The story of Badia del Vallès is the most unusual of the housing estates that the Francoist Board of Trustees built to provide shelter for Spanish immigrants. From a bird's eye view, the layout of the buildings resembles the Iberian Peninsula, and on the ground, the street names are arranged faithfully to the geography. It is unique for many reasons. First, because it reaches 50 years not as a neighborhood but as a city—it has been one since 1994—with the unique feature of being the only one with all its homes (5,400) subsidized, although as of next year only a hundred or so will remain. The origin of Badia is a "big hit urban planning," explains the socialist Josep Martínez, mayor of the town since August last year, alluding to the fact that the Badia family bought the land just before its expropriation to make the neighborhood, which was born as a community of Barberà or Cerdanyola.

In Catalonia, around one million tons of fibrocement (asbestos) remain to be removed, according to estimates released by the Catalan government this Monday through the Asbestos Eradication Commission. This figure represents at least half of the figure previously assumed to be reliable based on censuses compiled by the Generalitat (Catalan government) and local councils. This material, highly polluting and harmful to health when broken, had been commonly used in construction for roofing buildings or lining pipes and water tanks.

"If the coffins of those killed [by asbestos] were visible to everyone at construction sites, the authorities would do something." Miguel Moreno, from the Association of Macosa-Alstom Retirees Affected by Asbestos, is so emphatic when he denounces the fact that even today, many operations are being carried out to remove this dangerous material without the required safety measures. "We don't learn," he asserts, and he calls for greater vigilance when it has been proven that exposure to this material is directly linked to fatal diseases such as lung cancer.

Pieces of rubble falling from above onto a huge roof of asbestos. This is the landscape that the residents of the Eixample block between the streets Consells de Cent, Aragó, Paseo de Sant Joan and Bailèn have to live with since the beginning of the year. Some, like Paolo, see it up close. His window is right above the roof, which has asbestos. He hasn't opened it for almost two months for anything.