Barcelona - one of the best all-around cities in the world (climate/culture/architecture/world proximity/quality of living/beach/mountains) and a growing tech scene.
Very easy to pick up development work here for a local company, you won't be required to know Spanish/Catalan for a job. The only downsides are that the pay is relatively low (€43k average for SE) and it can be quite difficult to find a place to live without local contacts.
Edit - on the intellectual front, I am the least qualified person in my friend group with a lowly Bachelors in Computer Science. Most people have a minimum of Masters with PHDs being pretty prevalent.
Barcelona is not one of the best all-around cities for sure.
1) climate -- not moderate, only good if you enjoy extremely hot summers
2) culture -- obscured by the tourism industry in the city. Pretty much all restaurants try to rip you off, public parks charge entry for certain areas, everything culture-related is aimed and priced for tourists.
3) architecture -- nice, but not really exceptional. buildings really tight together in the city center.
4) quality of living - very high cost of life, low local salaries
5) EXTREMELY dirty. Diesel car pollution makes the air toxic and unbearable. No walking culture, everyone drives everywhere (which makes sense, the air is toxic)
As someone who has lived in Barcelona for over 23 years now I agree with some of these points, but it also depends where you go in the city.
1) Climate - Yes the summers are warm, but not extremely hot, I have a lot worse time when i go visit the southern US for example.
2) Yes I totally agree we have way too much tourism in the city. However, the restaurants that try to rip you off etc are all in the touristy areas, and most of us who live here dont go down to those areas anyway. Regarding paying for parks, its 1 park, and if you live here its free. Most colture-related stuff has good cheaper offers for local citizens.
3) This is just personal taste, the city center is the old city with over 1000 years of history, its normal that the streets are small and disorganized.
4) Yes its expensive to live here, but we also have a great quality of life, with lots of places to go eat, drink and enjoy yourself. Yes the local salaries are quite on the low end, but if you find a good international company you should be fine.
5) I dont know where you come from, but its not unbearable; also there is tons of walking culture in this city. There is an great public transport that can get you almost anywhere in the city in just a few minutes. Most people dont drive, or even own a car, its mostly people living outside the city (or on rainy days). We do have days that are worse in regards to traffic and pollution, but this is a problem most large cities are facing and there are projects in place to improve.
So im sorry if you have had a bad time in Barcelona, and I agree there are things that need work, but its not as horrible as you say. Hopefully they keep adding bike lanes and continue to reduce the car traffic in the city center.
Having lived in the worlds most liveable city, Melbourne, for several years, I have so far found Barcelona to be far more enjoyable. The thing that has stood out is that people actually care about their city and socio-political events that affect their lives.
I personally think the tourist issue is overhyped and most of them don't stray from the centre of the city.My local beach, Mar Bella which is only 1.5-2km from the city has zero tourists. Airbnb is a problem but this is a global phenomenon.
For me Barcelona easily wins of Melbourne; no idea what the criteria of most livable city is; streets littered with homeless, completely dead nightlife during the week and only average during the weekend (and I am 44, so I am not looking for much but even that is not there) and expensive. Barcelona or Lisbon are a lot nicer imho.
> also there is tons of walking culture in this city
Your biggest pedestrian street, La Rambla, is a 10m wide sidewalk with intense car traffic on both sides. You walk in the middle of traffic and inhale the diesel exhaust that makes you choke whilst strange looking people try to offer you counterfeit bags and shoes from the large blankets they've (probably illegally) put across the pavement. Not my idea of a good time and probably not the best way to run your most famous street.
> Regarding paying for parks, its 1 park
could be, but you can probably understand how charging entry for (parts of) a fairly small park is unusual and is going to make visitors feel like they're being nickel and dimed wherever they go.
> So im sorry if you have had a bad time in Barcelona, and I agree there are things that need work, but its not as horrible as you say. Hopefully they keep adding bike lanes and continue to reduce the car traffic in the city center.
That's alright, I had an OK time overall, but I came in with higher expectations and was disappointed that some things (like the traffic pollution in the city center) felt a bit behind the times for modern European cities.
For example, there are cities that operate weekend (or certain hours of the day) pedestrian zones where streets in the city center are closed off to traffic.
Separately, there are cities that closed conventional asphalt roads to cars, without doing any physical road reconstruction, and just marked them as pedestrian-only. I've seen examples of this in Bulgaria and Romania.
My point is, don't get too hung up on the terminology, but question why is there the need for so much car traffic in the city center and pretty much no restrictions on polluting vehicles. For example, in Berlin, your car needs to be at least Euro 4 compliant to enter the city center. As a result, the roads are less busy and the air quality is much better.
No way, terminology is what we are arguing about. Only examples you were able to find are either temporary pedestrian zones or roads without physical reconstruction.
Sidewalks are to separate pedestrians from cars, it was my point, so do not try to move discussion.
About your main complaint, air pollution (at the moment I write it):
> No way, terminology is what we are arguing about
Not really, my original point was that it's stupid to have intense car traffic surrounding the pedestrian part of La Rambla. But either way, your terminology argument is completely invalid too, as demonstrated by the examples.
> Only examples you were able to find are either temporary pedestrian zones or roads without physical reconstruction.
So, to sum up, according to you, my argument is invalid because, excluding the proof that I gave you, I have no proof :) Hilarious.
Because I asked you for examples of 100% pedestrian streets with sidewalks and you couldn't show any of them, only "ex non-pedestrian streets" and "temporary pedestrian", so yes, it only proves my point, thank you for it. La Rambla is not only for pedestrians, deal with it.
So what about numbers of air pollution level? Any comments? Or you "feel" something else, what can't be described by numbers? Pretty sure you will try to ignore this part again, because you have nothing to say :)
> Because I asked you for examples of 100% pedestrian streets [you showed only] "ex non-pedestrian streets"
These streets are 100% pedestrian.
> So what about numbers of air pollution level? Any comments? Or you "feel" something else, what can't be described by numbers? Pretty sure you will try to ignore this part again, because you have nothing to say :)
I have already commented on this in the rest of the thread. If you're interested, feel free to read that and also consider how diesel exhaust (NO2 / NOx) gets converted into other pollutants and that isn't accurately captured by the numbers you sent me. Whilst other pollutants tend to damage your lungs in a way that you can't immediately feel, diesel exhaust causes choking and feels like suffocation. And there's plenty of the latter in the streets of Barcelona - let's not pretend that inhaling exhaust from 15+ year old diesels is great for your health, that's pretty dumb.
But I suspect that you aren't really interested in any of that and won't do any of the reading required to understand this point, that is why I didn't bother to type it up in the previous post.
2) Looks like you were here only as tourist - locals just avoid touristic restaurants, there's a plenty of good restaurants in Barcelona;
3) Barcelona has a lot of really exceptional architecture examples, not just "old church" buildings like in all other cities of Europe. "Really tight together in the center" - 4.75 meters sidewalk on the each side of the street, it's numbers for Eixample district, center of Barcelona. If all you saw was Gothic district ("old town") - it's just small district of the culture legacy;
4) It depends on skills. Salaries here are good enough by Spanish measures;
5) Pure lie. Really, you want to say you measured air pollution levels? Or you can see transparent gases? Try to check your map next time - maybe you'll see huge source of the fresh air - sea.
See some photos of the streets to argue about "extremely dirty".
One criteria is against OP: it's not a cheap city, definitely. Most expensive in Spain, one of the most expensive in Europe.
There's no way you've spent more than a week total in the city if these are the conclusions you've come to. Barcelona, like all large cities, has its drawbacks, but they're not the ones you've listed.
1. Climate is far better than most large US cities, and moderate. July highs of 86F are hardly "extremely hot".
2. Absolutely not true for 95% fo the city. Maybe get out of Gotic next time?
3. I don't even know how to respond to this point. Most cities have dense centers. Few have buildings like the Palau de la Música Catalana, the Sagrada Familia, or the Cathedral.
4. High cost of life? Compared to the rest of Spain, sure. Compared to the US? Not particularly. Salaries are low locally but purchasing power is higher.
5. Again, no idea what you're talking about. Most people walk or take the metro everywhere. Average air pollution in Barcelona is lower than most major US cities and many other major European cities as well.
> 1. Climate is far better than most large US cities, and moderate. July highs of 86F are hardly "extremely hot".
How about August. I was there in September, it was 28-30C throughout the day almost every day. Either way, that's a personal preference.
> 2. Absolutely not true for 95% fo the city. Maybe get out of Gotic next time?
I did and I have also been to places outside of Barcelona. For example, I've had much better quality food at same or lower prices in London, Rome and Milan. The truth is, in this regard, Barcelona is very much second rate.
> 3. I don't even know how to respond to this point. Most cities have dense centers. Few have buildings like the Palau de la Música Catalana, the Sagrada Familia, or the Cathedral.
Sure, I don't really mind it. I was somewhat amused at how certain parts are overbuilt, but not with really old buildings, but just stuff that looks to be from the 70s or 80s. Most historical cities have done a better job at protecting their historical city centres.
> 4. High cost of life? Compared to the rest of Spain, sure. Compared to the US? Not particularly. Salaries are low locally but purchasing power is higher.
I think your claim here is obviously false. According to Numbeo:
Local Purchasing Power in Barcelona is 40.50% lower than in San Francisco, CA
Local Purchasing Power in Barcelona is 20.21% lower than in New York, NY
Local Purchasing Power in Barcelona is 48.42% lower than in Austin, TX
and so on. I don't think there is even one mid-sized or major city where that holds true.
The culture point was a shocking one for me. I spent a week in Barcelona and you had to spend money to do pretty much anything, and if you've not pre-booked it's likely that you won't be doing what you want to do until at least tomorrow.
It sounds like you really didn't try because there are things on literally every weekend for free or low cost.
Everything from free or lowcost music festivals, to street parties, to lighting installations in the park. And thats just been the last 3 weeks in a very small radius. Theres also free museums and music gigs are incredibly good value.
Plus the beach is free, the mountains are free, walking around Montjuic is free.
That's no different to any other major European city. The difference was that in Barcelona you had to have pre-booked, otherwise things that usually aren't ticketed in cities like Amsterdam or London like parks aren't fully accessible to you.
We still had a lovely time, but when you've got limited time in a place it's worth noting that you need to book things before you go. People that like to set plans to see certain things at certain times might find themselves disappointed, even if they were happy to pay a bit extra to book on the day.
Barca has a specific kind of interesting architecture in places, but in others ... it's like ugly blocks of buildings from the 1960's. It's an odd town.
There's no one "Spanish" culture. "Catalan" culture is just one of the many facets that make the "Spanish" culture as a whole. Barcelona isn't any more different from Madrid than Valencia, Sevilla, or Bilbao are.
Basque, Valencian, and Andalusian culture are a just as "strong" and unique as Catalan.
I lived in Barcelona for eight years and I would not say that my experience was that the intellectual atmosphere was very high. In my view excessive tourism and Catalan nationalism play a negative role on both the intellectual and cultural spheres.
One clarification: Gross salaries in Spain are not as gross as in other countries.
For example, a salary advertised as EUR 45K in Spain does not include taxes and benefits (mostly unemployment insurance and medical) paid by the company.
So a SE with a gross salary of EUR45K directly costs the company employing here some EUR60K (i.e. some USD70).
The employee full cost to the company is never konwn to the employee (some 30% is somewhat hidden), unlike in other countries such as France. I guess it helps government to appear they do more with less taxes seen by their voters.
There are other indirect benefits, such as layoff benefits. If a Spanish company fires you without cause, it is liable to pay you 33 days per year worked.
I'm mentioning because comparing gross salaries in different countries, is a bit like comparing apples to samsungs.
Barcelona is an amazing city to live in but with the recent Airbnb market growing the rents have become way too expensive. You should expect around 1200 euro/month for small apartment for a single person.
I second this. But definitely try to get a remote SE job there. The pay is laughable compared to for example Berlin. Which is also a great city to work and live in.
Not sure if it is much of an English-speaking friendly place, though. After visiting Barcelona and Valencia, I definitely think that without learning Spanish one can hardly thrive in these cities.
If you move to a city and don't attempt to learn the local language then yes you won't get the full experience. But you can definitely get away with minimal Spanish here, being seen to be making an effort is more important than fluency.
I have a different experience. It's easy to live there without speaking spanish. However, you should not move there if you don't want to learn it at all. In fact don't move outside any non-english speaking countries if you don't want to learn the local language. ;)
I saw some jobs in Berlin that payed around 70K Eur. Assuming it's before taxes, it means that after taxes it's around 3.8k/month; a bit low if you ask me.
I know pay is not the only factor, but heck, I make half in my home country, but the living costs are far lower (and I don't even pay rent).
With that amount of money one could afford a very sweet place to live easily, and still have plenty of spending money for intellectual pursuits or whatever.
Speaking English is no issue here, at least in the "hip" parts of town.
Would I say it's the best place to live? Probably not (Switzerland would probably rank higher), but one could do a lot worse. And with a decent IT job it's easy living. Dirt cheap compared to Silicon Valley prices.
You have to compare it with where you are coming from though.
I might move from Tokyo to Berlin and due to a combination of cost of living and taxes have the same after tax income, even though absolutely €70000 is a fuckton more. That goes for anywhere in Europe though.
I would recommend Tokyo as a great place to live overall, but intellectual and english, not so much :P
Salaries all over Europe are like that. Except for London (maybe) or Switzerland. Don't compare them to Silicon Valley or the US in general, you'll be disappointed.
Barcelona doesn't fit at all. Housing is expensive in comparison to local wages, people in Spain is not confortable speaking english. TBH Barcelona doesn't match any of the criteria, he should be living in the US or a commonwealth country.
In the rest of Spain sure, but in Barcelona, in the tech & design communities, everyone speaks English. I just got back from a three day design festival in Madrid and all of the studios present from Barcelona spoke English perfectly.
I cannot think better place in Europe than Barcelona to live. I used to live there for 5 years. Now I am living in Copenhagen.
In Barcelona weather is perfect, great food and culture. Good connections everywhere. Cosmopolitan.
However, recent nationalism movement on the region puts toll on all this.
Very easy to pick up development work here for a local company, you won't be required to know Spanish/Catalan for a job. The only downsides are that the pay is relatively low (€43k average for SE) and it can be quite difficult to find a place to live without local contacts.
Edit - on the intellectual front, I am the least qualified person in my friend group with a lowly Bachelors in Computer Science. Most people have a minimum of Masters with PHDs being pretty prevalent.