Poble Nou

Now the trendiest neighbourhood in Barcelona, Poble Nou (‘New Village’, also written Poblenou) is out in the great northeast beyond the Parc de la Ciutadella. Once it was the busiest part of the city, packed with humming brick factories and workers' tenements. They called it the 'Catalan Manchester', the heart of Spain's modest Industrial Revolution.

In the postwar decades many of those factories became obsolete, leaving the area a messy melange of aging neighborhoods and abandoned buildings. Squatters and artists moved in because the rents were cheap.

But over the last thirty years Barcelona has poured billions into its redevelopment, intending it to be the new home for everything that is technologically edgy, hip and cool. And as it gentrifies, locals who have lived here for decades can no longer afford the rents.