What exactly makes a neighborhood's density desirable? I lived for many years in Barcelona's Eixample, and it wasn't until I left that I realized the exceptional volume of shops, offices, activities, institutions, hotels, restaurants, cars, pedestrians, and goods that circulate. It is very difficult to reproduce this dynamism in a new construction neighborhood, so different from the residential neighborhoods of Europe or the streets of houses between party walls in Maresme. There were few facilities and green areas, but I never missed them until I had daughters. I went to university libraries, to the municipal swimming pools by the beach, and to the cinema in Gràcia and the Gothic Quarter. The city never stopped and there was always some shop window well lit at night, as if to highlight the delicate details of the cornices of the balconies or the reliefs of the facades.On Còrsega, Lepant, Industria, and Padilla streets, there is an island of houses with homogeneous architecture on all plots: the same windows, the same heights, and the same proportions. If the entire Ensanche had been built with the same architecture, I think it would be unbearable. It is the diversity of colors of the stucco, from earthy to reddish to green, that makes us change our point of view at every corner. Cities are read involuntarily. While walking, people notice the balconies, the rhythms of the vertical windows, and the textures, from the plinths to the unique finishes that crown the facades. And then there are the flowers, the curtains, the shutters, the colors of the lamps at night, and so many other things that make us find a very familiar language in the Eixample, despite the incredible built density of a large part of the blocks.

Why is density frightening? Because until fifty years ago, unless expressly prohibited, property owners could add floors, increase building volume, and change the use of their properties without any repercussions for the city. If more wasn't done, it was because the load-bearing walls could only support two or three additional stories, not much more. The resulting appearance of cities was quite wild, with blocks of streets that, overnight, had taller facades without any increase in street width, thus losing light and air inside the dwellings.

To teenagers worried about the ban on social media until the age of sixteen, I would like to say that they will gain valuable time to observe and notice small things that aren't working in their environment. This is the key quality of good professionals, whether they are doctors, train drivers, architects, or truck drivers. By listening and taking notes, they learn exactly where they can add value, and this is a necessary skill for surviving in today's world.

Last Thursday I spent the whole day in the city of Lleida. Despite the bad weather of the previous days, it was a splendid, almost spring-like day. Even the trains behaved more or less well (and I do say "more or less": I left Sants station a quarter of an hour late and Lleida-Pirineus station twenty-five minutes late. Given the shameful state of the Cercanías commuter rail, that's not much). Luckily, I finished what I had to do an hour ahead of schedule, so I was able to stroll for half an hour along a section of the Eix Comercial, which, at 3.5 uninterrupted kilometers, is one of the longest shopping streets in Europe. Aside from the inevitable memories the walk stirred—one's true home is one's childhood—I noticed that this network of streets had regained its vibrancy, the energy it once had.

Daniel Knowles was born in the United Kingdom and now lives in Chicago, USA. In both countries, he says he is fed up with hearing radio alerts about a new "Carmageddon"The typical apocalyptic traffic jams on the return from vacation. That's where the idea for the title of his book came from." Carmageddon (Captain Swing), where this journalist, former correspondent of The Economist It analyzes the forces that have made the car the king of transportation in today's society and its implications, starting with air pollution. "We are approaching 2 billion cars worldwide, but the number is growing much faster than the population," it warns. Nearly 25% of the CO₂ emitted globally comes from transportation, and three-quarters of these emissions are from road transport. And this only considers the gases that warm the planet; cars also emit other gases and particles harmful to health, such as NO₂.₂ or PM2.5. "The switch to electric cars [which is now even being called into question with the reversal of European policies] isn't the solution, I think; it's only part of it," says Knowles via videoconference from Chicago. He explains that Europeans drive an average of 10,000 kilometers a year. In the United States, where public transportation is minimal and everything revolves around the car, it's nearly double: 19,000 kilometers on average. Knowles did the math, and converting all of this to electric cars would require "spending twice as much on electricity." There's no alternative; it's necessary to reduce car use.

