Never Retire: Renting An Apartment In Spain (What We Think We Know)
It's an excitingly uncertain part of the process of moving to one of the world's hottest economies
Don’t look now, but Spain is the fastest growing “advanced” economy in the world. Even ahead of the United States.
And it’s not all about tourism—
“In the last decade, non-tourist sectors have grown more than 110%,” says Judith Arnal, a Senior Researcher at the Madrid-based Elcano Royal Institute.
Politically, Spain bucks the global trend toward more conservative and, specifically, xenophobic regimes—
Immigrants are vital to meeting this increased demand. Since 2000, the Spanish population has grown by eight million, far outpacing other European countries. This sharp increase, driven by liberalized immigration policies, has proved vital in overcoming Spain’s declining birth rate and rising death rate. Immigrants comprise 18% of the country’s population, and the vast majority are of working age, filling holes in the service sector, construction, and agriculture. This month, the government announced plans to give residency and official work permits to almost one million undocumented migrants.1
Granted, I take the perspective of an American liberal, largely disenchanted by both of my country’s political parties. I reject the premise that “Democrats need to loudly reject progressive extremism,” as
, who I really enjoy reading, recently wrote.They just need to find a way to do a better job explaining what it means to be progressive and have progressive values. They need to recall the days of the real RFK. The great Bobby Kennedy, who must be ashamed of his son and rolling in his grave as we speak.
Most Americans are decent people. Many used to be JFK/RFK Democrats. Yet they not only vote for, but loudly support people such as Trump.
It’s all about messaging, which the entire left in America is awful at.
Anyhow—
Admittedly, as an American liberal, I have a particular view of Spanish politics. One that I hope evolves as I settle in the country.
I’d be remiss to act as if familiar problems don’t exist in Spain or that everybody is on the side of the PSOE (Spain’s governing socialist party, which is, to put it simply, the type of social democracy many of us wish we could have in the United States).
That said, I hope the PSOE, led by prime minister Pedro Sanchez, can hang on. Because Spain really is the last realistic bastion of social democratic leadership in a major global economy. If the country moves to the right, it won’t be good, as evidenced by the way Valencia’s conservative government handled—or didn’t handle—the recent floods in the region.
There’s no denying that, while Spain faces similar sets of problems as the rest of the world, it’s addressing them in meaningfully different and—I think—objectively better ways.
In a political world where lots of people feel like they’re voting for the lesser of two evils, Spain looks and feels a lot less “evil,” relative to what we’re used to in America.
I decided to lead with this today because I wanted to express my albeit rudimentary views of this political landscape, but also because it provides a necessary backdrop from which to discuss our forthcoming quest to secure a long-term apartment in Valencia.