popular movements and urban alternatives in post-franco spain

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Page 1: Popular movements and urban alternatives in post-Franco Spain

popular movements and urban alternatives in post-Franc0 Spain by Jordi Borja

L’Espagne se trouve a I’encontre de severes problemes urbains que le regime authori- taire ne peut resoudre. Au f h et a mesure que ce regime se desintegre, de nouvelles revendications surgissent ; mais en Espagne, contrairement au Portugale, ce sont des mOuvements organises qui reclament une nouvelle politique. Ces mouvements popu- laires sont fondes sur les quartiers (Barrios) ; cette communication s’addresse a leurs dtveloppement a Barcelone.

Les mouvements urbains de certe ville ont tvolues a partir d’une contestation d’issus d’envergure locale, a une qui s’addresse aux processus et planification de toute la ville. Un reseau de groupes a Cree les moyens pour une renaissance d’une vie collective et democratique. Le droit a un logement convenable, aux amenagements adtquats, au ContrBle sur I’industrie et la pollution, et a une suspension des renovations urbaines, s’est fait valoir. Les moyens par lequels ces objectifs sont accomplis sont esquisses.

Une critique de la planification implique celle de ]’administration municipale. Divers genres de protestations ont eu lieu a diffkrentes periodes dans I’evolution de cette critique. C’est maintenant que les mouvements communautaires, les analystes de l’urbain, et les nouveaux groupes politiques ont besoin de travailler ensemble afin dedevelopper un nouveau contexte pour le gouvernement municipal, a l’interieur d’un programme socio-economique plus large. Dans n’importe quel systtme futur, les groupes des Barrios continueront de jouer un rble essentiel. Un mouvement vers une reforme municipale accompagnera vraisemblablement un changement social plus grand, surtout celui de la lutte pour l’autonomie Catalane.

I Introduction

Ofthe numerous social problems inherited by a democratic state those usually defined as ‘urban’ would, without doubt, be among the most severe. Political change must inevitably awaken wide-ranging social expectations, particularly among the working classes, and urban demands will be put forward with con- siderable force on all fronts, especially those of housing, education, planning, health and public transport. Many unsatisfied needs await action. However, the solutions to such problems often appear more simple than in fact they are. If there are tens of thousands of homeless families and at the same time more than 50 ooo houses are vacant because buyers or tenants cannot be found, why not distribute them among the most needy? If there is a shortage of schools and clinics while buildings are empty and large mansions are underoccupied, let them be converted into schools and hospitals. Ifthe problem of public trans- port is due to the priority given to the car and to overground transport rather

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I 5 2 Urban praxis

than to the underground system, let car workers be retrained and thr un- employed be organized for public works schemes. Such are the suggestions.

Clearly, real solutions are much more complex. The provision of a building does not mean a school is created, nor can thousands of dwellings be rcqui- sitioned without major social conflict, and serious repercussions in the con- struction industry. Individual resentment must be transformed into organized protest, a protest which stands for something greater than the problem itself and represents not simply a memorial to injustice and the suggestion of general solutions but also embodies specific and attainable goals. Such a programme requires a collective maturity which is only born of long social experience. In Portugal, for example, such experience was lacking and social demands ex- ploded violently in all directions. It would seem in comparison, however, that such experience does exist in Spain and particularly that it exists in Barcelona.

As I have said, a democratic state will have to face urgent urban problems and pressing social demands. Moreover it must face them with an inherited administration which, at least as far as its leadership is concerned, is inefficient, corrupt and discredited. It will also inherit an immense public debt and will lack the elementary mechanisms for the provision of even minimum local government resources. For the last 37 years the centralized and authoritarian administrative system has been divorced from social life. It is neither repre-, sentative nor controlled and has functioned in isolation with no awareness of popular needs. The authoritarian state has, moreover, done all it could to foster the impression that its replacement would represent the descent into an abyss.

But it is not so. In Barcelona, as in Catalonia, the institutions of the state may be in crisis, but social life is organized. The government may not know the people but the people are beginning to know themselves, and beginning not only to define the relevant problems but to suggest answers to them. Although the local political system is not representative, instruments of collec- tive representation have been forged, not from within the state, but from within society itself

Given the acceleration of urban processes, devoid of planning and social investment as a result of the deplorable local government system and the lack of representative public institutions, acute social disorganization and the dis- integration of urban life might now seem inevitable. I t would also be logical if the breakdown of authoritarian political forms that is taking place produced an inordinate increase in protest and various forms of direct action. And yet this is not happening.

