When space draws the line on class

[The role of] class struggle…in the production of space is a cardinal one in that this production is performed solely by classes, fractions of classes and groups representative of classes…[C]lass struggle is inscribed in space. Indeed, it is that struggle alone which prevents abstract space from taking over the whole planet and papering over all differences. Only the class struggle has the capacity…to generate differences which are not intrinsic to economic growth qua strategy, “logic,” or “system” – that is to say, differences which are neither induced by nor acceptable to that growth. (Lefebvre 1991 [1974]: 55) De l’espai no te’n refies mai [Never trust space]. (Montllor 1972) Stray cats Most likely, López would not believe how unerring his prophetic words were when he wrote that Brechtian poem in which he enumerated the characters that were being evicted from Es Barri, a gentrifying area subject to a long renewal program in downtown Ciutat. López’s list includes a heterogeneous selection of people belonging mainly to the “class cloaca”: whores, drug-dealers, pensioner widows, gypsies, the old shoemaker, the baker, the barber, the innkeeper, the tobacconist…(2003). The list even includes dogs and cats. And so it was. No matter how far-fetched it seemed, the day came when the cats also had to leave. These were stray cats that had long lost the noble condition given to them by Santiago Rusiñol (1930 [1922]: 33), a Catalan artist: “But the real inhabitants of the narrow streets of Palma (their lords and masters) are the cats.” In January 2010, the Associació de Veïnats (AV; residents’ association) of Es Barri found out about the municipal cat-sterilization program. A new AV member, a middle-class, middle-aged female volunteer, explained the project at an AV meeting. These cats were a nuisance, especially when in heat, but most of all because they were potential carriers of HIV and many other illnesses that threatened residents and passers-by. Many AV members, who were also newcomers and considered themselves part of the all-encompassing middle class, were eager to know more about the project.