MWhile the investment in city center squares is decided within a few months, neighborhood squares continue to be abandoned despite repeated and historical demands in many cases by neighborhood entities and social agents.
The Plaza de la Memoria Histórica was opened in 2009, on the grounds of the former Torero County Jail, and occupies a rectangular area of 6,650 square meters and has an underground car park with a capacity of 278 places.
After opening, in 2010 and 2011, the gallery and marquee were installed during Torrero ceremonies, and indeed in 2012, Consistory Technical Services indicated that it was not appropriate to continue using it for this type of event because the floor gave way and was taking place – leaks in position the cars. No study has been undertaken to determine whether or not the building complies with the regulations, and whether any intervention is necessary to strengthen its structure, despite the fact that neighborhood entities have requested information about the real state of the field on numerous occasions.
At the end of 2017, the plenary session of the Torero Municipal Council agreed, at the request of the neighborhood entities, to transfer the completion of a report on his condition to the Zaragoza City Council, a report that the current government must submit in the drawer of oblivion.
Plaza de la Memoria Histórica and Plaza Salamero are plagued by structural problems in their underground car park, but while the former is still being institutionalized, in Plaza Salamero a comprehensive redesign is being carried out in which two million euros will be invested up to the Church of Santiago. .
Another clear example of neighborhood disdain, neglect and abandonment of their squares in favor of the city center is the redesign of the Plaza de Santa Ingracia, which involves an investment of 700,000 euros whose main objective is to provide the basilica with a plot of land. Increased visibility.
Perhaps this is because the Plaza de la Memoria Histórica does not house a church or other religious monument and that is why the municipal government does not act on the square as quickly as it did in Salamero and Santa Engracia.
Or perhaps because the Square of Historical Memory is the Square of a Democratic Memory where the old building of the Regional Prison, the place of prolonged and brutal repression, and the Plaza del Laurel, a symbol of freedom and memory for all those who have been imprisoned for their political ideas.
Perhaps instead of Torrero, a historic and vengeful working-class neighborhood, the Plaza de la Memoria Histórica was located in the city center where the wealthy lived and the tourists walked …
Perhaps if the municipal government understands that squares are factors that stimulate life in neighborhoods and places of coexistence and entertainment, then they are the center of urban life par excellence and that a large number of social, commercial and cultural activities are concentrated in them. ..
Perhaps if he understood that he should rule for all citizens, perhaps if he fulfilled the promise that he made in the wind after the approval of the municipal budgets for 2021 that stipulated the expansion of investment to include all neighborhoods …
Too much for a government that has only a policy of hitting urban development and rhetoric in favor of the big oligopolies that support it.