The history of Badia del Vallès cannot be explained without asbestos. When in the seventies the Franco regime promoted the construction of this city with thousands of social housing units to accommodate the population arriving from other parts of the State, prefabricated fiber cement parts with asbestos were used in different parts of the buildings, from the roofs to the downspouts and ventilation ducts. The speed and low cost offered by this construction system favored its use, but today the aging of the materials makes it necessary to remove them: it can be toxic to health. Half a century later, Badia del Vallès is beginning to rid itself of this legacy.

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.