From: m211027@regen.DKRZ-Hamburg.DE (E.Zorita)
Subject: Dos ciudades: Barcelona y Madrid.
Organization: Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum GmbH, Hamburg
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 13:59:34 GMT

En la edicion de "The Economist" del 26 de Septiembre ha aparecido un
articulo comparando Madrid y Barcelona. Podeis leerlo aqui entero y diverti
ros un poco.

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                         NOT AS DIFFERENT AS THEY LOOK                        

     A visitor from Barcelona arrives at a Madrid government  office  in  mid- 
afternoon, and is surprised to find only the cleaning lady  there."Don't  they 
work in the afternoons?, he asks. "No", she replies,"they don't  work  in  the 
mornings. In the afternoons they don't come". 
     Lazy Madrid, busy Barcelona: it is just of  the  many  stereotypes  about 
Spain's  great  rivals.  Mostly,  the  stereotypes  are  born  in  Barcelona's 
bitterness at its second-class status. Barcelona- in case you  failed  to  get 
the message during the Olympic Games this summer- is the capital of Catalonia, 
a proudly autonomous region, but it has to defer to Madrid as the  capital  of 
Spain. This rankles. It makes Barcelona the largest city in Western europe not 
to be  a national capital. Worse, Barcelona  (Catalonia's  capital  since  the 
ninth century) regards Madrid as (a creation of Philip II in the 16th century) 
as an upstart. Catalans rarely miss a chance to have a dig at the  folks  from 
Castille. 
     And, after being bossed about for so long, who can blame them?  Over  the 
years centralisers in Madrid did the best  to  strip  Barcelona  of  political 
power. They tried to squash the Catalan language. They  even  determined  that 
the modern city should look like: in the 1860 an order from  Madrid  overruled 
Barcelona's choice of plan for its big expansion, and opted for a grid  layout 
proposed by Ildefons Cerda. 
     "We are more liberal, and that explains almost everything",  says  Miguel 
Roca, who as parliament leader of the Catalonian Nationalist  spends  much  of 
his time shuttling between the two cities. Madrid's  "intransigence",  as  Mr. 
Roca puts it, go as back to the Inquisition, which was resisted in  Catalonia. 
Barcelona has the liberalism that often characterizes port cities. As Catalans 
see it, while Madrid bathes in bureaucracy, Barcelona gets on with  business.A 
certain old-fashioned severity in Madrid, perched  in  isolation  high  up  on 
Spain's central plateau, contrasts with  the  levity  of  Barcelona,  open  to 
Europe and aggressively avant-garde. 
     Upt to a point, these old caricatures still  hold  true.  No  visitor  of 
government buildings in the two cities can fail to be struck by  the  contrast 
between them. In Madrid, there are creaky wooden floors, antique furniture and 
walls covered by with paintings of Spanish old masters. In Barcelona, the city 
of Gaudi and Miro, designer chairs and tables  are  evidence  of  the  place's 
fetish for modernism. Meetings of the Catalan cabinet are held in a room  with 
a large, distinctly modern painting by Antoni Tapies. 
     And yet, these days, the similarities between the two cities are at least 
as striking as the contrasts. Madrid is hardly lazy any more. Visitors do well 
to keep up with the pace of the place. Nor is it old-fashioned. Indeed, it has 
become almost outrageous modern, from dress (SKIRTS COULD HARDLY GET  SHORTER) 
to drugs (a lot of them about). To judge by the local cuisine, you would think 
the place    was a port: although far from the sea, seafood  is  a  miraculous 
Madrid specialty. In recent years once-isolationist Madrid  has  become  every 
bit as fanatical about "Europe" as Barcelona. 
     As banks and business have been drawn to Madrid, it has become as much  a 
commercial  and  industrial  centre  as  an  administrative  one.   Barcelona, 
meanwhile, in Spain's traditional industrial heartland, has been  experiencing 
a boom in bureaucracy. This is thanks to the regional autonomy  Catalonia  has 
won since  Spain's  return  to  democracy  in  1975.  Like  most  governments, 
Catalonia's has been adept at providing jobs for the local boys. 
     The political life of the two cities now has some piquant  parallels.  In 
both places the national government is  of  a  different  color  to  the  city 
government, leading to much local friction. In Madrid  the  conservative  city 
administration is a bastion of opposition to Spain's Socialist government  led 
by Felipe Gonzalez. In Barcelona Jordi Pujol, the Catalan  Nationalist  leader 
of Catalonia, and Pascual Maragall,  the  socialist  city  chief,  are  famous 
sparring partners. In an ironical reversal of history, Madrid  politics  could 
soon be ripe for a political takeover by  Catalans:  Narcis  Serra,  a  former 
mayor of Barcelona, is deputy prime  minister,  and  the  Catalan  Nationalist 
might become the power-brokers if the general election due next year  produces 
no clear winner. 
     None of this means that the rivalry between Madrid and Barcelona is about 
to disappear. It is bound to remain fierce, not least  on  the  soccer  field, 
where Real Madrid and Barcelona vie  for  Spanish  supremacy.  Barcelona  will 
continue to press for yet more power to be  devolved  to  it  from  Madrid:its 
latest call (made just after the Olympics finished) is for the Senate, Spain's 
upper house of parliament, to be moved to the Catalan capital. But with a  lot 
of local autonomy restored, and with the uplifting  success  of  the  Olympics 
behind it, the chip on Barcelona's shoulder is becoming ever harder to detect. 
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Eduardo Zorita
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Meteorologie
Bundesstr 55, 2000 Hamburg 13. 
Tel:49 40 41173377                  e-mail:e.zorita@dkrz-hamburg.dbp.de