In the current housing crisis, it seems to me that there is an unsympathetic component of urbanism and architecture that no one dares to confront but that permeates everything; it filters into all urban conversations and debates, and it is very frightening. The feared speculation.Speculation is not good for anyone, ask the developers. Having to buy land at exorbitant prices, never knowing if the selling price is adequate or if you are being ripped off, having multiple abandoned plots of land in cities waiting for years to pass and demand to increase to sell them for triple what they cost is what most damages citizens' trust in urban planning. Hearing about demographic growth and the paralysis of protected housing construction is unsettling and makes any personal housing decision even more irrational. Laws have been getting thicker, but it does not seem that there is now more control and public mechanisms to deal with speculation.In 1933, the First Congress of Architects in the Catalan Language was held, organized by the Association of Architects of Catalonia, with the presence of 129 architects from Valencia to Mallorca, delegates from the Corps of Municipal Architects of Spain, the GATCPAC, and the Association of Architecture Students. The Congress had an important political component, the objective of which was to establish the foundations of the laws that would regulate urban planning and housing in republican Catalonia. Francesc Macià did not attend, but he sent Joan Casanovas, and the inaugural session was held at the Palau de la Generalitat.What seems remarkable about that initiative is that, beyond their individual offices and the difficulty of generating particular commissions, the hundred architects were able to agree on a synthetic text with concrete proposals for a new urban planning law, social policy for working-class neighborhoods and containment of speculation in the neighborhoods, in addition to proposing changes in the teaching of architecture and betting on school architecture.

The divide between the two Barcelonas caused by the housing crisis is becoming increasingly profound, accelerating the gentrification of some neighborhoods and the depopulation of others. This is confirmed by the latest report from the Federation of Neighborhood Associations of Barcelona (FAVB), entitled SOS HousingThe study, which found that in 2024 there were more than 600 large speculative housing developments underway in the Catalan capital, affecting more than 11,800 homes, mostly involved families forced to leave their homes due to the expiration of their rental contracts. These developments are part of "the typical operation of buying an entire building, evicting the residents, and renovating to sell at luxury prices," spokespeople stated. The study combines official data (from the Catalan Housing Agency, the Barcelona City Council, and the Barcelona Metropolitan Area) with fieldwork conducted with neighborhood associations. The spokesperson for the FAVB Housing Commission, Jaume Artigues, explained that between the first and second halves of last year, speculative housing developments increased from 477 to 619. Of these, the vast majority (568 transactions) were intended for sale: 30% after new construction and 70% subsequently. In total, according to the report, between 2016 and 2024, approximately 75,000 rental contracts expired without renewal, affecting some 180,000 residents.