Barcelona blog

Most migrants in Barcelona are Spanish

I thought this was interesting. Only 27 percent of people who applied for residence in Barcelona in 2009 are from outside Spain. From Barcelona Metropilitan here

According to the Statistic department of the Ayuntamiento, 40,000 people, newly recorded in the 2009 municipal census, came from other municipalities in Catalunya, whilst only 17,000 came from other regions in Spain. The department have released a study that shows the city demographic during the last twenty years, which reveals that during 2009, 89,594 people arrived in Barcelona whilst only 59,570 people left. Over 40 percent of immigrants who arrived in Barcelona in 2009, came from the rest of Catalunya, more than 12,000 joined the municipal census of Barcelona after leaving other cities in the Barcelona region – ie. l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Badalona, Santa Coloma and Sant Adrià. The flow of residents is particularly strong between l’Hospitalet settled in Barcelona and vice versa. The second largest exchange is between Barcelona and Badalona. The report also reveals moreover that the greatest migratory movements from or to the municipality of Barcelona are with young people. More than half of the 90,000 people who came to the city were between 20 and 35 years old.

Geography of Barcelona, Immigration in Barcelona, Social issues in Barcelona | |

Barelona street art

This Flick group is a brilliant collection of street art in Barcelona. The above near the Forum is by la ira món mort

Coincidently in The Guardian:

Graffiti protesting has become a symbol of resistance as a rising tide of visitors engulfs the local population

He, or she, is a Catalan cross between Banksy and an anti-tourism league. At night the mystery graffiti protester roams the streets of Barcelona’s old quarter leaving behind markings on the streets that divide them into separate lanes for the tourists and the “normal” Barcelonans.

Every day the city hall sends out workmen to paint over the markings, afraid that someone is trying to push away the tourists who bring in welcome wealth but increasingly make native Barcelonans feel jostled off their own streets.

Art, Graffiti in Barcelona, Social issues in Barcelona, Street life in Barcelona | Tags: Barcelona graffiti artists|

Old men playing petanca

Here’s another photo from Barcelona Photoblog by Carlos Lorenzo. A group of pensioners standing around playing what in Spain is called petanca, “an image in Barcelona’s squares as familiar to us as that of pigeons”.  It can be played between two people or in groups. The winner is the first to 13 points. The game originates from southern France.

Elderly people in Barcelona, Photography of Barcelona, Street life in Barcelona | Tags: Bo, Petanca in Barcelona|

Pakistan Barcelona

Barcelona has the largest Pakistani community in Spain with officially more than 13,000 residents, 90% of whom are men. Outside Britain, Barcelona is the city with the most concentrated population of Pakistanis in Europe. Here are a couple of interesting links on I came across.

Desi Salsa in Barcelona By Salma Shakir

It was one of those early evenings, when my mind was wondering and revealing the epiphanies of La Rambla. I was enjoying my coffee in a cafe, watching the mimes entertaining the passersby when a somewhat familiar figure stood in front of me. He was selling flowers and was familiar because he looked like as if he belonged to my part of the world. The words that were coming out of his mouth were Spanish, so I gave it a shot. I asked him in Urdu, where was he from? His eyes lit up when he realized that I too was from his part of the world.

“Jhelum”, he said. In the ensuing conversation, he revealed that he was living there illegally. He had hitched a boat ride to Almeira and in eight months had finally made it to Barcelona. He had applied for a work permit and while that was in the process, he had found a job in a fast-food place. To supplement his income he sold flowers at night. He said he made about 400 to 500 euros a month. He lived with eight other people in a house. His expenses were for the bare minimum. Whatever amount he could save he would send it home. This was my first meeting with a trakhero, meaning foreigner.

Barcelona – Pakistani capital of Spain

After living here a bit I began to sense that Barcelona probably had the highest concentration of Pakistani immigrants in all of Spain, consisting mostly of men, many of whom seemed to come from the Punjab. Recently I discovered a couple of interesting reports that actually confirm these perceptions: Multiculturalism and Health and Immigration, Education and the Labour Market. For example, the first one states that 95% of Pakistanis in Barcelona are male and are not only from the Punjab but from a particular city there – Gujrat. The second report claims that 69% of Pakistanis living in Spain live in the province of Barcelona.

See also

• La discreta comunidad pakistaní de Barcelona crece sin cesar (La Vanguardia)

• Wikipedia Pakistanis began settling in Spain, mainly in the city centre of Barcelona, as early as the 1970s, and most Pakistanis in Spain still reside there…Punjabi is the most common first language among Pakistanis in Spain, reported by 63.6% of one survey group in Barcelona….In Barcelona, the two mosques most frequented by Pakistanis are the Tariq ben Zyad Mosque and the Minhaj ul-Quran Mosque. The Tariq ben Zyad Mosque, on the calle Elisabets, was founded in 1981. It is named for Tariq ibn Ziyad, the general who led the Muslim conquest of Spain beginning in 711, and belongs to the Tablighi Jamaat movement. The Minhaj ul-Quran Mosque, founded in 1997, is, as its name indicates, part of the Minhaj-ul-Quran International movement.
• Video on Pakistanis in Barcelona (8 minutes) A look at Pakistan’s recent mass imigration to Barcelona, Spain…focusing on the communities, connections and underground work opportunities for recent immigrants to Spain.
• The problems of Radio Pakcelona
• Islamic Barcelona (Barcelona Metropolitan)
  

Immigration in Barcelona, multicultural Barcelona, Social issues in Barcelona | Tags: Gujaratis in Barcelona, Gujratis in Barcelona. Urdu in Barcelona. immigrant communities in Barcelona, Islam in Barcelona, mosques in Barcelona, muslims in Barcelona, Pakistanis in Barcelona, Pakistanis in Spain, Punjabi in Barcelona, Radio Pakcelona|