Poverty or Luxury

I have been in Spain much of the last week.  Today, we are in Bilbao on the northern coast of that country.  Bilbao is a beautiful city.  It has a downtown area that has been completely refurbished during the last few decades.  There seem to be few, if any, signs of poverty in Bilbao or the other areas in the metro area that surrounds the city.  To say the least, this was not what I expected.  For much of the last few years, I have heard persistent reports of massive unemployment in Spain with figures showing about a quarter of the work force without jobs.  The Spainish government went through a credit crisis less than a year ago and nearly defaulted on its debt obligations.  Spain's economy has been hanging by a thread, and I expected the cities to confirm this.  Except they don't!

This anomaly raises the question as to how it is possible that the economy can be so bad and the cities can look so prosperous.  The unemployed are not getting rich from unemployment compensation. 

To be clear, the issue does not arise only in Bilbao.  I saw it in Cartagena.  I also saw it near Gibraltar. 

On the other hand, we have the USA.  In America, the economy is supposedly growing according to the latest reports from the Obama Administration.  Nevertheless, in city after city across America there are large sections that look more like war zones than neighborhoods. 

It ought to be worth considering what causes this difference.  We could do well to be more like Spain.