Valencia: the ghost city that's become a symbol of Spain's spending woes Just along the esplanade stands the glimmering centrepiece of the City of Arts and Sciences cultural complex, its auditorium, ribbed like the underbelly of a blue whale, rising above the colonnades of palm trees. The 1.1 billion euro centre was designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava to rival Sydney's Opera House and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. In 2006, the year after its completion, it was the focal point for more than one million pilgrims when Pope Benedict XVI visited the city, but with running costs of 40 million euros a year, few cultural events are now scheduled. Such exorbitant public works projects jar with the region's 5.1 million residents, who have watched the local economy freefall and unemployment hit 27 per cent - more than two points above the national average. "They said it was all to put Valencia on the map," says Ignacio Blanco, a member of the regional legislature for the Leftist Esquerra Unida party, "and that's what they did - put us on the map for corruption, for waste... bringing shame on Valencia." With debts of nearly 21 billion euros, a public deficit of 4.5 per cent of local GDP, and junk status awarded by credit rating agencies, Valencia was the first of Spain's 17 autonomous regions to ask for a bailout from a special fund set up by the central government to help stricken regions refinance their debts. It is seeking 4.5 billion euros. As civil unrest grows across Spain, all regions are being forced to tighten their belts and cut administrative funding yet further. Valencianos have been at the forefront of the protests. Local students have staged demonstrations at education cuts that mean they are forced to bring their own lavatory paper and soap to school, pay for their exercise books and carry blankets to class when it's cold. In hospitals, medical staff complain that they lack basic equipment. Pharmacies report the same woes. In Valencia, which holds the country's record for home repossession, a glut of new apartment buildings stand unsold - a daily reminder of the debt that has brought down local banks. Years of recession in Spain have begun to expose corruption, incompetence and widespread overspending. Valencia is arguably the worst culprit. Last year, Francisco Camps, then the president of the local government, had to step down to face charges of accepting expensive suits in exchange for handing out government contracts. He was later acquitted. But Carlos Fabra, who for 16 years was president of one of the region's three provinces, has been charged with bribery and tax fraud. Though his political career may be over, Fabra's legacy will live on - with a crass new metal sculpture of his head erected at the gate of his greatest project: the ghost airport of Castellon.