An influencer shows the decline of a Barcelona neighborhood: thousands of reactions

Influencer @slayyyyyyyys, with more than 12K followers on Instagram, has succeeded with her latest post. The young woman has decided to show random images of her neighborhood, Sant Antoni, in Barcelona, to denounce its decline.

"Barcelona is going to hell and we don't realize it. Or we do realize it but we don't do anything to change it," the girl states. The post has accumulated thousands of likes and hundreds of comments.

The video shows the images this influencer recorded in just ninety-eight ft. (thirty meters), which is the distance it takes to walk from one corner to the other. You can see people sleeping on the ground, searching through trash cans and dumpsters, or piling up junk on the street. This has become the urban landscape of this neighborhood.

The influencer says that some time ago she made a similar video that had a great impact. That caused the cleaning service to be reinforced for a while, but things have gone back to the way they were. "This winter I saw a group of people around a bonfire at my doorway," she explains.

Sant Antoni, from bad to worse

The Sant Antoni neighborhood, next to Raval, has for months been the epicenter of insecurity and decline in Barcelona. It should be remembered that this neighborhood was one of Comuns's major projects to showcase their city model. The superilles, which were intended to mean less traffic and more pedestrians, have in many cases ended up overrun by homeless people and drug addicts.

The subway construction work ended up complicating the rapid decline of this neighborhood. This area has become a magnet for thieves and criminals, while local businesses have started to close. Many residents also end up choosing to leave.

This influencer's post serves to show the current state of Sant Antoni and its surroundings. Below, there are comments like "we're on our way to being like France" and "Ada Colau started it and things are going from bad to worse." Other comments attest that more areas of Barcelona are following the same path.

There are also messages criticizing this influencer for showing images of poor people and belittling them. Others, however, claim that left-wing policies have brought more poverty, more insecurity, and more incivility. They claim that it's no longer possible to live in Barcelona.