Do you live in a gentrified city?
The RAE has not yet accepted it in its dictionary, but we have adopted it for a long time. the anglicism gentrification to refer to the phenomenon of renovation and real estate development that implies an influx of new people (and often with money) in an urban area not necessarily rich or popular so far. The icon of current gentrification is ** Brooklyn , that New York neighborhood ** where Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City would never have gone to live, but which, nevertheless, is a paradise for girls from Girls and so many other hipsters like them.
Brooklyn, a paradise for them
If you don't have much of an eye for this type of demographic phenomenon and you would never have thought of buying a brownstone on Manhattan's Upper West Side in the 1960s like Peggy Olson did in Mad Men (what an eye our favorite publicist had), we'll tell you how to learn to distinguish the symptoms that your neighborhood or city is gentrifying with some examples in Barcelona key:
1. That the grocery store that closed at the end of the 90s has reopened and now it is run by some very nice guys who have a preference for organic vegetables and kilometer zero and for selling spices and legumes in bulk. **You can have the full experience at The Farmers, ** in Barcelona's Raval. We recommend that you take reusable bags from home, it is always good to lead ecology by example, and take advantage of the fact that they have seasonal rhubarb.
From the garden to the store
2. That you no longer have to cross half the city to get a brick of almond milk and a tempeh burger because now they've opened a vegan store for you on the corner . Until recently the neighbors of Sant Antoni did not even dream of being able to buy a wedge of cured cashew or buckwheat cheese sprouted for breakfast. Since the opening of The Living Food the topic has changed.
The detail made store
3. Let there be an influx of bearded guys, in plaid flannel shirts and you have surprised yourself explaining to your mother what it means to be lumbersexual. It is possible that one of the bearded men in question will end up becoming your new hairdresser , as in the case of the recently opened ROOM 106 of the undeniably gentrified Sant Antoni. In addition, the beard naturally can always be taken care of in a neighborhood barber shop, like Outcast , in Poble Sec.
Style in Poble Sec
4.That instead of having to limit yourself to buying clothes in the Inditex empire, you can browse clothing from independent designers and who do limited collections or even manufacture locally . For the precursor neighborhood of gentrification in Barna, Grace , the most independent fashion has come from the hand of Antonieta or Colmillo de Morsa .
small-scale fashion
5. That the bike is the preferred method of transport around the world . And we are not referring only to Bicing or any mass-produced model that you could buy at Decathlon, but to Velocipedes with decades of history and restored. They can be found in Sant Antoni, in Velociutat, or in Poble Sec, in La Republika.
The city on two wheels
6. That old things are sold at a more expensive price than the new ones , and see in bars and restaurants the typical tinted Duralex crockery that immediately transports you to your childhood. You can get some treasure from the 70s or 80s by going to visit your grandparents and convincing them to give you that old fashioned telephone with a wheel or trying to find one in Fusta'm del Raval, The hall of Sant Antoni either Methuselah of grace.
the treasure shop
7. That international food is more available than ever. It is no longer just to do a little japanese tapas (Bouzu) has become very simple, it is that they can also be eaten and Argentine dumplings ( Rekons ), some cochinita pibil tacos ( Niño Viejo ) that you will dream of or in the typical Venetian restaurant where Patti Smith goes to sing (Restaurant Xemei).
8. That you can buy again a loaf of artisan bread that really crisps . And know what the double fermentation of the dough is. Nothing like a slice of rye and wheat bread Triticum , in Sant Antoni, to recover one of those basic pleasures of life.
flavors of another time
9. Let them all be works. And right on the corner of the horchatería and turronería that has been in the neighborhood since 1943 and generates queues every summer (Turrones Sirvent) they open a new horchatería, with the same name () as the previous one (Sirvent Barcelona) and half the neighborhood is convinced that they are actually branches of the same business.
10. Let (inevitably) rise rents. Because some inconvenience had to have the happy real estate development and the fact that it has opened a trendy bar on every corner.
Turrones, horchata and the complete snack or breakfast kit