Barcelona. Sants. Everyone who has been in the Catalan capital will be known the name, if not by the station that connects the city with the world. High-speed trains, meters, buses and railways from the airport arrive there. However, to get to know the neighborhood that gives name to the station, you have to take the walk of Sant Antoni and head south for its narrow and quiet streets.

At first sight it is difficult to detect, but the neighborhood, which was a village and later a workers' center, has something that differentiates it from others. Thanks to the social awareness that the struggles of several generations have kept alive, a lot of solidarity economy initiatives, which we also know as “transformers” in HD, have been developed on the basis of self-management, cooperativism and solidarity.

But consciousness and attitude are not always enough. In most cases, from one cooperative to another there are barely a few meters away, and its members are in assemblies and auzolan. They also have common initiatives at the neighborhood level. This network of relationships and collaboration has made it possible to make the idea so ambitious a viable project.

This is what Ivan Miró, who is familiar with many cooperatives and initiatives in the neighborhood, says: “Projects emerge every day, but it’s hard to shape and survive. Creating an economy that meets the values of capitalism is not easy, but it is worth it. That’s right, we need to work in a very Community and encyclical way in order to move forward.”

The Invisible Citat and the Neighborhood Awareness

Ivan Miró himself works in a cooperative located on Irrigation de Sants street. It is La Ciutat Invisible, an initiative that was born in 2005 with the objective of transferring to his profession the challenges and values that they had in the occupied social centers Can Vies and L´Hamsa.

Five partners are currently working in different areas of work. The most notable is the bookstore with essays, but it is also dedicated to research, design and advice. In this sense, people are willing to walk the path of the transformative social economy to carry out the projects. “We try to explain what obstacles we have encountered and how we have overcome them.” They are partly responsible for the fact that so many cooperatives have been set up in Sants themselves.

They have taken decisions horizontally and, in addition to having the same salary, have limited the amount granted to them by public institutions: “What we receive in subsidies never exceeds what we pay via taxes. It is a decision made to maintain independence.”

On the same street Irrigation, just two meters from the shop window of La Ciutat Invisible is the headquarters of La Directa. It was founded in 2006, when several small media based on counterinformation came together. Today, the fortnightly magazine and the web directa.cat are two of the main speakers of social movements in the Catalan countries.

Among photographers, journalists, etc., they have created a network of collaborators of 150 people arriving to Menorca or Valencia. All of them do voluntary work and many of them participate in meetings held once a month to make the most relevant decisions.

According to Ferran Domènech, a member of La Direct, agents try to avoid false objectivity. “We came from the popular movement and worked for popular movements. Our mission is to change society, make the alternatives visible and denounce the repression and abuses of power.”

Domènech also says that they have a close relationship with the cooperative network of Sants: “Everyone works in their field, but there are also personal relationships in the neighborhood, and we help each other when any problems arise. We have neighborhood awareness, we are building a common project among all.”

Green pintxos without speculation

Following along the street of Irrigation, crossing Osca Square, but before reaching Sants Street, which bears the same name of the neighborhood, there is a bar that pays attention. Its external aspect is also perceptible: “Kopdemà, cooperative bar,” says the afixa. The name itself refers to the expression in Catalan donate a cop of mà. The payment in Basque could be “Help”.

Four people started it in 2013, two of them unemployed and the other two in precarious jobs. One of the members of this initiative is Pamplona Zihargi Etxarte, who has lived in Catalonia since very young. “The bar’s need is harsh and working conditions can be disastrous if you’re in charge of someone else. Now, at least, we ourselves are distributing our wages and working hours horizontally.”

They prioritize organic local products and have a cost-friendly pricing policy, without speculation. As a result, it has become a little more than a year the meeting point of the participants of the cooperatives and initiatives of the neighborhood: “the neighborhood bar.”

The 14 members of the architects’ cooperative LaCol are hundreds of beers and potato tortillas that have been loved in Kopdemà. No wonder, since its headquarters is less than a hundred meters from Ciceró Street. Luck wanted them to get there. They met while studying architecture and, with the intention of sharing a printer, material to make models and frustrations, they sought a place to perform university works. It was 2009 and some of them had to come from other places in Catalonia, so they chose their workplace because it was close to Sants Train Station.

But by the time they finished college, they had already gotten into the neighborhood environment. By then they already knew the members of the Invisible Ciutat and their councils helped them become cooperatives instead of working as self-employed. “Partly, thanks to them we are also cooperatives,” they acknowledged.

