What is Positive Sp(a)in?

This site is a response to all of the negativity in the media about living in Spain and Spanish property and lifestyles. Prices have risen amazingly in Spain over the last six or seven years both of property and lifestyle but in the end it is still a great place to live with fantastic people, remarkable natural wonders, superb cultural offerings and just the best modern architecture where imagination runs wild.
Just take a look at the pictures and compare with the staid offerings in other parts of the World. You have images of the City of Arts and Sciences here in Valencia, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, a Market in Barcelona and a hotel roof in Alava. These buildings act as emblems for the areas where they stand and create tourism. And just to show that Spain is starting to think at the micro level aswell as the Macro have a look at the article reprinted below, taken from Reuters the standards mentioned are now in place.

ARTICLE.

Solar panels are now compulsory on all new and renovated buildings in Spain as part of the country’s efforts to bring its building rules up to date and curb growing demand for energy, ministers said on Monday.
Until now Spain’s building standards have dated from the 1970s and have done little in seeking to improve energy efficiency.
“We have to make up the time we have lost,” Environment Minister Cristina Narbona said, inaugurating a seminar on the new technical building code.
The code will come into force fully next March but the energy saving element was implemented on Sept. 29.
This means new homes have to be equipped with solar panels to provide between 30 and 70 percent of their hot water, depending on where the building is located and on its expected water usage.
New non-residential buildings, such as shopping centers and hospitals, now have to have photovoltaic panels to generate a proportion of their electricity.
Solar power has not yet taken off in Spain, largely because subsidies have been directed at wind energy, and it provided a negligible amount of the country’s electricity in 2005.
Other measures in the new building code enforce the use of better insulation, improve the maintenance of heating and cooling systems and increase the use of natural light.
“The new standards will bring energy savings of 30 to 40 percent for each building and a reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from energy consumption of 40 to 55 percent,” the Environment and Housing Ministries said in a joint statement.
The Housing Ministry is trying to rein in the amount of new building, although it is Spain’s local and regional governments that are responsible for planning permission.
“In the last decade we have built the equivalent of a quarter of all the urban area that existed until then,” Housing Minister Maria Antonio Trujillo told the seminar.
The building standards code should limit the damage of continued new construction and is the most significant legal change for the sector in the last 30 years, she said.