The reason for this is to be found in the development of important urban movements in the barrios (neighbourhoods) and in the city as a whole. These are popular movements in the widest sense and they have created or revitalized an associative network of active and representative groups which have de- veloped broadly based and realistic programmes arid objectives. Such move- ments have thus provided the foundation for an organized democracy and have made it possible to develop urban alternatives, which differ in their con- tent as well as their concept of municipal development.

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I n the notes which follow I will first discuss the process by which these alternatives are formulated, and then provide a systematic analysis of their

important features.

From the ‘barrio’ movement to urban alternatives

I n the current image, urban movements are seen as an expression of ‘burrio’ lifeand as the reduction of the social and political environment to the physical boundaries of everyday existence. Protest, according to this viewpoint, is pre- occupied with immediate questions of housing, services and the ‘quality of life’ and in turn limited to the most elementary level (public hygiene, urban infrastructure, pollution, green belts, etc.). This picture, however, is far from the truth.

Popular movements have confronted the problem of the global organization of the city, have discussed planning and budgetary priorities, have already taken a stand against ‘Porciolismo’l and the bogus Greater Barcelona Plan and are doing SO now against Viola’s Comarcal (District) Plan and the dying centralist-authoritarian state. Thus, urban movements today express a global alternative for the city. There are several significant events and instances which illustrate this capacity for criticism and the formulation of alternatives :

The consolidation of opposition to small-area land-use plans in the work- ing-class barrios (Ribera, Nueve Barrios, Montjuic) to public works schemes (Cinturones de Ronda, the Tibidabo tunnels) and to the projects of ‘Por- ciolismo’ such as the International Exhibition. The Memorandum of Citizens’ Groups (Friends of the City, Economic Circle, Cultural Centre, Jovk Cambra, Catalan Choir and the Professional Associations) which was presented to Maso2 at the beginning of 1974 but actually prepared in 1973, and which represented the support of the socially conscious elements together with the organizations of the urban bourgeoisie and middle classes for the working-class ‘barrios’. The opposition to the Comarcal (District) Plan which, although somewhat different, was concerned with the same basic question, the unrepresenta- tiveness of the organizations which were set up. The general protest in the city to the city council’s ‘No to Catalan’. The cohesive and representative role which the Federation of Residents’ Associations has played in the global urban critique and which it has expressed in the stand it has taken on the Comarcal (District) Plan and in thedocument which its late president Juan Fries presented in December ‘975.

These popular movements have raised another question : the critique of local government and the alternatives to it. Initial issues were the denunciation of corruption, municipal extravagance and inconsistencies, and the lack of access

Porcioles was a previous mayor of Barcelona. Maso succeeded Porcioles in office.

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to information and to the control of urban planning. This was followed by the attack on the non-elective character of the council, the councillors of the ‘No to Catalan’ and the accession of Mayor Viola. The campaign for the resignation of the municipal council achieved considerable popular support. More recently the residents’ associations and citizens’ groups have denounced the inefficiency and unrepresentative nature of the municipal juntas and have begun to form coordinating bodies to oppose them in various zones and dis- tricts.

There are, today, general demands in the city for:

I Mayors and councillors to be elected by universal suffrage (directly in the case of councillors and by discussion in the case of mayors). Suffrage to be from the age of 18, without ‘tercios’ h third^),^ and within a framework of universal political liberty. Democratically elected municipal councils with decentralized functions open to the participation and control of the people. Municipal autonomy as regards responsibilities, financial resources and the assumption of functions at present in the hands of central government, within the context of a Statute of Autonomy for Catalonia.

The network of local social life has been revitalized by these popular move- ments. Public consciousness has been raised and reawakened and awareness of cultural, sporting and religious groups has been increased by the residcnts’ associations in the barrios, while the representative role of associations and groups acting at the city-wide level and the initiatives they have taken have all transformed Barcelona into a city with a highly structured social life. Associations and groups have themselves been turned into veritable schools of democracy. Given a political system which had fragmented the population and which attempted to maintain it as a passive object and faced with a system of local government which in no sense encouraged participation and which was unwilling to see the public as anything more than simply ‘administered’, barrio associations and citizens’ groups have created the means for the rebirth of collective life. A document presented by the barrio associations at the be- ginning of December 1975 and read in Sants during a public discussion which took place with Seiior Fraga Irribane, well illustrates the character and role of the associations.

