Wrrenteria has historically been one of the main Basque industrial centers, which in the sixties and seventies allowed it to reach full employment and labor stability, especially for male industrial employment, until the mid-seventies when the transition governments began to restructure industries, supposedly to prepare for entry into the European Economic Community and the challenge of free market competitiveness. The loss of thousands of jobs was followed by a deregulation of the labor market that generated a further precarization of living conditions, which was intensified by the 2008 financial crisis and austerity policies. In this article I propose to show how, for the younger generations of this city, past futures continue to cast shadows on the ways in which they now contemplate a future marked by growing uncertainty. In that sense, I discuss the common sense of "going backwards," pointing out that going backwards seems not only to allude to past generations' achievements being undone, but to a confused reconfiguration of what they can now expect from the future.