Spanish urban entrepreneurs yield to the lure of rural living

Spain's rural development is on the rise, thanks in part to entrepreneurs and professionals like Juan Hurtado, who is transforming an old train station into a cooperative living community.

|
Andrés Cala
Juan Hurtado stands in front of La Estación, in Zuzones, Spain. The abandoned railway station he renovated will become a home to several families.

A move to the countryside isn't easy, even when attempted by self-motivated, savvy professionals.

But Spain's recession is driving many citizens to give rural life a second look, reimagining it as a place for a higher quality of life, temporary living, or early retirement – not just cows and crops.

Rural areas are becoming bedroom communities, with 40 percent of Spain's rural population working in cities. Large industries in pursuit of lower costs are also slowly relocating to rural areas adjacent to cities. But in the future, rural development will specially depend on attracting entrepreneurs and professionals like Juan Hurtado, owner of a small renewable-energy equipment firm.

He negotiated an eight-year concession with the state-controlled railway company for a small plot of land with a decrepit, long-closed railway station in Zuzones, less than an hour west of Rioseco. Mr. Hurtado renovated the station into a five-bedroom rural hotel, called La Estación, originally intending it to be a tourist destination. That fell through, so he has now partnered with a nongovernmental organization to develop it as a home to four families and four paying guests.

The permanent residents, who have separate sources of income or new projects to develop (La Estación itself is not a source of income), are united in their wish to live in the country for both economic and personal reasons. By joining forces, they lower their living costs by creating a self-sustainable residence.

La Estación officially takes off in July, and it has a good chance of survival precisely because it is the result of hard lessons learned by city slickers. The risks are minimal and, in any case, mostly shouldered individually. The fact that the residents are all middle-aged, experienced professionals committed to a long-term experiment – as opposed to younger, unemployed individuals who will more likely return to the city once the economy improves – is an asset.

The Association of Resettlers of Abandoned Towns, as the NGO partnering with Hurtado is called, now comprises around a dozen people. They, too, failed in their first attempt at repopulating an abandoned town, but those who decided to try again now plan to build eco-friendly homes. Four rooms in the old train station will be rented at low monthly rates to pay for community expenses. (Each person put in equal cash to start the project.) There will be a pool, a garden, a playground, and a large workshop for residents.

"The hardest thing is finding the right people. I'm just worried that some will change their minds," Hurtado says. But if it works out, he hopes to bring his two teenage sons to live there.

Hurtado will live in the attic of La Estación and use an old warehouse for his renewable-energy business. "I couldn't do this alone. But people from the city, including me, want to move out, and we are putting together synergies," he says. "It's a symbiosis. It's about being self-sustainable in housing, energy, and some other resources, like the garden."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Spanish urban entrepreneurs yield to the lure of rural living
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2013/0501/Spanish-urban-entrepreneurs-yield-to-the-lure-of-rural-living
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe