Yet another example of how Barcelona feels societally futuristic in some ways. For a couple more - they were way ahead of the curve (at least from an American perceptive) on superblocks[1] and they have centralized vacuum municipal trash collection[2]
Lots of opinions about Barcelona, I see.
Somehow I feel I know the city quite well. I moved here more than 20 years ago and I can compare it to others cities I live in or visited.
Barcelona is relatively safe, although, as it's been mentioned, it had several hot spots (I used to live in some of these, actually).
Crime is in most of the cases about pickpocketing or, sadly but infrequently, with assault. Still, believe me, it's a relatively safe city.
Anyhow, it's not a city to grow your children. Traffic is high, bike lanes are not safe and there are very few parks.
This is the reason people try to move to nearby cities whenever they have kids (my case also).
How bad is pickpocketing these days? Barcelona seemed to have developed an international reputation for it, but I presume that much like all things, it's overblown.
During years not much has been done. The problem is that pickpocketing pays off for people that has nothing or very little to loose.
Much of the problem is in the hands of clans of underages that arrived to Spain with nothing.
The law can't do much to them.
After some years, local police started to do more pressure, mostly trying to dissuade or prevent, rather than to catch them after the fact. Eventually they moved somewhere else (our of the city now) and COVID killed tourism that always was the the main source of targets.
I'd say it's much better now.
Unfortunately, it is a topic that gets easily ignited by political parties counter accusations.
?? I spent 3 months studying there a while back. To me, Barcelona felt safer there than most large American cities that I’ve lived in. One “problem” was petty crime that seemed to mostly target tourists—-vigilance was indeed the solution… but more of “mind your surroundings” than “war zone.”
Every city I’ve ever been to in my entire life is more dangerous for tourists than residents. They’re easy targets, since they usually have expensive gear and don’t understand the area.
I wouldn’t judge a city based on the experience of tourists in it.
I haven't been to Barcelona in something approaching 10 years and I only spent a week there when I did. I had an amazing time and it was one of the most exciting cities I've ever visited.
That said, the amount of criminality on show to your average tourist was surprising. Offers of drugs and being accosted by prostitutes in the street was common place, not to mention lower level crime like graffiti and people selling beers on the street.
I think someone would be forgiven for coming away with the wrong impression of it as a city.
For instance, the "sources" accessible through those keywords put in a google search query.
(Entertaining the question as if my claim was more controversial than any other in this thread, that is, as if Barcelona was not infamous as a crime ridden s hole where visitors are asked to practice war zone vigilance.)
Putting "crime capitals of Europe" into Google gets me multiple lists, only one of which includes Barcelona. The one which includes it places it 26th in Europe, behind a whole lot of cities I've felt totally safe in.
Barcelona is relatively safe, although, as it's been mentioned, it had several hot spots (I used to live in some of these, actually). Crime is in most of the cases about pickpocketing or, sadly but infrequently, with assault. Still, believe me, it's a relatively safe city.
Anyhow, it's not a city to grow your children. Traffic is high, bike lanes are not safe and there are very few parks. This is the reason people try to move to nearby cities whenever they have kids (my case also).