Coming together as one

A really useful investment for citizens would be to bring Malaga and Granada so close together that, seen from the outside, they would look like a single city

Ignacio Lillo

Friday, 3 March 2023, 14:32

A wise person, whose name I can't remember, told me something once that has stayed with me and which I have repeated on many occasions, especially to friends from abroad.

Andalucía is one of the few places in the world, although I have to admit I haven't checked this properly, where on a day in March or April you can go skiing in the mountains in the morning and sunbathe on the beach in the afternoon.

In a very simple but illustrative way, this maxim, which is no exaggeration, sums up the ancestral links between Malaga and Granada, two sister provinces that nobody, as yet, has given their rightful place as the pivot in the community's political and economic relations.

The mutual affection of the inhabitants is the basis of the power that the two united provinces could have, if they were allowed.

On Andalucía day earlier this week, Granada was a hive of Malaga residents, judging by the traffic on the roads (going past Antequera and by the other route, along the coast) and I would like to believe that it was much the same in the opposite direction.

And that's not to mention the young people from Malaga studying at the University of Granada; nor the thousands of people from Granada who earn their living in the Technology Park and in the tourist and real estate sectors in this part of the country.

At a cultural level, it is not an exaggeration to say that the Alhambra is the main attraction for the tourists that visit the Costa del Sol, which is almost like saying Andalucía, because the airport and the Malaga coastline has more visitors than all the other provinces put together, multiplied several times over.

And both are complementary in matters of health, judiciary and other areas.

That said, it is surprising that the two cities, with so much in common, are so badly connected by train.

It is true that by road there are plenty of buses which are cheap and fast, and of course, by car coming and going is straightforward.

But, by now, we should all be quite clear that medium distance travel will be by rail, and that is why it is incomprehensible that so little importance is given to this connection.

The president of the regional government, Juanma Moreno, has taken the direct line to Seville out of the drawer of forgotten projects. But if public works were governed only by technical criteria, or if we could opt for private capital, a really useful investment for citizens would be to bring Malaga and Granada so close together that, seen from the outside, they would look like a single city.