After the excitement of the holidays, the shaping of macropolitics, city life returns to calm, it is necessary to look again at what is closest to us. Let's observe the streets of the capital of Lanzarote, the state of the parks, gardens and public trees. Let's pay attention calmly and attend to all the elements around us, we will see a material world totally worn out, neglected and destroyed.
I propose a sample of areas and their destroyed elements, if you can take a map of Arrecife or use an application like Google maps or OpenStreetMap. If we start walking along C/ Zerolo from C/ Fajardo towards C/ Real you will see that the planters that are less than a year old are totally destroyed and the interior is full of cigarette butts, animal droppings and waste of all kinds. If you continue walking along the street, you will notice that the tree pits of the young trees are full of cigarette butts, plastics, etc. Near the end of the road, you will see a plot with a ridiculously sized wall, on cruise days tourists take pictures of the landfill it has become. Now let's turn towards the four corners, in the Plaza de España there is a beautiful tree, perhaps one of the few charming squares in our city, but at the intersection of C/ Gran Canaria and C/ Cienfuegos with C/ León y Castillo there is a concrete corpse, an unfinished ruin, a gray skeleton that not only disfigures and distorts the urban panorama, it is also a magnet for pests of all kinds, apart from having become a garbage dump. Let's move now towards C/ Portugal, one of the roads that personifies the neglect and abandonment of the city. If you move along it, at the intersection with C/ Doctor Fleming you will find an almost abandoned, unfinished building, where only the lower part of it is used while the upper part was stopped in the construction process. A crane hangs on the facade of the building, whose state of support leaves much to be desired. Have you tried to put yourself in the place of a person with reduced mobility or an elderly person when transiting that long hell called Calle Portugal? The sidewalks are ridiculous, vehicles park in double rows, the unevenness of the pedestrian crossings and sidewalks are traps in the form of urban barriers, there is not a single trace of vegetation. More or less towards the middle of the street, there is a public area with some children's play devices in a state of absolute abandonment, if you take a picture of this space, it will look like a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie, reality surpasses fiction. This consists of a sandy, poorly maintained open space, with destroyed sidewalks and gardens. The park instead of being a play area has become a dung heap of dog excrement. Towards the end of the street, the sidewalks are in such bad condition that walking on them is comparable to practicing a risk sport. Now place yourself in the Argana Alta neighborhood, on C/ Crispín Corujo, one of the few roads in this neighborhood with trees and recreation areas. It is currently in such an abandoned state that it is sad and invades a feeling of grief every time you walk through that area, where are the trash cans?
Let's go back to the city center. To our three flagship gardens, which should be the green pride of Arrecife. Let's start with the Jose Ramírez Cerdá Park. One day, this area was like a forest full of color, where you could find shady areas with vegetation that transmitted freshness through large trees, it even had water fountains, an element as necessary as it is non-existent in our city. If you walk around there you will see a totally neglected place, without maintenance. The lampposts are broken, the lighting is non-existent. Whenever I walk around there I ask myself the same question, why in Arrecife every time a tree is cut down, the stump is not removed along with the roots and replaced by a new tree? Is it so complicated to do things reasonably well? This space urgently needs a reconditioning and care project. Let's continue through the Canary Islands Park, in its time and before its abandonment by the local authorities as well as the disastrous urban intervention that was carried out on it, it was an example of good work, in which the leisure spaces, recreation and large areas of vegetation generated a beautiful and friendly park to simply be. If I express that this garden is currently the closest thing to what a city should be after a cyclone, I am not exaggerating. The last exponent of neglect in the conservation of public spaces is the Theme Park, which in its short age already suffers from the problems of its predecessors. All these places have something in common, the lack of a conservation policy as well as the null impulse of measures that protect the parks by the different local corporations that have governed the city council of our city. Is it so complicated to set hours of use or create a body of workers who dedicate themselves to this purpose?
There are many streets and points in Arrecife that require an urgent reconstruction project as well as the updating of the ordinances that make the city a small, better cared for world. In an opinion article I cannot list all the critical points, but I urge the neighborhood associations, the communities and anyone who has an interest in the development of their neighborhood or city, to take photographs of the different roads and spaces that urgently need repair to send them to the Arrecife City Council. Why do it? So that those responsible are aware of the urban needs of this town. It is possible that they will turn a deaf ear but let it not be said that the people of this city do not try by all means.
Before finishing, I wanted to make a mention of two iconic spaces and some actions that should be undertaken in them. The Charco de San Ginés, far from the mirage of its urban recovery, is dying due to the state of its waters and the waste that accumulates in it, is it really so difficult to create a drainage route between El Charco and the Puerto Naos marina passing under Avenida Olof Palme? Is it so complicated to put cleaning operators in a boat that keep the area near the four corners clean, where all the garbage that people throw ends up? Who came up with the beautiful idea of putting garbage containers next to the water? Shouldn't these be buried? You readers already know the answer. The other totally abandoned public space, of great patrimonial importance for the city is the open space popularly called "la molina". This large plot located between Doctor Gómez Ulla, Albacete, El Júpiter, Molino, Laguna and Conde Niebla streets is supposed to be a garden, a green lung that should have preserved the old mill that supplied flour and gofio to the old city, you can also see the remains of the quarry from where the stone was extracted to create the onion dock, the economic engine of the city during the first half of the last century. Do you know what it is now? The space that should have trees, playgrounds, benches for people to rest as well as fountains is today an improvised and dusty parking lot, the interior of the old mill is an illegal dump and the old quarry does not have any informative element that explains to the passerby the importance of the place.
It is the duty of the authorities to promote sustainable, friendly and human urban planning, it is also the authorities who must take care of their city, whether with urban and repair actions or by generating awareness campaigns. Is Arrecife doing this?
