EL PAÍS

Madrid, the second region in Europe with the most roundabouts thanks to urban speculation: One for every 30 intersections

David Expósito — Fri, 26 Dec 2025 18:29:14 +0000

You can trace the echoes of this historic rivalry by driving from roundabout to roundabout. Leganés (population 194,000) and Getafe (190,000) — two cities in the Madrid region — have always kept a wary eye on the neighbor across the way.

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Living in a motorhome due to soaring housing prices in Madrid: ‘I got used to it quickly, but I don’t idealize it’

David Expósito — Thu, 25 Dec 2025 11:11:04 +0000

The taxi driver got the wrong impression last night. In the middle of one of those wide, deserted avenues in a typical new residential area on the outskirts of Madrid, Antonio asked the driver to stop the cab in front of a large supermarket. Before collecting the fare, the man stuck his head out the window and peeked at the top floor of a modern, 10-story building next to it. “Apartments here must cost a fortune, right?” he asked, sounding impressed. Antonio shrugged and chuckled to himself.

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The homeless people of Madrid’s Barajas airport: ‘I’m sick of sleeping on the floor’

David Expósito, María Martín — Tue, 13 May 2025 14:42:26 +0000

Between 300 and 400 homeless people sleep each night at Madrid’s Barajas Airport. The number has reached as many as 500. No one knew who they were until a religious organization — Mesa de la Hospitalidad, which includes Caritas — took the initiative to carry out a census. Nearly three months after the issue emerged, the report was presented this Monday to municipal, regional, and national authorities.

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Diary of 82-year-old Marjorie Kanter, kicked out of her Madrid home: ‘I didn’t think you could start from scratch at this age’

David Expósito — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 13:08:51 +0000

Those were special days when Dr. Aaron J. Kanter returned home with a few cents in his pocket. Marjorie, Stephen, and Joan, his three children, would run excitedly to the entrance of the family home in Cincinnati to inspect the engravings on the coins their father showed them in the palm of his hand, sometimes showing the silhouette of a buffalo, other times an American soldier, and occasionally with a very clear inscription: In God We Trust.

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Mrs. Deng is on the hunt for Spain’s last ‘golden visas’

David Expósito — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 13:41:05 +0000

A Tesla Model 3 parks on the street so that Mrs. Deng can see her future home. Emilio Zhong, 31, gets out of the white sports car to open the back door for this Chinese-born investor. He points to the walls of the four-story block where her apartment is located, next to a vacant lot near 12 de Octubre Hospital. Mrs. Deng, 50, has been in Madrid for almost a month, attracted by “the light and the freedom,” she says, but above all motivated by the possibility of being one of the last beneficiaries of the so-called “Golden Visa” program, introduced in 2013 by former conservative prime minister Mariano Rajoy as a fast-track way to obtain residency papers in Spain in exchange for purchasing at least €500,000 ($560,000) worth of real estate or by investing in business projects.

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