Poblenou – industrial chic in an up-and-coming Barcelona neighborhood

Weekday mornings, I walk my wife Morena to work.

Her office is in Poblenou, in a small building next to one of the new apartment towers.

It looks like an up-and-coming area, with some big construction project happening every few blocks: glassy new facades stand side by side with narrow 100-year-old flats.

After a couple of months walking down there, I decided to look into it…

What’s going on in Poblenou?

Well, like most Barcelona neighborhoods, Poblenou has a long history. A former hub of Catalan industry that had fallen into disrepair, it’s now becoming a fashionable place for people to live, work and go out.

So if you’re looking for less-known neighborhoods to visit on your next trip to Barcelona, the Poblenou area could be fun to spend an afternoon in. And if you’re thinking about moving here, it’s worth a look as well.

I’m hardly the first person to write about it. Searching around, in fact, I find that many headlines about Poblenou call it “Barcelona’s Coolest Neighborhood”.

Is it?

I don’t know. I always thought Born was pretty cool, myself. And Gótico’s not bad – if you can get over the fact that it’s mostly fake. There’s a lot we could say about Eixample. But humble Poblenou, the old industrial area?

Well, let’s see… it’s got a lot of restaurants, modern cafés, offices, and housing both new and old.

Maybe there’s something to this.

Where is Poblenou, exactly?

Officially, Barcelona has 10 districts.

What most people consider to be the Poblenou neighborhood is an area in the district of Sant Martí, where I also live. But in reality, Sant Martí is huge. So we’d better narrow it down a bit.

In addition to the 10 districts, it looks like City Hall now divides Barcelona into 73 neghborhoods, of which five have the word “Poblenou” in the name. So there’s El Poblenou (the original core of the neighborhood), there’s Diagonal Mar i el Front Marítim del Poblenou (along the beach), there’s Provençals del Poblenou, there’s El Parc y la Llacuna del Poblenou, and there’s Vila Olímpica del Poblenou (which was built for the ’92 Olympics.)

Some of these names don’t exactly roll off the tongue, and I’ve never heard anyone say them. Diagonal Mar, for example, is a large shopping mall where Diagonal hits the beach (more or less). I’d just call that neighborhood “the area around Diagonal Mar” if I were talking to a friend – no reason to add the Front Marítim bit.

Also, as I mentioned in my article about Clot and Sant Martí, a lot of things in Barcelona have both Catalan and Spanish names… but the neighborhoods and districts tend to be called by their Catalan names. Nobody I know is calling it “Pueblo Nuevo” – but in theory they could.

Personally, I’d use Poblenou for anything going on within a triangle formed by Carrer de la Marina, Avinguda Diagonal and the beach. That’s still a big area, but not quite as big as the whole of Sant Martí.

(City Hall adds the area between Diagonal and Gran Via as well, but there’s really not much going on there – officially, though, that’s Provençals de Poblenou.)

What’s special about the Poblenou neighborhood?

I’m not exactly convinced that Poblenou is Barcelona’s coolest neighborhood.

But it is cool, and getting cooler by the day.

I know a businessman, in fact, who invested in Poblenou real estate because he’s convinced it’s like getting into Brooklyn in the year 2000.

Obviously, Barcelona’s not New York, but real estate down there seems to be booming either way. You can rent a penthouse for 5000€ a month, or buy a flat with a sea view for a million or two. (Or you can find something cheaper. Like I said, it’s a big area.)

Some buildings down there in the Front Marítim are really sleek and new. When Morena and I were looking for a flat to buy, we briefly looked at the area around Paseo del Taulat, a couple of blocks from the beach. It was, as the saying goes, way out of our price range… but if you’ve got that kind of money, you could certainly do worse.

In fact, the area around Diagonal Mar is developing pretty quickly, with some new high-rise buildings full of flats. The only problem I can think of is that you’d be close to La Mina, which is not the best Barcelona neighborhood. I don’t know how that’d affect your day to day if you lived around there, though. Maybe not at all.

The beaches and the Rambla de Poblenou

If you’re visiting Barcelona, you’ve probably been to the beach at Barceloneta.