Lastly, this network of associations has become a vital means ofpublir parti- ci+ation and mobilization for democratic change. Because of their widely representa- tive nature, their open and legal activities and their consequent capacity for dialogue, citizens’ groups and barrio associations are increasingly involved in the initiatives through which the people are entering political life and pressing for democratic change. The petition from the Federation of Residents’ Associa- tions to the king requesting democracy, amnesty and the Statute of Autonomy, and the leading role played by these groups in the campaign for amnesty which culminated in the protest meeting of I February; the transformation of associa-

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Representation in the fascist state is divided into three parts.

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tions and groups into platforms from which the various political forces could openly present themselves to the people; the campaign for a democratic local

Overnment within the framework of a democratic state; the support for the i3 Catalan Assembly and the campaign for a Statute of Autonomy, above all the constant reaffirmation of the will to struggle for political and trade union freedom, and the function that this basic democratic and legal system plays at the level of barrio and city; all these aspects are fundamental to our under- standing of the profound nature of the political change that is taking place.

m The content of urban alternatives

The protest movements of the barrios and the subsequent development of an active popular consciousness has led to the acceptance and legitimization of various social rights, which are now incorporated into any global scheme which seeks a certain consensus. They were partially incorporated in the 1974 Comarcal (District) Plan itself and they have now been adopted by groups from all political persuasions from the liberal right to the extreme left, Prin- cipal among these urban social rights are:

The right to decent housing at a cost of approximately 10% of the salary of the head of the household. The right to rehousing in the same area if forced expropriation occurs through redevelopment, public works, etc. The provision of social facilities for each residential area, especially with regard to schools, sanitation, green zones and sports grounds, cultural centres, nurseries, old people’s homes, markets, etc. Priority for medium- sized facilities nearby rather than larger facilities at a distance. The pro- vision of civic social centres to encourage the development of collective social life. Urban renewal schemes must have as little effect as possible on traditional social networks which usually support a complex urban social life and which possess a certain cultural value. The same applies to large public works schemes, thus there is opposition to the dismemberment of the city to the advantage of private transport and the central business district. Buildings or districts of historical or cultural interest must in any case always be preserved. The inevitable construction of new residential estates outside the boun- daries of a regional territorial policy must be able to ensure a satisfactory initial level of services, the provision of a social centre, and a complete network of communications. While not advocating that urban industry should bedismantled, it is never- theless as necessary to formulate policies to control polluting, dangerous or unpleasant industries as it is to eliminate those infrastructures and large- scale facilities which destroy the urban social structure. However, employment in the central zones of metropolitan areas should not be allowed to decline, as this would encourage the process of tertiarization

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at the centre and increase the movement to working-class sectors on the periphery.

These demands have resulted in the formulation and legitimization of the means for their satisfaction. For example :

I The progressive municipalization of land or at least strict public control of transfer and building to avoid speculation as well as to avoidincreasing densities, saturation of the central area and changes of use, etc. The reclamation of vacant space for public use and/or property and the conversion of offending industrial sites and large infrastructures into social facilities. The leading role of the public sector in housing and planning, and the popular control of such a process. Public participation in the design of projects, in the management of services and in the organization of housing. The acceptance of new urban priorities based on the following principles;

i) the city and its neighbourhoods are the framework for collective social

ii) urban policy should ensure the provision of housing and services for

iii) absolute priority should be given to collective public transport ,. iv) the processes of saturation and tertiary specialization in the cities

Urban planning should not divide the population into the ‘affected’, the ‘protected’ and the ‘beneficiaries’ but, rather, should create conditions of equality for all (with the exception of speculators and major interests). A General Plan for the Barcelona area should be developed in the context of the planning of Catalonia as a whole. Such a plan should lay down precise terms for the respective responsibilities of government and private interests and guarantee protection and equality before the law to indi- viduals.

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life

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should be halted. 5

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These aspects of the urban alternative have been worked out in various areas of the city in the form of actual local alternatives, particularly in response to the Comarcal (District) Plan and the confrontation with the council.

