It is surely a very battered message but you have to see How our politicians like to inaugurate buildings, roads, sidewalks and other cement and brick gadgets at the end of the legislation and, of course, with an eye on the upcoming elections. Any self-respecting inauguration is also accompanied by the corresponding photos in which all the project managers squeeze to get out next to the building or road they touch.
When I lived in Sweden, I was struck by the austereness of public facilities, and particularly scientific ones. Nothing to do with the unnecessary sumptuousness with which certain facilities are sometimes built here. In Spain many buildings are exaggerated in terms of aesthetics: museums, scientific facilities, public buildings sometimes designed by star architects and empty of content.
The inaugurations in Spain of these infrastructures are followed by meager budgets to give content to these buildings. R&D centers with minimal budgets, Universities with precarious researchers, public administrations with deficient services… Today I was wondering when we will see photos of our politicians not with buildings, roads and monuments but with people. With people like you and me, with the researchers, the workers or the operators of the facilities. With the people who will fill those places, with whom they start projects, with whom they work every day.
For some reason I find it hard to understand why our politicians prefer to finance bricks and not brain cells.