Llucmajor as a warning
The patron saint festivities of Santa Cándida in Llucmajor made the news not because of the quality of the performances or because they were particularly bad, but because there were three people injured in fights, alcohol poisoning, and fireworks burns. These people who were injured were only the most visible part of a weekend that had little to do with a summer festival. It was much more like an out-of-control party at a bad nightclub, with alcohol comas and substance poisoning, nervous breakdowns, low-intensity physical violence, extremely high-intensity verbal and gestural violence, reckless driving of cars and motorcycles, shouting, vomiting, urine, and manure. As if everything we usually associate with mass tourism, and with the run-down areas of Palma and Playa de Palma, had been transferred to the center of Llucmajor. In a way, this is what happened, and not suddenly.
The first problem is that this model of partying on the street is paid for with public money and promoted by institutions, in this case the Llucmajor City Council, which has been governed for two terms by a pact between the PP and Vox (and, until recently, also the local party ASI). The town has been letting a powerful footwear industry die for decades, and as almost everywhere, the peasantry has also been abandoned. In recent years, there has also been a population growth and social transformation that has turned Llucmajor into a municipality that epitomizes the consequences of the current economic model in the Balearic Islands: zero productive capacity, a lack of basic services and infrastructure (there isn't even a single Primary Care center capable of housing 1,000 inhabitants), land and housing speculation through real estate agencies—mostly German—that are constantly multiplying, a loss of the sense of community, and a veritable epidemic of filth and incivility that has begun to drive more than a few Llucmajor residents crazy. The deterioration of the municipality is occurring more and more slowly and more and more visibly. Not only are the local authorities unable to respond to this situation, but they are also a significant part of it.
The case of Llucmajor, we insist, is not just a local issue confined to a single municipality. As we said, it is representative of the direction in which the whole of Mallorca is heading, with Palma at the forefront (and Ibiza, two steps ahead). The housing and overcrowding problems, the difficulties of living together, the precariousness of the labor market, the shadow economic activity, the early school leaving process among young people, and the lack of social policies for those who need them are all set to become the hallmarks of a Mallorca now fully entering the chain phase.
We must now add another variable that makes the outlook even darker: with the implementation of the recently approved Land Acquisition Law, these problems will only multiply in a short period of time. In a few years, the population could grow to a third more than it is today, with people arriving from all over the world, divided between a wealthy minority who will live in luxury houses and apartments, and a large majority who will live precariously in low- or very low-quality apartments that are, however, too expensive for their incomes. Llucmajor, and its raucous and dirty festivals, are only a warning of a future that is coming, and very close.
