On the grounds of an abandoned racetrack, an organised yet precarious settlement the Spanish city of Valencia would rather not see
What was once a showcase for speed and spectacle now functions as a refuge of last resort.
Along the old harbour stretch of Valencia’s old Formula 1 circuit, disused wooden pallets and sheets of ply are clustered beneath palm trees and floodlights, stitched together with tarps, wire and unrelenting hope into homes. Residents of the encampment describe an uneasy calm: by day, people mend walls, sort scrap and tend to kids. The night can be different: voices carry, tempers flare and the police sometimes roll through to check IDs and registration papers. “At least this settlement is consolidated and has unwritten laws to ensure its safety. It’s quite organised,” one volunteer in the settlement observes. The Spanish phrase “Aquí tenemos normas propias” (“We have our own rules”) echoes here like a local constitution.
This article from a local Valencian newspaper follows the lives of Joana and her teenage son Antonio in the camp, as they salvage what they can and keep a wary eye on fires that sometimes break out when tempers, or braziers, run hot. The camp is informally divided by nationality, she explains: the Romanians in one row, North Africans in another, with women and children improvising routines that make the place feel liveable. Valencia’s local social services count only a fraction of those who truly live here. The numbers on paper don’t match reality: people arrive and disappear with the seasons and the availability of work.
Work, when it comes, is itinerant and gruelling. Jamal, who lives off what the city throws away, pushes a cart piled with cables and cans. “They pay 10 cents a kilo. Very little,” he shrugs, then adds a simple self-check, “I’m fine,” which reads as equal parts pride and denial. The micro-economy in the area around the settlement has changed: “Cars used to pass by the store, but now they’ve closed the entrances and only motorcycles come,” complains a shopkeeper in reference to traffic barriers meant to hide the settlement from passers-by, and which have choked off the flow of customers. Mutual aid knits together the gaps the state has left open. Hairdressers who occasionally set up chairs near the track emphasise that they don’t just cut the hair of their customers but engage them in conversation to make them feel seen and heard.
Danger is a constant whisper here. Nights bring shouting, fights erupt; a neighbour rises with a stick to challenge what he swears is “el diablo” by the palm tree. Fires burn for heat and cooking; sometimes they burn too much. Police presence has increased, residents say, but official attention still oscillates between discrete evictions elsewhere and the slow tolerance that lets this camp persist because there is nowhere else to go. A recent count across Valencia found homelessness up by more than a fifth, with 815 people dispersed across 37 settlements, making it a citywide problem.
And yet, within the labyrinth, norms do hold. People look out for one another’s children, informal curfews help keep the peace and disputes are sorted out before they spiral. Another resident shares that he isn’t afraid that he will one day leave this place, but is fearful about what lies beyond: waiting lists, unaffordable rents, precarious jobs that vanish with the season. On race days a decade ago, this ribbon of asphalt was a televised dream of velocity. Today, its slow lanes are thick with the ordinary heroics of survival and neighbours enforcing rules so that the rest of the world, which built, sold and abandoned this track, does not swallow them whole.
Original article (“Vidas aparcadas en el circuito de F1: ‘Aquí tenemos normas propias’’) by Claudio Moreno was published in Spanish on 25 May 2025.
It is available here.
Levante-EMV is a Valencian regional daily newspaper focused on local and regional politics, society and culture in the Comunitat Valenciana.
Summary by ZN
