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I'm from Pontevedra. It has been the major's long-term project (~ 20 years) to make the city for the pedestrians: and he's done it. This works mainly because of
by potac 1y ago
I'm from Pontevedra. It has been the major's long-term project (~ 20 years) to make the city for the pedestrians: and he's done it. This works mainly because of two things: 1) the city is small and it takes aprox 30 min to walk it entirely from end to end, and 2) it is mostly flat. Only a smooth hill from "orillamar" to "alameda/peregrina". Unfortunately, the major obsessed with getting rid of cars (which I am highly grateful) but forgot to provide reliable public transport to close-by villages (max 5km,i.e., Poio/Marin/Salcedo). This means tha people from these villages commute by car to the city, which has really poor parking capacity. And the most important thing: there are zero specialized jobs in Pontevedra. Either you are a public state worker, for which you need to pass an exam to lock a lifelong job with no possibility of being fired regardless of how incompetent you are, or you work in hospitality. My partner works in Santiago and I work in the UK. There is no future for us in our city unless we want to study and compete for a position with thousands of other Spaniards. I firmly believe the major should also prioritise quality jobs. It is pretty nice for tourists to experience a city with no cars, but the reality of most locals is that they either leave or settle to accept precarious jobs.
- davidw 1y agoThere are a lot of places with crappy job markets and plenty of cars. I'm thinking of southern Italy for instance. At least they put the city on the map for something positive. Better than being just another anonymous place with poor job prospects and, who knows, maybe getting some attention helps with the economy.
- chrisco255 1y ago[dead]
- abdullahkhalids 1y agoThanks for the perspective. I think it's difficult for small cities like Pontevedra to create high quality jobs. There are not enough people to support rich doctors, lawyers, accountants and such. Factories can be established, but most people employed in a factory won't have a "high-quality" job. What other type of high-quality job could the city create? [1] population ~ 80k, but working population ~ 50k.
- chrisco255 1y ago[dead]
- tonyhart7 1y agoI mean the option is civil servant vs no jobs having an factory literally only positive from there
- kortilla 1y agoYour perspective is really skewed here. 80k is easily enough to support multiple hospitals, specialist doctors, many dentists, and several multi hundred employee specialized companies.
- aziaziazi 1y agoSide note: an hospital in Spain can be a relatively building with a few specialists, perhaps 20 people working here counting the staff. On many other countries an hospital is a huge building with dozens of specialists. The small places are "medical/care center". For sure there’s specialized jobs here too.
- david-gpu 1y agoClinics with 20 workers are not typically called hospitals, but rather "Centro de salud" or "Ambulatorio". A "hospital" is a place with beds where patients stay overnight. All the countries where I have lived, including Spain, make this distinction.
- cik 1y agoI live in a city like this. We have muni employees, a hospital, some startups, plenty of non-tech jobs. There are doctors, lawyers, accountants, tradespeople, restaurants.. 80k is a LOT of people.
- pjmlp 1y agoExactly the point, those that celebrate these victories from the outside, completely lack the perspective what it means for the people on the suburbs, let alone everyone else not fortunate to afford housing in the city center.
- m-schuetz 1y agoCities don't need to cater to people moving out to the suburbs, who only view the city as a road and a parking lot. Citizens of the city have every right to make it attractive and livable for themselves.
- pjmlp 1y agoPity that whole thing with having a job, and wanting to get some better living standards. People usually don't live in the suburbs by choice, they get pushed there by the higher classes that can afford the city. Having lost access to the city center during my teenage years certainly gave me a perspective on those that talk from above, without worries about everyone else.
- m-schuetz 1y agoAround here, people voluntarily move to the suburbs because they want a house and a garden or simply larger flats for a lower price. And then they demand that prople inside the city center cater to them and turn their city into a parking lot for those not living there. I'm glad this is now being slowly reversed, and that cities actually look after their citizens rather than commuters that moved away because they wanted large houses.
- pjmlp 1y agoAs if, living in the suburbs means having larger houses. Feeling lucky living into one of those matchbox sized flat up on the 15th floor, while community 4h per day, distributed between several buses, train and subway lines.
- wolvesechoes 1y ago
- reillyse 1y agoHow do the employment prospects compare to other Spanish cities? It's one thing to say prioritise quality jobs but it seems breaking the mold in one dimension is hard enough, but to do it for 2 dimensions at the same time is pretty tough.