But keep walking past the Casino (with its golden fish sculpture designed by famous architect Frank Gehry) and the newly-remodeled Port Olímpic, and you’ll find the further beaches at Bogatell and Mar Bella, which are less crowded, less touristy, and right on the edge of Poblenou.

This stretch of beach isn’t full of restaurants and bars like Barceloneta, but there’s a sports center, a skate park, a calisthenics area and a bit of trees and grass – Parc de Poblenou, right along the coast, to be exact.

On the other side of the park, you can find Rambla de Poblenou – a smaller boulevard that’s a much less crowded version of the more famous “Rambla” across town.

That more famous Rambla (the one that goes from Colón to Plaça Catalunya) is okay if you’re a tourist, but if you’re a Barcelona local you’d probably rather punch yourself in the dick than spend more than 30 seconds there – I know I would. Rambla de Poblenou will get you the relaxed pedestrian vibe without the crowds or pickpockets.

Stop and have a drink or something to eat on one of the terrazas, or just take a stroll. It’s nice.

Industrial history in Poblenou

Of course, the Poblenou neighborhood is no longer new.

Built out during the 19th century, it was one of Spain’s largest industrial areas for a time, and was known as “the Catalan Manchester” due to the proliferation of textile mills.

Walking around the neighborhood today, you may spot the old smokestacks standing in odd places – the remains of factories active during the Industrial Revolution.

Poblenou may have had over 200 smokestacks at one point. These days, there are 28, plus the Torre de les Aigües del Besòs – part of a failed project from the 1880s meant to help out with Barcelona’s water supply. Today the Torre holds the Poblenou Historical Archive, and you can also climb to the top with a pre-booked ticket. It looks like the visits are once a week: every Saturday at 12:00.

Another notable historic monument is the Poblenou Cemetery. Built in 1775, and rebuilt in the early 1800s after its destruction by Napoleon’s troops during their Iberian incursion, it’s full of people who, while not world famous, are at least famous in Catalonia. Allegedly. (Go ahead and quiz your average Barcelona resident about the life and works of such figures as Valentí Almirall or José Anselmo Clavé – I suspect they may not know all that much.)

La Vanguardia has an article about the history of consumer co-ops in the area, which were not only the precursors to todays supermarkets, but also acted as community centers for working-class people. That article also mentions the grittier side of the once-proletarian area: the epidemics, the exploitation, the child labor.

Like many places in Barcelona, Poblenou changed a lot in the years leading up to the ’92 Olympics. The Vila Olímpica was built to house the athletes during the Games – now it’s just another neighborhood – and the whole area began to remodel and rebuild after decades of neglect.

Today things are quite a bit different than they were.

The startup scene in Poblenou

How different?

Well, they’re definitely more high-tech.

One of my more popular articles in the last several months answers the question Is Barcelona the new Austin?

Here we are making comparisons again.

But I heard the Austin comparison from a famous tech bro on Tim Ferriss’ podcast – a guy who spends part of the year here in Barcelona – and I actually gave the question a bit of thought.

While the exact meaning of “new Austin” isn’t clear to me, I’m pretty sure it has something to do with attracting tech-savvy people and startups due to a low cost of living and a variety of lifestyle factors – which Barcelona does.

And while there’s nothing stopping a startup from forming elsewhere, it would seem that Poblenou is the center of Barcelona’s startup scene. In fact, the 22@ area was specifically designed to create a sort of tech hub near Glòries, which is right on the top edge of Poblenou.

(Plaça de Glòries was supposed to be the new city center in Ildefons Cerdà’s 1860 master plan for Barcelona’s future, and it may still get there. As of this writing, it’s all under construction.)

Due to the mix of buildings – semi-abandoned industrial, office buildings and housing – a lot of streets around Poblenou are a bit dead on weekends. There’s not a ton of pedestrian life in some areas, at least outside of office hours. Hopefully this will change as more buildings are built or remodeled, and more people move in.

Where to eat and drink in Poblenou

The aforementioned Rambla de Poblenou has a lot of food options.

