Ajuntament de Girona / CRDI. CC BY-NC-ND
The 1960s were a prosperous decade for Western Europe. Girona, a relatively small city in northern Spain, experienced a time of economic placidity. This, in turn, inspired a municipal policy based on the idea of “greatness”, resulting in an urban plan known as “Gran Gerona”. Despite the fact that the plan brought significant changes to the city, in 1967 around 5.000 people still lived in the shack suburbs that had developed as a consequence of the migratory movements of the 1940s. Also living in these “barracas” were hundreds of children, of which a merry bunch is depicted here. Their living circumstances were less than enviable, yet the kids were able to attend school and enjoyed life. Two boys in the center of this photo are holding a copy of El Jabato (“The young wild boar”): a Spanish comic strip popular at the time, featuring a superhero battling the armies of ancient Rome.
