Madrid is booming. Growing while keeping its cool will be the tricky part

“JUST TO BE something, I’ll be a madrileño.” Not a stirring sentiment, and yet the line is part of the official anthem of Madrid, which has often “just been something”. King Felipe II made the middling town his new capital in 1561 in part simply because it was dead central and lacked competing powerful institutions; amazingly in such a Catholic country, Madrid did not even get its own completed cathedral until 1993. But later, as Spain’s empire declined, so did Madrid’s profile.