The concern for housing continues to escalate in Barcelona
The use of Catalan continues to retreat as a habitual language in the city
BarcelonaYet another survey, and there have been many, confirms that concern over housing continues to break records in Barcelona. This Wednesday, the City Council made public the 2026 Municipal Services Survey, the most comprehensive one conducted by the Municipal Data Office (OMD), with over 6,000 face-to-face interviews. Among those surveyed, 23% identify housing as the most serious problem facing the city, the highest figure in the historical series. This data also represents an increase of 2.2 points compared to the same survey a year ago, and 15.6 points compared to just five years ago.
Although insecurity continues to lead the ranking in this survey – in the Barometer, the other major survey conducted by the City Council, housing took the top spot some time ago – the number of people who identify it as the city's main problem is on the decline. 23.8% do so, 2.7 points less than a year ago.
On the other hand, access to housing does lead the ranking of the most serious personal problem. 16.9% of those surveyed consider it their main headache – a year ago it was 16.1% – while 12.5% say it is insecurity, five tenths less than in 2025.
It should be noted, however, that the interviews were conducted between the months of February and April of this year. Therefore, they do not record the events of recent weeks, such as the controversial eviction of Maricarmen Abascal, the debate surrounding the Spanish government's decrees, and the large mobilizations for housing. Nor do they include most of the various shootings that occurred in the Catalan capital before the summer.
Security and housing also compete when it comes to deciding what is the main demand that Barcelonians make of the City Council. 15.1% lean towards improving security and 14.8% for facilitating access to housing. In third place, with 10.3%, appears cleanliness, which is also the third main problem of the city for those surveyed, although with only 6.4%, six points less than in 2022.
The scenario changes, however, when asking about the main problems of each neighborhood. Here, housing (7.9%) falls to third place, behind cleanliness (9.6%) and insecurity (20.4%), which leads the ranking by a wide margin. Data from the Ciutat Vella district stand out, where almost half of the respondents (44%) place insecurity as the main problem in their neighborhood. Behind it are Nou Barris (28.6%) and Sants-Montjuïc (24.2%). In contrast, in Les Corts and Sarrià-Sant Gervasi, cleanliness appears as the main problem, and in Gràcia, it is housing that occupies the first position.
Catalan continues to decline
The survey also shows another constant of recent years: the decline of Catalan as the habitual language of the city. On this occasion, it loses another percentage point compared to the previous year, and now only 34% of respondents say it is their habitual language of use. Conversely, 56% choose Spanish and 10% choose other languages. A phenomenon that is explained in part by the change in the city's composition: now only 48.8% of respondents were born in Catalonia, 15% were born in the rest of the State, and those born abroad already reach 38%.