"Regional governments enjoy the possibility of spending and inaugurating public works but they don't run the political risk or cost of raising taxes. — BBC News
Pascale Harter visits Spain where regions are clamouring for money from central government - and one of the reasons for this is their lavish spending on white elephant building projects, such as the airport at Ciudad Real, south of Madrid.
5 Comments
hello spain, usa (led by california!!!) here we come ..
Its sad that one of the few countries where the populace at large seems to demand good architecture is too broke too afford it.
@Frac
USA, don't make the same mistake that was done is Spain.
@aphorismal
It´s not that people are too broke to afford good architecture, it´s that we have been fooled by the price (excesively high), we were fooled by the projects (really alot of white elephants to do nothing), and a justice that based on nonsence .... really
"Its sad that one of the few countries where the populace at large seems to demand good architecture is too broke too afford it."
Are the people too broke? Or is Architecture (with a capital A) simply too expensive? And thus likely to bankrupt anybody?
I don't know, yo!
@HandsumCa$hMoneyYo
I will resume this in 2 points:
1- Spain have suffered from a craze of a construction fever that have lasted more then 10 years, and there was a lot of signs that indicated that we all were headed to crash on full speed, but many have preferred to ignore the signs because they were addicted to the gains of easy money.
2- Due to the political internal system in Spain (which is a long conversation apart), many provinces (which are run as semi-province states), have got into the construction fever building white elephants, and getting to top notch infra-structures that will end to under usage, just because the other province have it, like the case of Castelon Airport which have no airplanes to get there, or the City of Culture in Santiago de Compostela designed by Peter Eisemen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Culture_of_Galicia), which have got way out of budget and the works have stopped for the time being.
The problem in Spain as a whole, is an administrative one, whether it belonged to the private or public sector, or that didn´t know how to administrate its financial resources and wasn´t capable to take hard decisions that may be could have saved some of today's suffering.
And architecture is the visible sign of that disaster.
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