[pachico]

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).

[brailsafe]

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.

[pachico]

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.

[zxspectrum1982]

These days? Horrible. Some people call it "Warcelona" for a reason. Authorities do nothing.