There’s the usual crowd of Italian restaurants – Italians are the #1 immigrant group in Barcelona, after all. Also check out the several Lebanese and Syrian restaurants along both sides of the street.

The “world’s second best vegan restaurant” is on Rambla de Poblenou as well: it’s called BluBar and it’s at number 11, down close to the beach. (Second best according to a list made by TimeOut Magazine. I don’t know.)

If you’re looking for meatier options, check out the mixed grills at Tavernicola (calle Roc Boronat, 70) or Tierra del Fuego (calle Venero 16 -18) – both Argentinian restaurants offering plenty of protein.

Poblenou is also home to a billion and a half coffee places – not literally.

I still haven’t figured out what specialty coffee is, but you can get it at The Miners at Rambla de Poblenou, 107. And I also like Abyss Coffee at Diagonal, 93. They’ve got a big bright space you can hang out in, with windows on both sides of the building. Or head to Caffeine, at calle Bilbao, 98. It’s a small place with friendly people, good coffee, and a couple of lunch options as well.

If you’re looking for craft beer or fine wines or cocktails, I’m sure you’ll find them as well – but as I’ve mentioned, my days of gonzo journalism in the many bars of Barcelona are over.

(Morena recommends Trash Talk, at calle Pere IV, 244.)

The specter of gentrification…

If you’re looking into moving to a neighborhood like Poblenou, someone will inevitably mention gentrification.

The word gentrificación has even become popular in Spanish, in the last several years. It’s something people worry about, with rent prices going up in many areas and a chronic shortage of cheaper options for young people.

But the fact is that neighborhoods change with time, and that some neighborhoods probably need a bit of gentrification. Poblenou is one of them – there’s lots of space, and plenty of old buildings that are just sitting there unused. Why not develop it into something more liveable?

It has long been my assertion that any neighborhood is – at any time – either getting better, or worse. People are moving in, or moving out. And due to the realities of supply and demand, you can’t really have an influx of people to a neighborhood without some price increase – or a lot of construction to keep ahead of demand.

Meanwhile, old businesses close, and new ones open. Things change, in some cases for the better.

Oh no! The middle class has arrived.

Anyway, I don’t see how we can have a society with social mobility and also get angry every time someone moves to a new neighborhood. Some people live in the same street their whole lives, others don’t.

When my wife Morena and I came to Barcelona several years ago, we moved into the cheapest place we could find. Then we moved up to a better neighborhood. When we decided to buy a house, a few years later, we realized we couldn’t possibly afford to live in the area where we were renting. Not even close.

So we moved to Sant Martí, where prices are lower.

That’s just how it works. People move, and neighborhoods change. I can’t think of any “solution” to gentrification that’s doesn’t sound like some sort of totalitarian nightmare. And I’m not sure what a couple of upwardly-mobile immigrants like us are supposed to do, according to the anti-gentrification crowd.

Maybe live in shanties outside town? I really don’t know.

In any case, I’ve been in Spain for almost 20 years now – yikes! – and in that time I’ve seen a couple of boom and bust cycles in the real estate market. Back during the Great Recession prices collapsed, and a lot of neighborhood businesses were replaced by pawn shops and low-cost bars.

Gentrification seemed to come to a halt for several years as unemployment hit 24% and thousands of young Spaniards left to work abroad… and guess what? Nobody liked that either.

So be careful what you wish for – maybe “gentrification” is just another word for progress.

Anyway, that’s about all I’ve got for now.

Have a good one.

Yours,

Daniel AKA Mr Chorizo.

P.S. Back in the day, I wrote a bit about the decline of typical Spanish bars, as well as a full article about gentrification in Madrid. Obviously, I think things are a bit more complicated than “gentrification is bad” – supply and demand is one thing, constantly-changing laws are another, and a few hipsters making expensive coffee isn’t going to ruin 200 years of neighborhood vibes in Poblenou, or anywhere else.

P.P.S. Have you considered moving to the country? There’s a whole lot of “España Vaciada” out there, and I assume it’s not full of yoga studios and art galleries… yet. What do you think? Leave me a comment, right here… Thanks!