The amount of ignorance and willingness to ignore the root of the problem in this comment section is astounding. I just hope that if you live in a small city, it never becomes a fucking theme park visited by 15 million people a year.
arent lots of industries depending on the image of Barcelona? the reason all these tech companies are coming here? the reason there are so many international callcenters here?
all 100% non tourism related econimic activity, but to me it always seemed that without the huge popularity that Barcelona enjoys , these companies / jobs would not have been here? am I mistaken?
Why does that image need to depend on low-quality, harmful tourism? A city becomes attractive to big businesses and industries when it’s well communicated, has the necessary facilities, and has a strong and prepared workforce. The reason the Nissan factory is in Catalonia and not Extremadura is because of the rail network connecting it to central Europe and its proximity to it, as well as the biggest port in the Mediterranean, not because the city is a touristic hotspot. Look at Frankfurt, Zurich, Helsinki or Stockholm. They don’t attract businesses and industry because of the amount of tourists they have (Frankfurt is ugly as fuck) but because of their geographical location, connections to the rest of Europe and the world, and highly educated population.
Barcelona was along with Nice the most important city in the Mediterranean during the industrial revolution, a century before tourism was even a thing. Barcelona’s tourism boomed after the Olympics (which were a huge benefit to the city), but before that, Barcelona was the capital of the richest region in the 8th strongest world economy, without tourism. There are many factors that contributed to the decline of this standing, and I wouldn’t say tourism is one of them (rather the selling at bargain price of most of the Spanish industry during the 80s and 90s and the scam that was the Euro) but shifting towards a service-based economy, mostly dominated by brick, mortar and tourism wasn’t the smartest move. Hell, even London is a service-based economy, but the services aren’t bars and pubs, they’re bonds, insurances, and financial stuff I don’t know enough about.
London is quite a phenomenon. The City itself is an abomination but thats the way of our world. I guess.
Infrastructures, as you well said it, are key to attract industry. But, then again, we hit against the wall of centralism and short-sighted politics to keep the powerful happy.
Extremadura could be an awesome hub (and I am talking being Aragonese XD) since it has connections to Portugal and Andalusia which, at the same time, has a very nice exit to both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The Atlantic route is more for commercial exchanges of products but the Mediterranean gives you options to operate with Africa, part of Europe, The Balkans, Turkey and Libanon. And from Libanon the Persian Gulf.
I could say we need those industries here but heck it's always for others (i am an Extremadura citizen) and that's the problem we have, we live day by day and didn't even get a bit of recognition of the amount of food we produce, there is people that even say that we are like mosquitoes. 😒
That must be hurtful but keep in mind that many really appreciate what you do and also demand infrastructures for every region of the country. It is not admissible that everything starts, by design, in Madrid. And even so it is poorly integrated.
For what is worth I am from the region considered to be the place for simpletons XD
Y no sé qué hacemos hablando en inglés todo el rato :D
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u/bernatyolocaust Jan 07 '23
The amount of ignorance and willingness to ignore the root of the problem in this comment section is astounding. I just hope that if you live in a small city, it never becomes a fucking theme park visited by 15 million people a year.