When being local is becoming global

We all think we know what ‘local’ means. Usually, it is tied to people who live in a particular place, and we usually assume that the locals were born there and have been living there their whole lives.

In major cities, that picture is changing fast. As we reported in a previous post, in Amsterdam, the number of residents has grown by almost a quarter since 2008, with much of the growth coming from migration. In Barcelona, the shift has been even more dramatic, with the proportion of foreign-born residents rising more than six-fold since 2000. The growth has been accentuated by the pandemic, with foreign-born residents jumping from 20% to over 30% of the population since 2019.

https://portaldades.ajuntament.barcelona.cat/es/estad%C3%ADsticas/tfeud1izrz

This has many implications, including the widely discussed pressures on housing. However, it also has consequences for the cultural life of these cities. Although much attention is focussed on tangible culture in cities such as Barcelona, intangible culture is actually more important in terms of the everyday lives of the locals. In fact, the maintenance of intangible culture falls almost entirely on them. These are the people who organise festivals and events, are members of cultural associations, and who provide the majority audience for culture as well. But as the composition of the local population changes, so does their relationship to local culture and creativity.

Against this background, it is perhaps not surprising if the composition of participants in local events is changing in many major cities. This is often reflected in an increase in events designed for migrant groups or cosmopolitan festivals celebrating diversity. But there are also examples of newcomers being integrated into more traditional cultural events. This is the case in the Barcelona district of Gràcia, where 23% of the population is now of foreign origin.

Festas de Gràcia 2025

The Barcelona based newspaper La Vanguardia reported on the latest edition of the Festas de Gràcia, a neighbourhood festival that attracts around 2 million visits a year. The headline of the article was “Japanese, Italians and French help to stage the Festas de Gràcia”, reporting that foreigners are becoming increasingly involved in decorating the streets for the Festas. This is a practical consequence of the growing presence of migrants in the community, but also a potential solution to the weakening of popular culture through an aging population and gentrification. As property prices rise it becomes increasingly hard for young people to remain in the neighbourhood, and it is also more difficult to interest younger generations in traditional culture.

However, the globalisation of the Festas also raises tensions. Not everybody is happy with ‘external’ help, when there is growing resistance to gentrification and touristification. Along with the traditional street decorations there are also painted slogans urging the tourists to go home. The disquiet is also incorporated into the decorations for the Festas, with the main square featuring mock-ups of traditional shops that have now disappeared. In a shrew piece of observation, placards offering expensive apartments were accompanied by others offering exorbitant muffins and bagels – other key signs of cosmopolitan consumption.

The article generated a fair amount of discussion from readers, with  both positive and negative reactions. One reader commented:

“Well, if they're living there, I think it's great that they're involved in something so important for the neighbourhood. They're not tourists; many of them live there; they speak Catalan with the neighbours and take their children to the neighbourhood schools.”

Others preferred to characterise the new arrivals as ex-pats:

“People who come here to make a living are one thing, and those who come here to live it are quite another. Gràcia is becoming just another neighbourhood in Paris, the poshest part of Paris. This year, I had to leave the neighbourhood because of the housing prices driven by well-off expats who fancy living in Barcelona.”

Discussion about the role of ‘outsiders’ in the Festas was somewhat overshadowed by more dramatic events, when the decorations in one of the streets burned down. This was attributed to a short circuit in the electricity supply, but this didn’t entirely squash speculation that people from a rival street might have been responsible. It seems that the local in Gràcia is still pretty local, harking back to the days when people living in another street in the same neighbourhood were also referred to as ‘outsiders’.