Spain Grey Water Reuse

SPATIAL PLANNING CHALLENGES IN BARCELONA, SPAIN

Barcelona is internationally acclaimed for its innovative urban planning approaches. The revitalization journey of Barcelona has faced difficult social, economic and environmental challenges but in most cases planners, citizens and political leaders of Barcelona have initiated unique techniques to overcome the challenges. This study has tried to understand the planning techniques those have been applied to address the challenges as Barcelona has progressed between 1975 and 2005. The research has also identified the future challenges those have appeared as a consequence of planning initiatives. From existing literatures and from field visit, this study has recognized that poor urban living environment, inadequate services and facilities, social deprivation and depressed economy were the initial challenges for Barcelona. Barcelona responded to these issues by social movement and approach of neighborhood level projects. In the long run new challenges like shortage of funding, urge for ...

SPATIAL PLANNING CHALLENGES IN BARCELONA, SPAIN

Tanjil Sowgat

Lecturer, Khulna University, Khulna, Bangladesh

Shilpi Roy

Postgraduate Student, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK

INTRODUCTION

Barcelona is a Spanish city and situated in the region of Catalonia. Although the City is not the capital, it has a vital contribution to the economy of Spain as it was a leading industrial city. It became a 'grey city' in 1975 and economy was collapsing drastically. People of the city were suffering as services and facilities, living environment, employment situation and city image were decaying. However, this very city has revived gradually and at it has now become an example of planned city throughout the world.

As the proverb goes Rome was not built in a day'', the success story of Barcelona is not a miracle but an outcome of intuitive response of the citizens, politicians and most of all planners of the city (Marshall, 2004). This study has tried to track the challenges that have been addressed as Barcelona has progressed. The study has also identified the unique-planning responses that have been initiated to address these challenges. At the same time the study has depicted the future challenges as consequences of planning responses that have been initiated over the last three decades. This research aims to explore the planning challenges and planning responses in Barcelona to contribute to the knowledge of city revitalization in the era of a globalizing world.

BARCELONA: BEFORE 1975

Before 1975, Barcelona was an industrial city with chimneys, smokes and unhealthy living environment. The post industrial economy was gradually turning the city into a period of depression. Moreover, the autocracy that prevailed for a long period of time merely considered the needs of people and thought highly about the developments needed to secure the autocracy. In a poem John Maragall (former Mayor of Barcelona) has described industrial Barcelona;

"But nor the dust nor all the mire and rubble,

Nor the posts and wires,

Which arm you upon the great web,

Nor the smoking if your thousand chimneys,

Nor the fluttering of cloth

Which stirs up discord and stokes up the fire,

Are enough to vilify

This sky of yours, so gentle and blue " (sited in Lasarte et. al. , 1996)

So, poor living condition, low quality urban image, polluted environment should be the words describe the situation of Barcelona before 1975. By the end of 1975, a number of challenges were emerging in the city; 1. to find a new economic base, 2, to upgrade services and facilities to ensure standard quality of life, 3. to ensure more open space and public realm 4, To meet the social demand that was resulted from long suppression. 5, to revitalize the urban image of Barcelona, These challenges have set the background for the transformation of Barcelona. Later parts of the paper have focused on the transformation process of Barcelona to understand the way planning has responded to these challenges between 1975 and 2005.

Photograph 1: Barcelona in 1975 (Source: Lasarte et. all., 1996)

NEW PLANNING APPROACH BETWEEN 1975 AND 1980

Death of Franco freed the right to practice social rights and influenced the initiation of new and dynamic planning approaches during this period. As, districts in Barcelona seriously lacked schools, open spaces and parks, health services, sewerage and waste disposal system, water supply and transport services, there was serious social need to improve living conditions. So, one of the main political responsibly of new democratic government was to satisfy the general people by fulfilling their need which was long due because of being ruled by dictator for 25 years. Moreover, the new administrative power of City Council for preparation of land use plan and local projects, and political will power of new government was reflected in transformation process of this period.

Introduction of new planning framework

Barcelona had a long planning tradition. The first plan was introduced by Cerda in 1853 and modified in 1953. However, by 1975 previous plan failed to address the social need for more public spaces, services, facilities and most of all need for new economic activities. To overcome these lacks as well as to provide fundamental framework for constructions, restructuring and improvement of Barcelona in the following years, in 1976 Barcelona City Council passed a new land use planning document; the General Metropolitan Plan (PGM) which was a major break through of planning in Barcelona (Bohigas, 1985).

Small scale neighborhood development projects

In the late 70s, to regenerate and renovate entire urban fabric and also to provide services and facilities, Barcelona started to introduce small neighborhood projects under a framework of city wide activity and that was promoted by Barcelona City Council. The ideas of these district level projects were basically hidden in PGM (Plan for General Metropolitan). For accommodating new parks, gardens, forestry, facilities, housing and for internal rehabilitations, all possible unused parcels of land, properties and old industries those were closed down in old city and inner suburbs were acquired. This acquisition released the lands demanded by citizens for a long time (Berry and Greal, 1995).

OLYMPIC FOCUSED TRANSFORMATION BETWEEN 1980 AND 1992

Although neighborhood development projects under new planning framework were transforming Barcelona rapidly, the implementation of aimed Projects of democratic government became difficult in early 80s due to funding difficulties. Moreover, the new democratic government came in power (in 1975) when Barcelona was experiencing economic crisis (Ferran, 1995). This situation pushed the local government to prepare for Olympic bid to utilize this unique event as an opportunity to get new investment for required development to make over the urban decay of inner and peripheral districts and the collapsing post industrial economy of Barcelona.

