A Big Reason Why I'm Excited To Move To Spain That I Haven't Talked About Yet
I think it will add another layer to this newsletter
One of the elements I hope to add to this newsletter in 2025 and beyond—from our new home in Spain—is a feel for what’s happening on the ground in the country.
While I get a ton out of much of the content that’s out there—particularly when it comes from Shawn Forno, Stories From Sevilla, James Blick, Everything is Boffo and many others—I’m not good at producing the type of content they produce. Especially if it’s on video!
I’m good at other stuff.
I love doing research. Investigating things at the source. Testing assumptions, intuition and hypotheses. Seeing if what’s being widely reported—and, subsequently, what we casually accept as fact—is actually true. Or if there’s some nuance that gets lost in the tacit acceptance. Talking to people to—absolutely—learn and relay their stories, but also to get a local perspective on the many things people are saying about where they live.
I did this type of work when I was in college. I even did a little while covering stocks. But I have largely (though not entirely) moved away from it in recent years, placing more focus on writing about parts of my life and covering personal finance and investing from objective and opinionated perspectives.
The around-the-corner move to Spain gives me an opportunity to get back to all of the above and more.
Because, in Spain, hot button issues include—
The increased cost of housing.
The increase of newcomers to the country. Not just digital nomads and people like me, but Africans—primarily from Morocco and Senegal—Asians and other Europeans.
The attendant gentrification. More on that in a minute.
The importance—or, maybe, increasing lack of importance—of well-storied traditions.
The costs associated with running retail and hospitality businesses in Spain, so I can better compare the situation to what we discuss so much in regards to the United States. And so on.
There’s so much. I have barely scratched the surface.
What are the types of approaches I might take?
An old example on the issue of gentrification. I’m not sure if this still stands or not, but some of the most interesting stuff I read on the subject when I studied urban planning countered intuition big time.
A professor named Lance Freeman wrote a great book (one of the ones that will make the cut and come with me to Valencia) called There Goes The Hood: Views of Gentrification from the Ground Up.
Here’s a nice summary of his findings via NPR:
Lance Freeman, the director of the Urban Planning program at Columbia University, says that's what he believed was happening, too. He launched a study, first in Harlem and then nationally, calculating how many people were pushed out of their homes when wealthy people moved in.
"My intuition would be that people were being displaced," Freeman explains, "so they're going to be moving more quickly. I was really aiming to quantify how much displacement was occurring."
Except that's not what he found.
"To my surprise," Freeman says, "it seemed to suggest that people in neighborhoods classified as gentrifying were moving less frequently."
Freeman's work found that low-income residents were no more likely to move out of their homes when a neighborhood gentrifies than when it doesn't.
He says higher costs can push out renters, especially those who are elderly, disabled or without rent-stabilized apartments. But he also found that a lot of renters actually stay — especially if new parks, safer streets and better schools are paired with a job opportunity right down the block.
At the time, other work supported his findings.
Again, this is more than a decade’s old research. I don’t bring it up to say it’s correct. Maybe it never was. It probably isn’t right now. Things have changed. However, we don’t know until we ask in a way that’s at least somewhat methodical and rigorous.
In graduate school, I did a fair bit of on-the-ground research in Los Angeles’s Skid Row. I wanted to test the theory that the neighborhood was only a place of despair that required aggressive policing and related tactics.
Here’s a summary of what I found via an excerpt from an article I wrote about it.
Skid Row is victim to a self-fulfilling prophecy of negativity. Most people perceive Skid Row via media reports and second hand accounts. This information typically portrays Skid Row as a wholly negative place in need of wholesale changes. Under the impression that Skid Row is nothing but a problem, intense police scrutiny, accompanied by gentrification, is the automatic answer. The LAPD arrests and/or cites people for once overlooked, minor infractions, including small marijuana sales, jaywalking, or sitting on the curb. "Broken windows" proponents insist that micro-enforcement of the law trickles up, deterring more significant crime. This and previous similar efforts have not worked. The rhetoric surrounding Skid Row, from all sides, is the same today as it was in 2004, as it was in 1984 …
I uncovered a diverse and complex community in the heart of Skid Row. A convivial place, where people spend time interacting socially and helping each other out. San Julian Park is a fine illustration of this. Although the corner it anchors is "the weed capital of Los Angeles," with nickel bags being sold at a pace I have seen approach thirty transactions an hour, San Julian Park is known to some Skid Rowians as "Sober Park." Despite erroneous LAPD claims, drugs are not sold inside the park with any frequency whatsoever. The reason has little to do with law enforcement; rather Skid Row regulars self-police the park. I have seen people verbally warned and physically thrown out of the park for breaking its unwritten rules. This is a type of informal social control, written about by Jacobs and Duneier, yet curiously ignored by many big cities when dealing with poor neighborhoods.
Things have changed. I have been through Skid Row lately and it’s not pretty. It’s much worse than it was when I spent time there talking to people. Of course, a complicated series of factors led to the further degradation of the neighborhood, including policies—stated and not—of the City of Los Angeles and the LAPD.
So, again, these examples aren’t to make a point. I don’t know the answers to the questions these old and likely outdated pieces of work present.
I do know that this is the type of work I want to start doing—again—in the future. I think Spain is the perfect place to do it.
Of course, I have to become at least an average Spanish speaker to be able to effectively do this. If I, my wife and my Spanish tutor are correct, my ability to communicate (somewhat) effectively will accelerate considerably within a few months of immersion. I feel like I am at the point where the studying I am doing now still helps, but the only thing that will take me to the next meaningful level and beyond is true immersion. That is, speaking Spanish 75%-90% of the time, rather than the current 25% or so.
Just as I will ramp up my Spanish upon arrival to Spain, I will ramp up this additional element of the newsletter. One I hope—combined with everything else we’re doing (see below for recent examples)—will prompt you to upgrade to a paid subscription, sign up for a founding membership or encourage a friend to subscribe. Whichever applies based on your current subscription status.
Valencia, Spain
One of the things that interests me about your move is what stories you will find when you start meeting your neighbors and making friends. How are their lives the same, or different, from the opportunities and events that shape us here in N. America? How are their lives shaped by the access to services that they have? How are their attitudes about taxes, laws, childcare, food and so on. I think you bring a wealth of perspective to this. . . .and of course, you know me, tell me about the food, the markets and the farmers?
I see how people react to "foreigners" here -that only means someone new to their space. I cannot imagine you and Melisse will be received badly. I believe you guys will be a hit! You are too much fun and full of positive ideas. I think you will attract the most amazing neighborhood friends. I cannot wait to hear all about it.
One of the noticeable things in real estate world of N. California, is the term "up-and-coming." This term is usually phrased to buyers of a slightly higher income level than the current residents which will allow for the amount of repairs needed on a place. And you will see the effort of this attempt while walking the neighborhood. One or two nice homes on a street of houses in poor condition. Even ten to twenty years later, revisiting those neighborhoods where real estate agents are still trying sell me on, I have yet to see one that actually revitalized itself. And much like your Skid Row, it seems the conditions have gotten worse. I don't know what the answer is for it.