Popular movements have also stimulated the organizations representing dif- ferent sectors of social life (teaching, health, cultural and sporting facilities) to develop their own alternatives. The Congress of Catalan Culture provides a synthesis of results which are the outcome of the alignment of urban move- ments with these sectoral social movements (teachers, health workers, actors, etc.). The importance acquired by some citizens’ groups, such as the Federa- tion of Residents’ Associations, together with the appearance on the public scene ofdemocratic political parties ready to assume power and to put forward political solutions at every level of government, has led to the formulation and wide adoption of alternative urban programmes. Such a development has been made possible by the prior achievements of the urban movements.

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Alternatives for municipal organization of public particiption

is impossible to divorce the content of urban alternatives from the character of public institutions. Thus, the critique of the planning process has necessi- tated the critique of local government management and the demand for a new urbanism is also the demand for a different administration. The progressive formulation of management alternatives is already taking place. Three stages can be distinguished.

During the first stage, which corresponds to the period of the barrio protest movements, the emphasis was placed on the lack of participation and control, on the ineffectiveness of local councillors and on the lack of representativeness ofthe whole administration. Two types of protest emerged from this situation :

I The demand for public information, for response to complaints and re- quests and for participation in the organizations in control of planning activities. The resignation of the mayor and councillors as exemplifying the lack of representation.

In the period which coincides with the flowering of the popular movements, a period which lasted from the end of ‘Porciolismo’ until the beginning of Viola’s term of ofice, a democratic conception of local government as an ad- ministration elected bp and representative of the people, was gradually consoli- dated. Three sorts of criteria were established :

I A local council to be elected by universal suffrage at 18 within the context of public freedoms which permit the activity of political parties. The demand for the resignation of the present municipal council as a first step. The creation of an autonomous municipal government with its own func- tions and financial resources within the framework of the Catalan Statute of Autonomy.

3 Administrative decentralization to bring the instruments of government closer to the people and allow popular participation and control with the autonomous grassroots organizations (neighbourhood associations, parents’ associations, cultural groups) as a base.

We are now entering a new phase characterized by the intensification of the crisis of local power in conjunction with the wider political crisis. In such a situation the municipal alternative emerges as an integrating factor in the process of political change. In this instance the municipal alternative is charac- terized by :

I Its realization in institutional form and its endorsement by a wide social base made up of a number of associations, groups, union leaders, pro- fessional bodies, employers’ federations, public political leaders and reli- gious organizations.

2 The continuing isolation of local government. In this respect, the break- down of successive attempts at municipal reform is significant : the I 973

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municipal elections which brought in a group with few aims beyond that of profiting from the last phase of the dictatorship; the collapse of Masi,; the scandal of the 18 of the ‘No to Catalan’; the confrontation of Viola with the working-class barrios and citizens’ groups; the inability of the municipal councils to provide even the minimum representativeness and their failure to integrate the active barrio groups; the faint echo of the promised municipal elections for November 1975; all these were to raise the hopes of the popular movements. The support given by the legal groups and associations to the Catalan Assembly. This process, in which the emergence of a municipal alternative was coupled with the disintegration of the municipal system, raised the question of the specific role to be played by barrio associations and citizens’ groups. Two facts appear to be particularly relevant. The first is the in- creasing coordination of groups from every district of Barcelona as repre. sentatitres of the people against an undemocratic administration, an ad- ministration which is, moreover, trapped in the objective logic of inevitable breakdown through the successive failures of municipal reforms, as well as through the trend of local democracy for the introduction of a wider democratic framework. At the city level this institutional alternative is re- flected in the de fact0 coordination of the various groups around the Federa- tion of Residents’ Associations. The second phenomenon which I would emphasize is the refusal of the groups and associations to accept substitu- tions where the political parties are concerned. In the case of municipal elections, for example, it is not a question of the associations putting for- ward their own candidates, since they represent all residents regardless of political persuasion, rather, they demand a democratic framework within which the parties can themselves operate freely. This does not mean how- ever that particdar associations do not sometimes support those candidates whose programmes reflect their demands and proposals. This refusal to compromise is also reflected in the role assigned to the institutional alterna- tive. In other tvbrds, although the coordinating bodies might form part ofa provisiorial organization to safeguard the change ofpower in the transi- tion period, they &re not themselves destined to replace the municipal councils.

