Spain Is Giving Away Villages

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Pgh_flamenco

Posts: 1506
Joined: Dec. 5 2007
From: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Spain Is Giving Away Villages

I just read this short article on the economic conditions in Spain. Seems like an awful situation that hasn't improved in years. It's really just a process of attrition and I'm seeing things go from bad to worse as time passes where I live as well.

http://www.newser.com/story/183510/one-country-so-broke-its-giving-away-villages.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=united&utm_campaign=rss_topnews

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 9 2014 23:08:52

Anders Eliasson

Posts: 5780
Joined: Oct. 18 2006

RE: Spain Is Giving Away Villages (in reply to Pgh_flamenco)

The problem with this kind of articles is that they dont say where and what kind of living conditions. Besides, its nothing new and there are reasons why the villages are abandoned. And they were abandoned before the socalled economical crisis.
Look up Soria and Teruel and imagine living in the mountains some 50 km from these places. Its a very rough climate. And the houses in these villages are old and very difficult to heat.
In general non spaniards think that Spain is all sun, Óle and oranges, and its very far from being true. It easily goes down to 20 below zero celcius in these places and they can be without comunication for a while in winter. Summer is lovely there.
So, if someone is into a very solitary life in ghost villages where half of the houses have fallen into the ground and the few people living there are over 60 or 70 years old, this is the place to go.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 10 2014 7:20:25

Vale

Posts: 27
Joined: Feb. 3 2013

RE: Spain Is Giving Away Villages (in reply to Pgh_flamenco)

The problem with heating in Spain is really difficult. If you let aside modern buildings, the old ones are meant to be very cold, due to very high temps here. Now, things are a bit weird... Last winter in Malaga for example, temp went to -8 C, and usually, it shouldnt go below +8..

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 13 2014 15:23:46

Anders Eliasson

Posts: 5780
Joined: Oct. 18 2006

RE: Spain Is Giving Away Villages (in reply to Pgh_flamenco)

Basically, houses in Spain are not very well constructed. The ones more than 20 years have lots of problems with moist getting up through the walls because of lack of a moist barrier in the foundation.
Now they have sorted that out, but newer houses are still built almost without insulation (2cm in the roof. Thats all). They dont seem to understand that you can isolate against the heat in summer. They put put very big windows going down to the floor and just install a lot of airconditioning class D......
They have just finished a house next to mine. In Denmark it would be completely illegal because of lousy energy calculations.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 13 2014 16:01:27

koenie17

Posts: 438
Joined: Feb. 25 2011
From: España

RE: Spain Is Giving Away Villages (in reply to Pgh_flamenco)

All this is because of the uncontrolled building and corrupcion that has been going on for the last 30 years or so... No control whatsoever! Only important thing seemed to be how can we build as many appartments as soon as possible. Many of the apparment blocks where I live have serious construccion problems, chunks of balcony literally fall down, and walls crack everywhere because of the bad construccion.
These construccion companies often belong to relatives or friends of politics and other white collar criminals, who in their turn all charged juicy comissions for building licences and looking the other way.
Because of all that money wich was being made on the coast many people left the villages to work in construccion and now many of them are empty. It´s true that they will give away some of those villages, but like Anders said many of them are complete ruins with no water or electricity.
Lots of these villages are now being purchased by these same criminals that caused all this trouble in the first place.