While the country’s capital is loosening regulations, the Catalan city is strengthening social housing. Their outcomes will affect all our futures

In Spain, two cities face the same crisis, but are responding in fundamentally different ways. Over the past decade, the cost of housing in Madrid and Barcelona has soared – with rents rising by about 60% and sale prices by 90% – leaving young people, working families and retired people struggling to stay in their homes or even find one.

Yet, while one city is betting everything on construction and giving free rein to big investors, the other is cautiously trying to steer the housing market towards the public good, despite political and institutional constraints.

Jaime Palomera is a researcher on housing and inequality, author of The Hijacking of Housing, and co-founder of the Barcelona Urban Research Institute (IDRA) and the Tenants’ Union