijuana, sildenafil pills and Poppers. This is the arsenal of different types of drugs that the police found when they managed to enter the home of the two suspects. of insecurity they felt in the Eixample block of Barcelona where they lived. They described a constant movement of people visiting a specific address, and they already suspected that drugs were being purchased inside. They are 28 and 35 years old, and among the narcotics located there are some types that the police directly relate as drugs associated with the phenomenon of chemsex: a practice that consists of mixing alcohol and drugs at private parties with the aim of increasing inhibitions and sexual pleasure. The trend arrived in Catalonia a while ago, but for years now it has also This is a cause for concern for NGOs dedicated to raising awareness about the prevention of sexually transmitted infections. such as HIV, since the disinhibition that these drugs can cause can also lead to a lack of control in sexual practices.

"Maybe they're temporary rentals," says Xavier, as he looks at the balconies of the building where he lives. Some are from a catalog: a small plant, a small table, wooden chairs. Others are empty. But most look lived in: there's light at night and names on the mailboxes. He's lived on the first floor for almost 50 years, and when he goes out onto the balcony, he can see those below him, like the first mezzanine: "Every time they come, they put up new plants. They stay for a few months and then leave." Some Australians live there, and their balcony is empty, and they've surely learned their lesson: the plants now hanging from the wrought iron won't die. They're tropical.

"We have changed our mindset since the Casa Orsola case, everyone has seen the wolf's ears and we have entered into a new dynamic." This is how Xavier Riu, spokesperson for the Association of Residents of the Left of Eixample, presented the document Housing and speculation in the Eixample. It is a report that collects data from the district between 2016 and 2024 and exposes the problem of the Eixample with housing.

The Tàber nursing home in Barcelona has two weeks left before it closes its doors and the 23 residents with public places are distributed among the centres that the Department of Social Rights and Inclusion has had to find for them in a hurry. A vulture fund has bought the property, in the heart of Eixample, to build luxury homes, in an operation that is repeated in many buildings in the district. The management of the residence notified the relatives on 6 February that due to force majeure it would not continue with the activity, although weeks before it had already informed the department so that it would have time to relocate these very vulnerable people.

First a reassuring message: the City Council does not foresee that this will be a particularly tough summer for coexistence due to road and rail works. Yet works there will be, perhaps not as many as last year (62), but of greater impact on citizens' lives, especially in the Eixample. There work is expected to begin simultaneously on the 36 stretches of street that are to become the first axes of the superilla and on the tramway along Diagonal, which will be accelerated to take advantage of the August slowdown. In total, there will be 56 new different interventions totalling €23.5m of municipal investment, among which the advancement of the reforms of the Via Laietana and Pi i Margall stand out. These are two of the City Council's star projects for this final stretch of its term in office. These works bring the total number of works underway in the city to 183.

With a little delay compared to the first announcements, Barcelona has already activated the countdown to start works on the first four pedestrian-first streets in Eixample's superilla: Consell de Cent, Rocafort, Borrell and Girona, and the squares that will appear where two of these streets cross. The preliminary work, which is to move bicycle hire statiosn and loading and unloading areas for delivery lorries, will be launched during the second half of July. The works as such will start in the second half of August, with an expected duration of eight and a half months, which should allow the City Council to complete them before the next local elections.

When Barcelona City Council announced it would allow most of the extra outdoor seating bars and restaurants were allowed to set up during covid to remain, it also warned that there would be exceptions. Streets considered "saturated" would have to remove any extra tables and chairs. At that time, the example of Enric Granados was given, where before covid there were already 76 bars with outdoor seating (a total of 331 tables). During covid 38 bars set up new outdoor seating or expanded existing areas (to a total of 87 extra tables), to the point that it became a street with as many outside bar areas as blocks of flats. Until now, Enric Granados was the only street named where tables and chairs would have to come off the streets, but this Friday Eixample councillor Pau Gonzàlez named six areas which would be affected in this district, where 30% of the city's restaurants are situated. Extra tables will also have to come off Parlament street, the lower part of Muntaner street (below Aragó), almost all of Aribau (it is included within the scope of restriction on Enric Granados, as well as a stretch of Provença and Mallorca), Rambla Catalunya, Passeig de Sant Joan and in Avinguda Gaudí.

Cohabitation in big cities is not always easy, and sometimes it even seems impossible. Residents in a block of flats on Roger de Flor, in Dreta de l'Eixample, are fed up with the hustle and bustle caused by their neighbours and, above all, their clients. "They call us on the intercom in the early hours of the morning, because they constantly get the wrong buzzer, and people keep coming in and out," a resident explains, who does not want to give his name: "They are pretty nasty," he says. Like him, there are many residents in the same block who are fed up with living next to a brothel. Some mornings, when they leave the house, they have found vomit on the floor or empty bottles of alcohol that some overly drunk client has forgotten. They also have to put up with doors slamming at late hours and, from time to time, an argument with a client who doesn't want to pay or who has caused too much trouble. "The girls are not very quiet either," says another neighbour, who complains that they often shout up the stairs and when a neighbour manages to make them understand that there is no need to make such a fuss, "the pimp changes the girls and new ones come in".

Barcelona's City Council has finally made public the reports that opposition groups have been demanding for months on the impact of the new plan for pedestrian-first areas in the Eixample (known as superilla) on traffic. All measures to make streets more pedestrian friendly have a flipside, which is that other streets become alternative routes and absorb more traffic. In the case of the first street where measures will be taken, Consell de Cent street, the nearby Mallorca street will expect to take the brunt, especially between Muntaner and Sicília streets. Although it is currently not an especially busy street, it is expected to exceeded 90% saturation at rush hour by 2023, with a similar phenomenon occurring on Valencia street between Urgell and Rambla Catalunya.

"It's all destroyed, it's a great pity". Iliana Garcimarrero lives in the building most affected by the fire which broke out yesterday in Barcelona's Eixample. This morning, accompanied by firefighters, she was able to return home to collect a few belongings. "Above all what we need most: ID, credit cards and computers to work with. We left with nothing, running away from the fire," she says. She has also found that some of the memories she could not take with her remained intact: photographs of her daughters, the books her father wrote.... Everything that was made of wood, however, is gone.

The rush of works that the City Council is preparing before May 2023 elections is already starting to show its head with a succession of big announcements this week: the last one, this Thursday, when a date was set for the start of the works of the so-called Superilla Barcelona, which will create 21 pedestrian-first axes and 21 new squares across the Eixample from now until 2030. In June work will begin on the first four axes, around Consell de Cent street, as well as the four squares where the axes meet. The forecast is that work will be very fast and will not extend beyond the first quarter of next year (about eight months). The timetable says that the project, which is En Comú's flagship project, has to be ready before the elections.

May the announcement of urban improvements not translate into the expulsion of neighbours and lifelong commerce, as has already happened in so many places in Barcelona, from the Born to Gràcia. With this premise in mind, the City Council has approved a suspension of new business licenses in the streets where the pacification of the Eixample will begin to unfold, in the surroundings of the future green axis of Consell de Cent. The aim of the measure is to avoid that, once the streets are places with less space for cars -they will not have asphalt and the speed will be limited to 10 km/h-, they are filled with new bars and establishments of the same style. In short, what happened in Enric Granados street, now converted into a hub of leisure and food, or in Blai street, in Poble-sec, which is full of tapas bars.