Economic restructuring and deindustrialization have increased economic competition and pushed cities toward seeking more aggressive ways to effect economic development. The challenge facing cities-especially the older European and U.S. industrial cities-is to respond in ways that will foster economic development while at the same time maintaining or improving the quality of life for their inhabitants in general and the poor in particular.The city of Barcelona seems to have been successful in transforming itself in a very short time from a "gray" industrial city in the midst of a deep economic crisis in 1980 to an international success story a decade later. Most important here, Barcelona's city marketing effort was not accompanied by the neglect of its neighborhoods, increased social polarization, or geographic segregation, distinguishing it in this regard from most other cities. How was all this accomplished?The common perception is that skilled political entrepreneurship and creative planning unleashed through the Olympics enough money, energy, and spirit of cooperation to do in ten years-with Barcelona preparing its bid as early as 1981-what would normally have taken a much longer time.1 In this article, we will show that the foundations on which the Olympics grew were laid down during the preceding decade. The 1970s were without doubt the most turbulent decade in Barcelona's post-World War II history, comprising the last years of Franco's dictatorship of thirty-six years (known as "Franquismo") and the difficult years of transition to democracy. It is important to note that Franco's dictatorship was not an anomaly in the history of nineteenth-and twentieth-century Spain, which was marked by an alternating succession of short democratic periods and longer military dictatorships. Franco's exceptionally long, personal dictatorship came after the six-year Spanish Republic and the subsequent Civil War of 1936-1939. The result was the ruthless rubbing out of any form of public discussion and expression of 793