From huertas (cultivated land) and barracas (traditional rural houses) to aspiring monuments. Reflections on the mutation of the city of Valencia

Abstract

Spectacular growth based on large-scale town planning projects and media events has turned Valencia into a glocalized cloned metropolis. Local government, with regional government support, has used these factors to attempt to position Valencia favorably in the market for countries geared strategically towards cultural tourism and leisure and entertainment. This article looks at the footprint left behind by these transformations on the way that the city’s inhabitants represent their city. We offer a broad view of the basic elements that make up the range of perceptions and social expectations of Valencia. The way the city is represented is bipolar in character inasmuch as these projects are welcomed yet criticized for the excessive aspirations to monumentality that lie behind them. Citizens’ statements reveal the divisions and the costs that the new urban model is leaving behind: Firstly, the social and economic divisions arising from a paradigm that does not take the citizen into account and serves to increase social inequalities and fragmentation. Not to mention the divisions in terms of symbolism and identity, given that the huertas (traditional cultivated lands) and the barracas (traditional rural homes), two symbols of traditional regionalism in Valencia, have been swept aside completely. Secondly, the costs -both present and future- are evident in a formula that socializes loses and privatizes gains. Both the bipolarity observed in citizens’ opinions and statements and their analysis of these divisions and costs turn out to be coherent and coincide with the views and analysis on early 21st century town planning as expressed by a number of theorists.