El Raval Update January 2006

"The Raval of today is not a ghetto, but there is danger that it becoming so in the future", concludes a study undertaken by the Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona.

The study analysed the social and cultural diversification, the economic dynamism and the city-planning evolution that the Raval has recently experienced. The report indicates that the balance today is clearly positive, although the district lives between two poles: the northern 'cool' zone and the most marginal southern area.

Josep Garcia, president of the association of neighbors of the Raval, has a less idyllic vision of the transformation of the surroundings. "There is no risk that ghettos may be created, they already exist", he assures. "What else is a district where immigrants comprise 54% of the population?", he asks. Of the city-planning changes, he is also critical. "I cannot feel proud of a zone where property prices now reach 500,000 euros, because the beneficiaries have not been the inhabitants of the district, but the unscrupulous real estate groups", he says. "Intimidation of local residents by landlords and property developers is an everyday event". Like significant data that "the things have not become absolutely well", Garci'a aims that the Raval is the district that more native population has seen start off for other districts and the one that greater percentage of escolarización in the prevailed one has. "Of the district only we were left four, and above they want to throw", adds Rescuing, propietary Angel to us of the bar High Terra, in the street Hospital. "Before we knew all; this was like a town ", says. The study of the CCCB indicates in addition that the district has been able "to dinamizar itself economically", thanks, among other things, to the cultural surroundings of plaça dels Àngels and to the incorporation of the private initiative. Garci'a talks back that the traditional commerce is had lost. "Before it was not necessary to leave the street Hospital to make all the purchases", adds Rescuing Angel. "the present model of nocturnal tourism does not interest to us", finishes off Garci'a. And the future? Facing the future, the report speech of incertezas, like immigration and new dynamic social and economic. Garci'a is pessimist, although she is taken hold to a last nail burning: the operation that is being carried out in the Boulevard of the Raval, where it is predicted, among others, a hotel of 5 stars, offices and the National Filmoteca. "This is our last opportunity", assures. Enrique Aubesart, pensioner, think that the district will gain much. "Lack does to him", concludes. Ravaleros In the European market, the Raval term is understood like a musical movement, that has in the mestization and the crossing of cultures and styles its differentiating characteristic. Groups like Macaco, Barxino, Zulu 9,30, Dusminguet, 08001 or Eyes of Wizard turn by the world with the Ravalera label. The raval lives between degraded floors and lofts on design; between street prostitution and the bars of glasses for tourists.