One of the most recurring images in the discourse of the Popular Party during the campaign for the last regional elections and the first part of this legislature was that of the 'little house' or 'plot of land' that many islanders supposedly inherit 'from their grandparents' and that they should be able to renovate, build on, and exploit as they wished. The idea was very simple, and surely consensual among the vast majority of society in favor of the most basic defense of private property: almost everything belongs to someone, and the very fact of this belonging gives that someone the right to do with it as they please, as long as it does not harm others or the general interest. Thus, according to the arguments defended by the PP, everyone should be able to do as they please with that 'little garden' inherited from their aunt in Son Sardina or that 'shack' that, if fixed up, could become a perfect container for the umpteenth proposal for holiday rentals. What happens, however, when these 'little houses', 'shacks', and 'little gardens' come to occupy a large part of the rural land of the Islands? What should we do when so many promises of paradise, together, end up destroying it beyond remedy?Just take the car or the bicycle and go for a drive through any urban center in the Balearic Islands to see how not only the centers themselves, but their surroundings, have been substantially transformed in the last three or four years. Where there used to be vacant lots between party walls, in towns and cities, there are now houses that imitate (only imitate!) traditional construction and offer courtyards with luxurious swimming pools, walls lined with marès stone and dry stone walls, and shutters decorated in the most fashionable pastel colors. And the same happens in the countryside: where there was a vegetable garden, in the best of cases, or practically abandoned land, a villa has now appeared, like a mushroom, now a house that distorts the architectural and nouveau riche style of Beverly Hills, now a swimming pool from which one can almost (or without the almost) see the neighbor's swimming pool.A house with a pool in the middle of the meadow is a privilege and a luxury reserved for very few people; especially for those who can afford it, often with foreign capital. On the other hand, a small house from which one sees another small house, where the noise of the gardener of another small house arrives, who hears the construction work, all summer long, of another small house… It can become a hell. Who will want to buy or rent houses in the Balearic Islands when idyllic homes supposedly in the middle of nature are the only landscape left to see? Who will want to come when natural resources have been depleted? How far must we go for owners (without even appealing to their eventual ecological conscience) to see that, if the trend does not change, their own businesses will go down the drain in five years, ten years, twenty, at most? Many small houses together are no longer many small houses: they are a little hell. And it's not that it's time to set limits, it's that we are already very late.

Víctor Madera Núñez (Oviedo, 1961) has been the talk of the town for several years now. The president of Quirón has become the leading magnate of private healthcare in Spain, benefiting from urban development plans to build a private hospital in Madrid as much as he salvages castles, mansions, and estates from ruins across the country. From his native Asturias to the Balearic Islands, where he has already acquired dozens of properties over the last decade. Madera, considered the main landowner in Menorca, has transformed himself into a real estate tycoon since, nine years ago, he sold Quirón Salud, the largest private hospital group in Spain, to the German company Fresenius Helios, the largest healthcare group in Europe. The deal was closed for 5.76 billion euros, of which 450 million went directly to the Asturian doctor. Married and a father of four, he has not even come close to disengaging from this company, of which he is the non-executive chairman. Quirón currently manages more than 80 hospitals and day centers, employing 35,000 people.

In Mallorca, there are more than 300 closed public roads, according to data from the Public and Open Roads Platform. The Camino de la Señora (Lady's Way), the Camino de la Font Major (Font Major Way), and the Camino de la Cueva (Cueva Way) are some examples. These routes were used to carry news and trade to properties in the past. They were also used as shortcuts to save time when the only means of transport was carts and many roads did not yet exist. Platform member Sebastià Matamales laments that, "since land has become a financial asset and has been the subject of continuous speculation," the value formerly given to properties with roads has changed. "Before, a property without a road was worthless, and now it's worth much more if it doesn't," he adds. On the islands, there are public roads closed by property owners and others that, over the years and through lack of use, have been obstructed by nature.