http://politica.elpais.com/politica/...04_732948.html


I'm amazed that people will go to these lengths to protest about a street being reformed and some parking spaces being lost, rather than about youth unemployment or exploitation of workers.

Perhaps the street parking helped to light the flame and many are disgruntled anyway. There was a report from Burgos in the FT before Xmas.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6c80c16c-6...#axzz2q6CQWOP8

One thing has nothing to do with the other, protesting about "losing parking spaces" will not stop the residents still feeling and even protesting about unemployment, if they are so inclined.

From afar it is very easy to dismiss the loss of parking spaces as being rather trivial, but in practice, in can be a "putada".

With all the vados that prevail in the cities, it is difficult enough trying to park near your flat. A lot have flats don´t have underground parking, and for someone who has never lived in a Spanish town with limited parking, it is almost impossible to understand how difficult it is.

A mother with a couple of kiddies who has to drive round and round to try and find a place within a decent walk home, and they traipse home with shopping and kiddies in tow in the pouring rain, is no joke.

Those of us who either live in a place with plenty of parking or have their own garage, cannot imagine how it is living on a daily basis, when parking is so hard to find.

A neighbour of mine who lives in the same block as us, takes her mother out everyday, the has very weak wrists and finds it impossible to open the main door and her own front door.

As more often than not she has to drop the mother off in the street while she looks for a parking space, (her mum cannot walk very far either) her mum has to ring the bell of other residents to let her in the building, then usually one of us will help her open the door to the flat.

If I know that my OH will not be using his parking space in the basement, I will let the daughter know beforehand, and she can drive straight into our space.

But if she cannot use it, it is such a hassle, and sometimes she can take 15 minutes to park the car and get back to her mums flat with the shopping or whatever.

So for these ladies, their actual problem with parking is a much bigger one than youth unemployment and in no way should if be thought of as being a triviality in relation to the bigger picture, ie the crisis and the economy.

For those who visit the city for a days shopping, a few hours in a multi storey car park is affordable, but for the residents in many cases it is a luxury they cannot afford even if they happen to have one within a reasonable walking distance.

As they say, you have got to walk in their shoes................then maybe it would have more importance in ones priorities.

Er - I traipse home on foot with my shopping each and every day, not having a car, nor can anybody Spanish or otherwise park their cars anywhere near where they live in my part of the centro historico. All the pensioners with their shopping trollies and mothers with pushchairs and children by the hand do likewise. And nobody is setting fire to rubbish containers and injuring police officers about it!

When my Daughter lived in Paris her car parking was 2 streets away and she had a young baby....then there is london

Whatever.................

You forgot NEXT

When I was a child my mother had to walk a mile to the nearest shop with her babies.

No car
No fridge
No bus

Doesn't peoples perceptions change

Problems of the well-to-do classes?

Now now J2........

It is not strange to me that people should have their own gripes about anything, and if it affects them directly it moves up the "importance" ladder.
It is not selfish it is human nature, and we all practice it, to some extent.

Of course a non car owner for whatever reason, be it because they don´t want one, can´t drive, thinking of the ecological damage, or too tight to buy one etc, would not be able to see why people who already have cars, and face a more difficult task to find parking would not understand the full implication of doing away with some of parking places.

Sort of like the people who complain about the cost of a TV licence, and then a non TV owner says that they don´t know what all the fuss is about.

So people are "well to do" if they have a car?

Oh the trials and tribulations of living in the "First World"

Anyone who goes faster is a maniac, and anyone who goes slower is an idiot.

Local yokels out here think I'm "well to do" cos I have two wheelbarrows.

I don't tell them that one came with the house and I salvaged the other off the rubbish tip.

I hope the local business owners who had their shop windows smashed in the riot, and the residents who might need to use the public telephone boxes that were smashed up, can find it in their hearts to empathise with the motives of the rioters too.

Other than that, I'm not playing, sorry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mq59ykPnAE