In these times of declining expectations, I would like to speak with some realism about how difficult it is to transform cities. Digitization allows us to have images available in just a few hours and renders of future projects with every detail. Never before have those in power and architects been able to accurately visualize what projects will look like "after construction." Now it's done with such precision that, sometimes, it's even difficult to distinguish between the real and the virtual. To illustrate: we know what the Vallcarca neighborhood will look like next to the viaduct, but it's much harder to manage the relocation of all the people living in apartments that will have to be demolished, obtain permits, approve budgets, contract construction work... Managing all these processes is increasingly complicated. And the reality is that we have many drawings that never end up being developed.

Every December, the conversation resurfaces in gatherings and after-dinner conversations: should we spend money on Christmas lights, or is it an unnecessary expense? Figures are thrown around—economic cost, commercial return, energy consumption—and, almost always, the debate ends there. But this way of thinking reveals much more about how we view life than about the lights themselves. It has invisible but significant shortcomings. Reducing a public initiative to a cost-benefit analysis is a convenient, but inadequate, way to understand what truly motivates people.

"I just want to see hundred-dollar bills," Jordi Amat hums in one of the verses of his essay The Battles of BarcelonaBecause the book is a collage of authors, music, books, chronicles, conferences, projects, films, and family conflicts that make it very accessible: it's somewhere between a bibliography and a playlist of everything you need to read, see, and hear about Barcelona to understand the city's successes and failures. The book's thesis is well-known and shared by many: "The paradox of Barcelona's global success is that it strips the city bare." But Amat supports this with data and reviews that allow readers to compare the initial intentions of emblematic projects with their actual impact over the years.

In 2000, the city of Girona had just over 73,000 inhabitants. Currently, there are more than 107,000 registered residents. In a quarter of a century, the population has grown by 43%. But this growth isn't limited to the city itself; the entire metropolitan area has seen an even more significant increase (48%). Vilablareix has doubled its population, but Fornells de la Selva, Sant Gregori, Sant Julià de Ramis, Campllong, and Quart are close behind. These towns, with inadequate public transportation, depend directly on Girona for their residents' daily lives: many commute to work in the city. Thinking of Girona no longer means thinking only of the city itself, but of the entire metropolitan area. But which municipalities should be included?

When we think of an architect, we imagine someone who designs buildings, large or small, public or private, residential or office. But the reality is that architects do more than design houses. They also design cities: the spaces we walk through, where we exercise, where we sit and rest, have been designed by someone. And that someone is an architect.

Why are grand plans announced and then it's so hard to see any tangible impact on the city? Why are so many people registered on the Affordable Housing Applicant Registry, and only a very few lucky ones are eligible? The College of Architects has presented its analysis of building permits for the first half of 2025 and puts it in black and white: of the total of 8,107 new homes approved by the COAC (Council of Architects), only 1,453 are social housing, with a decrease of 18.6% in the housing surface area approved. In Barcelona city, of the total of 833 new homes approved, half (465) are social housing, distributed across twelve projects. In recent years, several cities have focused on the housing emergency, but it's still difficult to capitalize on the housing effort. And because it's a slow process, those responsible end up throwing in the towel and clinging to strategic projects that only require a render or a model are much more communicable.

Some people were talking about that thing that happens every year. It was one person, or it could have been another. Really, it doesn't matter. But, guest, many people say it. And it's said a lot. Look at the mouths. Every summer it's a piece of gum that's chewed. However, it's not a sweetened, aromatic gum. It's a machine gun of shit stuck to everyone's mouth just because of a few cheeks. Yes, it's all that fauna that's now complaining about the roosters.

The beginning of Trump's second term has accelerated the questioning of a world order that we believed to be immovable: the increase in economic protectionism, the criminalization of immigration and attacks on those initiatives that seek to promote diversity and equality, and that Unfortunately we have also experienced this in BarcelonaThe US government's agenda is unfolding at its worst.

From the balcony of my house I can see the badius of some low houses in the centre of Badalona and that makes me feel lucky. In one of the badius there is an almond tree – which is currently in bloom, as it should be – and a huge magnolia that in June will bring us the intense and sweet aroma of its flowers. It is a small oasis of silence and calm in the middle of a noisy and often dizzying city. Behind the windows, I contemplate the white cloud of almond blossoms in silence and leave behind the streams of people going to the metro, the heavy traffic of the buses and the distant murmur of the motorway.