Bunker life: the fear of the rich

A few days ago I was talking with a good friend who had just returned from a trip to Argentina and Chile. We were talking about the 'countries' Argentinians, these gated, guarded, and secure communities that the upper-middle classes have had to build to feel safe in a country where the fracture caused by inequality translates not only into a considerable crime rate, although it has been decreasing, but also into a perception of insecurity that persists despite these measures. The explanation is simple, as my friend pointed out to me: the rich are afraid. They don't live in their ivory towers, exclusive apartment complexes, and luxury penthouses for aesthetic reasons—or at least not only for that—but because they are terrified.

Urban segregation creates this kind of disconnection. Experts speak of a phenomenon called elite secession: that is, the rich are progressively detaching themselves from the society of which they are theoretically a part, from its interests and collective destiny. In short, the rich have their own agenda, priorities, and objectives, and their well-being is not on the menu. But the point here is that even though you don't fit into their plans, and against all odds, you're still here, breathing, and that worries them, because the side effect of segregation is, ta-da!, class resentment.

The paradox is this: having to build walls to protect yourself from a hypothetical threat that, if it has a clear cause, is the very accumulation of wealth that has isolated you from the world.

The effects of this isolation are profound, and I dare say they are the greatest challenge we face right now, even though they want us to look in other directions, especially after the pandemic: extreme inequality, the evasion of responsibility by the upper classes, the hijacking by the upper classes, the hijacking by the upper classes.

All of this has a physical translation, manifesting itself in the landscape as gated and exclusive communities protected by walls, dual cities with archipelagos of wealth situated opposite postal codes that directly determine the future prospects of those born into them, and school segregation. In the United States alone, it is estimated that some 15 million people live in controlled-access communities. It's bunker life.

In fact, these days, with the escalating conflict in the Middle East, a Barcelona-based construction company has taken advantage of the situation to launch its press campaign and announce a surge in demand. A bunker isn't cheap. Its clients aren't from Nou Barris or Sant Andreu; they are people with high purchasing power and often foreigners. I couldn't help but wonder: what are they afraid of? And I'm not sure if it's the bombs or us, the outcasts, those of us left behind in a society that promised our efforts would be rewarded with well-being, but where in the end what matters most are the five digits of our postal code.