“¡Abre la puerta, Maricarmen!”: Who Gets to Live in Madrid? & Leslie Kerns Anti-Gentrification Book
REST IN POWER MARICARMEN! 🕊️ (1938 - October 7, 2026)
What happens when a home becomes more valuable than the person who has lived there for 71 years?
In this episode, we examine the eviction of 87-year-old María del Carmen “Maricarmen” Abascal from her Madrid home after repeated attempts to remove her. On 23 September 2026, police finally entered the apartment she had rented since 1956. Her story sparked mass protests and forced housing, investment-fund, and eviction policies back into public debate.
The image of police standing outside the door “¡Abre la puerta, Maricarmen!” makes visible what housing statistics often conceal: displacement is not only a change of address. It is the loss of memory, routine, community, safety, and belonging. The case also shows that eviction is not always an unavoidable outcome. Decisions by landlords, courts, governments, and investors shape who is allowed to remain in the city.
This is where Leslie Kern’s Gentrification Is Inevitable and Other Lies becomes essential. Kern challenges the idea that gentrification is a natural or unstoppable process. She argues that it is produced through political decisions, investment, planning, property markets, policing, and unequal access to power. Just as importantly, she asks us to understand displacement as something lived through the body and emotions—not merely measured through rent prices or migration statistics.
Maricarmen’s case is not identical to neighbourhood-wide gentrification. It is the story of one long-term tenant confronting a property company. But the pattern is connected: housing is treated as an asset before it is treated as a home, while age, vulnerability, and long-term community ties are treated as obstacles to profit. Her eviction represents the louder, more visible form of a quieter process affecting tenants across cities.
From Madrid to Feminist Park
The episode connects Madrid’s housing struggle to the principles of Feminist Park: the belief that cities should be designed around care, safety, accessibility, dignity, and the lived experiences of people who are often ignored in urban decision-making.
Feminist Park’s mission is to create a socially just and inclusive green space, centre marginalized voices, improve safety and accessibility for women, and challenge traditional urban planning through intersectional feminist principles.
Maricarmen’s story expands those principles beyond parks. It asks:
• Who is considered when cities are planned and redeveloped?
• Who gets to remain when land values rise?
• Whose memories and relationships count as part of urban infrastructure?
• Can a city be called successful if older people, women, migrants, families, and low-income residents can no longer afford to live there?
• What would urban design look like if care and belonging mattered as much as investment and growth?
A feminist city is not only one with better lighting, safer paths, or more accessible public space. It is also a city where people can stay, participate, age, rest, organize, and feel at home.
Hope as Action
Kern’s central challenge is to reject the language of inevitability. If displacement is described as unavoidable, responsibility disappears. But the protests following Maricarmen’s eviction demonstrate that public pressure can change political priorities; reports indicate that Madrid’s government responded with proposed measures concerning eviction protections, investment funds, tourist housing, and rental contracts.
This episode asks listeners to look beyond the dramatic moment when a door is opened. The deeper question is what happened before the police arrived: which laws enabled the eviction, who benefited from the property’s rising value, who was consulted, and what alternatives were refused?
