A tale of two cities (and a rivalry)

One of the best-selling novels of all time is History of two cities, written by Charles Dickens in 1859. The action takes place during the 18th century, at the dawn of the great change caused by the French Revolution, and depicts an orderly, peaceful and calm London, while Paris appears agitated, chaotic and conflicted. A classic rivalry that Dickens exploited by sweeping home. The reality, however, must not have been so simple. In our peninsular corner of Europe, the recurring comparison is that of Barcelona versus Madrid. And here too the visions tend to be interesting. Right now, and for some time now, the idea of ​​Barcelona’s decline and Madrid’s success is spreading. Is it really so? What does the data say? Well, what the data show are two very different city (and metropolitan region) models. In summary, Madrid is richer but has more inequality, and Barcelona is ahead of Madrid in many relevant qualitative rankings while Madrid surpasses it in a few equally key quantitative ones.

What is clear is that, beyond who has governed, the State’s sustained political support for the Spanish capital in recent decades to make it a great pole of economic and cultural attraction has been very generous and has given result Madrid’s centralism with respect to Spain as a whole has been accentuated in democracy despite the autonomous regime. This has allowed it to capture, and in some cases advance, the Catalan capital, which a century ago had made the leap to industrial and European modernity alone. This overtaking Madrid, however, has not resulted in a change in the mentality of a city more marked by the weight of the public sector (the civil service is very important there) than by private initiative and creativity.

With the data in hand, neither Madrid’s triumphalism nor Barcelona’s pessimism are justified.”

The fact is that Madrid has more metro network and a more international airport with more traffic. It also has a bit more trade show business. And a higher average salary. Rental prices, on the other hand, are higher in Barcelona, ​​where tourism is much more important and there are many more bike lanes. The unemployment rate in Madrid city is above 11% while in Barcelona it is 7.3%. There are values ​​in which the comparison must be made between Catalonia and the autonomous community of Madrid: foreign investment is much higher here than there, there is also more business growth in Catalonia (and many more start-ups), on the other hand, Madrid has more than twice as many company headquarters. With one million less population, Community Madrid has a higher GDP than Catalonia, and a slightly higher cost of living. In the international and European rankings of cities (in matters such as university education, security, foreign investment and technological investment), Barcelona is clearly better positioned.

So, despite state support in Madrid, Barcelona (and Catalonia as a whole) remains competitive with the Spanish capital. Therefore, the perception of decadence in Barcelona and Catalonia, and success in Madrid, do not correspond exactly to reality. Neither Madrid’s triumphalism nor Barcelona’s pessimism are justified.

Content produced by

• Front page

• Last hour

• discover

• sections

• 
  

  Profile