- Al-Khwarizmi 1y agoThe situation they describe is true in the overwhelming majority of Spanish cities of comparable size. It is an actively discussed topic in Spain that there is a serious problem with people having to move to Madrid or Barcelona for jobs and the rest of the country emptying out. Regions with no coast that aren't Madrid are now often called "la España vaciada" ("the emptied Spain"). Near the sea cities don't empty so much, but often most jobs are in tourism so there is still a lack of high-skilled jobs. There are a few cities of that size that are more dynamic, because they have managed to attract some IT/biomedical/etc. Santiago, which they mention, probably falls into that bucket, although it's still far from being a skilled jobs powerhouse. And anyway it's an exception rather than the rule, and I'd say it's mostly related to having a university with over five centuries of history and all the ecosystem that generates, not to anything a mayor could do.
- p0w3n3d 1y agoThank you for the real "insider" information. As usual govt tries to get rid of something, but by their incompetence they create other problems. Me myself living in a large city, try to avoid car as much as possible. But when the incompetence kicks in, the public transport fails at so many levels, I have to use my car, or I'd spend 2-3 times more on commuting (e.g. instead of 1hr - 3hrs daily)
- dmurray 1y agoI've been to Pontevedra and actually I thought it was something of a public transport hub! I was there because I was changing buses. Looking at Google Maps, there's a bus (XG628007) every 20 minutes from Marin to Pontevedra that takes 18 minutes for 7 km, along with at least two other bus routes which are less frequent and less direct. How much more public transport could you ask for? There are subway stops in Manhattan with less frequent service. It's not practical to build rail to every village. An express bus might save some commuters 10 minutes, but it looks like the population is spread out along the coast so this would not be a huge benefit. Maybe the buses are always late or cancelled, but that seems like a cultural problem rather than the mayor "forgetting" to provide them.
- m-schuetz 1y agoPublic transport just serves as an excuse to argue against car-free policies. Public transport can never be good enough to cover any rural alley cost-effectively. It also does not need to, cities don't need to justify makong themselves more livable to their citizens, at the cost of commuters who only see the city as a parking lot and roads.
- weweersdfsd 1y agoThe solution is simple. Just build big parking lots outside the city where land is cheap, and a bus service from these parking lots to the inner city. That way commuters can get to their workplace and back fast enough. Making commuting viable that way is beneficial to inner-city folk too. When people who want to live further away from city can do it effectively, housing will become cheaper for those who actually want to live in the city.
- potato3732842 1y agoIt works great when done well but generally the people with expensive inner suburb real estate typically fight tooth and nail to prevent that.
- 1y ago
- Al-Khwarizmi 1y ago> Unfortunately, the major obsessed with getting rid of cars (which I am highly grateful) but forgot to provide reliable public transport to close-by villages (max 5km,i.e., Poio/Marin/Salcedo). He can't! Mayors in Spain do not have the authority to establish public transportation outside their municipality, as is the case of the villages you mention. That would fall under the authority of the Xunta de Galicia, which as you surely know, has done a terrible job with that in all Galician cities, not just Pontevedra. (I'm from A Coruña).
- potac 1y agoHuh! I didn't know this. Thanks for clarifying. Yeah, we all know what the Xunta is doing...
- madaxe_again 1y agoMan, I was near A Coruña a few weeks back and was marvelling at how great it was that I could stick my friends on a bus in a small town and they’d get to Santiago. You have public transit. Where I live in Portugal, there’s nothing - no buses at all, no taxis, zero public transit of any kind. You drive, you walk, or you ride your donkey. There are bus stops, from when there used to be buses, but there have been none in 20 years.
- gcanyon 1y agoI'm curious where you are in Portugal. I visited for a few months back in 2017, and I didn't get a sense of the transit, but there were lots of nice new roads to drive on (which I get is not the right answer here).
- gcanyon 1y agoI'm looking for a place to move to in 5-10 years, and A Coruña is one of the places I've been researching! A friend from Spain says it's too cloudy/rainy. What do you think about the weather and any points in general about your city?
- tecleandor 1y ago
- stefs 1y ago> close by villages, max 5km a good cycle path would do wonders there. a flat 5km ride is doable for almost everyone, including seniors and children. regarding jobs: that's got nothing to do with the carless center. to the contrary - for remote work, it'd be perfect.
- potac 1y agoDo you know the funny thing? There is a cycle path from Pontevedra that stops ~500 meters before Marin (although still Pontevedra jurisdiction). It has been like this for years. Those 500 meters are ocean. We can't cycle through...
- trosi 1y ago> [...] there are zero specialized jobs in Pontevedra. Either you are a public state worker, for which you need to pass an exam to lock a lifelong job with no possibility of being fired regardless of how incompetent you are, or you work in hospitality. Alas, this is basically how it works in most of southern Europe, including my home country Italy. I don't know how much a small-town mayor can do to reverse years of bad political choices at the national level.
- potac 1y agoI'm not saying the mayor should change what is not under his radar. I'm saying the mayor should attract private companies for locals that don't want to be public state workers.