Since then, they have taken their decisions completely horizontally in the assemblies every Monday: whether or not they accept the projects, how to distribute the work… For example, they have refused to participate in public competitions. But that's not the only difference from LaCol. They experience architecture as an instrument of social transformation and try to bring it to all works. They say that a lot of the jobs they get are from people who know that they do things differently. “It is gratifying to see that maintaining our values can help make the project viable.”

Housing and financing also through co-operative

One of the projects held by the members of LaCol is the first building of the housing cooperative La Borda that has been created in the neighborhood. At first a few friends met with the intention of providing a collective and dignified solution to the problem of housing outside the real estate market. Little by little it has been shaped and they have already managed to get the City Hall to abandon a land located next to the former Can Batlló factory.

It is a building of between 28 and 31 houses, with several shared spaces: dining room, children’s areas, multipurpose room… The houses will not be owned by private individuals, but by the cooperative. To this end, each unit of coexistence that is going to live in it – that is what the individual, family, group of friends or whatever – has been called – has contributed EUR 15,000. To make it viable, each unit will pay around EUR 400 per month, while with the boom construction costs will be reduced as much as possible. On the other hand, the cooperative will apply for a loan that will be paid gradually.

Enough people have already been assembled to occupy the building, and as in the case of the OPVs, minimum conditions have been laid down to enable them to reside in the building. Hernán Córdoba, also a member of La Ciutat Invisible, states that “we hope that by the end of the year we will start with the construction works and that in 2017 we will have the opportunity to start living there”.

La Borda and other horizontal Sants projects also have external funding. However, they do not seek that end in ordinary banks. They have at their disposal the financial services cooperative Coop57, on Premià Street, parallel to Irrigation.

In it, its 3,000 partners use the savings that enable them to support projects seeking social transformation with loans. Since 2008, 1,200 loans have been granted, amounting to approximately EUR 45 million. It shows that collaboration and grid can contribute to funding.

Those who have left their savings know all the projects that have been supported with their money through the magazine they receive at home. According to Communication Officer Xavi Teis: “Our contribution is to show that there are other ways of managing finances that are viable and serve to generate equality and a fairer society.”

Towards the centre of the social economy

Leaving behind Coop57 and going up Premià Street, you will find Sants Street mentioned above. If we continue in the west direction, we quickly reach the plaza that bears the name of Sants like the neighborhoods and the streets. From there you can access the south to the lands where the cooperative La Borda is to be built. Along the way, however, is the self-managed social center Can Vies, which has exposed wounds.

Since 1997 she was occupied by several young people from the neighborhood, Can Vies has been the meeting point of many groups and popular movements, until in May 2014 she was evicted and began to demolish by order of the City Council of Barcelona. The Mossos d'Esquadra had already destroyed much of Can VIES, but the protests of thousands of people managed to stop the demolition. “They excavated the floor of all the rooms so I couldn’t get back in,” Ana said. Along with other neighbors, take advantage of the weekends and times you have throughout the week to help rebuild Can Vies. Thanks to the extensive network of people willing to put their time and capacities in this line, some parts are expected to reopen soon.

Following below Can Vies, in five minutes you could reach the former Can Batlló factory. After 30 years of confrontation between neighbors and the City Hall, it was occupied by the local neighbors in 2011. The City Hall had no choice but to abandon a whole block from the old factory. Since then, hundreds of neighbors of ages and hobbies manage block 11. In addition to bar and lounge, it has a climbing area, exhibition room, workshop area and library. The building, which has been conditioned as auzolan, has been totally viable through self-management.

Julia works in the village bar. He says that all generations who have participated in the social movements of the neighborhood have joined in Can Batllón and that more than 30 agents use space. To manage this collaboration, the working groups meet once a week and once a month form a general assembly.

Accompanying, or simply enjoying free time, in block 11 the members of the neighborhood's cooperatives are frequent. But this is not the only thread linking the transformative social economy with Can Batlló. The Casa Cooperativa de La Borda will also be built on the grounds of the former factory, and another block will become a nursery of cooperatives. If the details with the City Hall are not agreed, the name has already been considered: Coopolis.

A total of 42 spaces are planned, in which, in addition to the establishment of several cooperatives, resources and training will be provided for the implementation of new cooperative projects. This, in addition to widening the network, would intensify it until it became the center of the transforming social economy of Can Batlló Sants. The neighborhood that bears the name of the giant station could take a step forward and become a cooperative reference neighborhood that proves that things can be done differently.