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V The developmept of alternatives and popular mobilization

None of the foregoing has been the result of the abstract theorizing of specialists or political groups. These are not premeditated programmes to be presented to the people. They are the outcome of the social movements themselves and of the progressive systematization of their objectives.

The character of the urban alternative and of the alternative local govern- ment organization depends to a great extent on the level of popular mobiliza- tion as much for its urban content as for the democratization of management.

As for the content, the concrete nature of the proposed alternatives which

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are specific in time and space, must be emphasized. The people do not demand facilities in a general, abstract sense, but rather in each barrio there is a request for many schools, a hospital, a cultural centre, the recovery of particular open spaces, the reclamation of particular sites, specifying their location, their character, even sometimes estimating the cost. Barrio alternatives are the result of organized mobilization and of the work of the representative organizations during the last few years. The opposition to local land-use plans and to the comarcal (District) Plan, the subject of leaflets and exhibitions and the memoranda sent to the administration are all proof of this.

The development of a municipal alternative for the whole city is currently being undertaken. This much more complex alternative must, I believe, be the result of the combination of three distinct elements, all connected in dif- ferent ways with popular mobilization. Firstly the synthesis of popular demands and protests through the Federation of Residents’ Associations and other popular groups that has already partly occurred. Secondly the consider- able progress made by urban, regional and administrative specialists who have developed the study of these issues and the critique of official reality in their role as analysts of, and collaborators with, the urban movements. And lastly the proposals of the political groups which need to combine the other two aspects and locate the urban problematic within the general framework of wider socio-economic programmes.

As far as measures for democratic participation are concerned, urban move- ments and the existing network of associations have already created an irrever- sible situation. Democratic change at the municipal level will be brought about through the enormous popular pressure which exists, and the institutions thus created will be shaped by the active involvement of an organized population. There are three relevant points that should be emphasized here.

A democratic local administration will not simply be an elected adminis- tration : the level of organization and popular consciousness are too impor- tant for elections to be enough to mobilize the population. In the Spanish case, administrative decentralization will not be the result merely of political will from above but will respond to pressures existing in every barrio and district. Residents’ associations and coordinating bodies will ensure a level of participation and popular control, which is already more than a mere potential. The invigoration of district civic centres, the presence of decentralized municipal organizations and the self-manage- ment of services are all realizable short-term objectives. At the same time, the strongly autonomous character of these local-level associations will in all probability remain. These are the grassroots organ- izations through which the people can express themselves to the adminis- tration, in opposition or collaboration, and they are, moreover, open forms of associative life which enable the various groups to organize themselves according to preferences and interests. This autonomous but organized character, independent of the administration but articulated with it

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depending on how democratic such an administration is), will perhaps be able to ensure that rising social expectations do not lead to uncontrollable forms ofdirect action which would merely exacerbate tensions without pro. ducing political solutions.

VI Conclusions: democratic councils and urban movements

The immediate objective of municipal alternatives today is the introduction of a democratic local council. This objective must be developed dialectically with respect to general political change and will be impossible without it. How- ever, since local government is the feeble tool of the authoritarian system, any accentuation of its crisis and the open development of alternatives must inevi- tably help to accelerate global democratic change.

The question of an alternative local council raises the question of the form of a possible provisional council based on representatives of groups and associa- tions on the one hand and the political forces, in the broadest sense, on the other. Such a development would reflect an already well-established situation since the provisional council would only be viable if the general process of political change had already begun. Thus, its inception cannot be the result of municipal analysis alone outside the framework of general political analysis.

Lastly, it should be noted that a democratic municipal alternative does not’ simply mean ‘more social planning’ and a more representative administration. Underlying all that has been described is a completely new concept of society and of the values which direct the behaviour of government and urban collec- tive life. If this account has stressed the aspects of mobilization and participa- tion, if the struggle for a new city has been regarded as inseparable from the struggle for Catalan autonomy, if municipal democracy and urban equality are among the aims for profound social and political change that are latent in Spanish society, it is because beneath the popular protests and demands for a legal associative life, lies a society-Barcelonan, Catalan-which is fight- ing to create for itself its city and its future.

Centro de estudws de urbanim, Barcelona