Large scale municipality and metropolitan projects between 1986 and 1992

In the first half of 80s, planning was practiced to solve the lacking of facilities (schools, housing, health centers, green spaces and many more public facilities) through sensible introduction of a series of small scale neighborhood public works. However, small scale neighborhood projects were not effective enough to resolve the widespread infrastructure lacks in Barcelona. Moreover, to renovate the collapsing economy of Barcelona and its territory was an important mission of new government. As a result, after 1986, Barcelona was introduced to modern large scale developments and most of the Olympic investments were used to improve the conditions of sub centers (42%) accompanied by a huge, investment for communication and IT sector (46%) (Marshall, 1996). Moreover, inner and peripheral districts were experiencing serious problem of urban decay. So, planners took the game as vehicle for city-wide reform. Since the Olympic operation agglomerated huge central and international investment, it favored new large scale public development projects like Olympic Village (Figure 1). Land was reclaimed from the sea to make new beaches, airport, large urban spaces, parks, hotels, cultural and sports centers for Olympic village; the river beds were drained and urbanized; new transport infrastructures were constructed to improve access to most parts of the city and many more new developments were implemented over four neglected old urban areas which were identified in the Areas of New Centrality projects. The idea of Areas of New Centrality project was to direct private-sector commercial and residential development (Berry and Greal , 1995).

Economic and Social Plan for Barcelona

In the late 90s, funding crisis came as the obstacle of the implementation of large scale projects in Barcelona. Till that time, there was serious push for better quality of life and regional promotion was necessary. So, in 1988 "Economic and Social Plan, Barcelona 2000" was launched mainly to establish sustainable way of ensuring economic stability in Barcelona and its region (Marshall, 1990). The big achievements of the Economic and Social Plan were the TVG line from France to Madrid and some infrastructural plan (Marshall, 1996).

GLOBALISATION BETWEEN 1993 AND PRESENT TIME

Olympic event brought Barcelona to international focus and by early 90s Barcelona was in the middle of an international economic drive due to huge infrastructure development and foreign investment invested which linked Barcelona into European Union and global economy within a short period (Butter et all., 1997).So, the city realized that it has the potential to become a world investment hub. This understanding motivated the city to take new market led planning approaches after 1993.Concequently, after Olympic Game 1992, another international event Universal Forum 2004 was chosen to manage huge funding for development.

Figure 1: Major urban projects in Barcelona between 1980 and 2005

(Source: Authors 2006)

New Economic Activity

In order to compete with global economic competition it was crucial for Barcelona to change its economic base, as its industrial sector was collapsing from late 60s. In response to this situation, a new high tech zone '22@' was developed by revitalizing the coastal brown field industrial area to make this zone the IT, education, software and telecommunication business hub of Europe (www.bcn.es, 2006).

Local, regional and international transport link

To ensure that newly developed high tech-zone becomes the centre of local and regional economic activity, this area has been connected with the surrounding area, city and region by a new metro station, tramway lines, various cycling, paths, the ring road, the high speed rail terminal and a direct high speed train line into the city airport. In fact, triangular development of Sagrera, Forum 2004, 22@, Diagonal Mar and Glories has made it possible. Moreover, to transform Barcelona as a logistical platform for Southern Europe and distribution zone, establishment of a new directional centre and large scale industries, extension and transformation of Barcelona's industrial port and airport with new road and railway access are under construction (Lasarte et. al., 1996).

Better living and working places

For making the new economy fit for globalize economy, high quality living environment near working places will be created by construction of new houses close to offices (in 22@), by renovation of old houses in 22@ and surrounding neighborhoods. This proposal has also included street furnishing, green corridors, and public spaces to add the quality of living standard. This project is already under construction and a part of the area has been built.

Inclusion of greater environmental sustainability agenda

Sustainability and greater environmental consideration has been included in most of the development works of this time (Barcelona City Council, 2004). For example, a comprehensive set of measures to conserve the environment of river Llobergat, a series of river-side parks, together with a nature reserve and flood management measures, a bicycle path to reach the town of Montcada and new beaches on the delta Besos are now in line. Moreover, environment friendly transportation, energy and resource efficient building constructions, waste management system, waste water treatment and creation of green spaces are also important priority of ongoing and future development works of Barcelona.

PLANNING CHALLENGES FOR FUTURE BARCELONA

Transformation of Barcelona has brought significant change in the urban form, quality of urban life and city environment of Barcelona (Photograph 2). In the past planners and concerned professionals along with the citizens have adopted outstanding and remarkable tactics to face different challenges. Some of these strategies however, have introduced new planning challenges for Barcelona. In coming years Barcelona may have to face a number of economic, environmental as well as social challenges. In this section some of the challenges are identified.

Social Polarization

Revitalization projects in some cases have ended up in increased property value even up to 60% (www.aviewoncities.com, 2006) which is beyond the financial capability of middle income group of the city while in some other cases, new I development has indirectly forced people to relocate to other places as they are no more able to get a high tech job with the skill that they have. It is also observed that increasing quality of life has influenced the people to leave and relocate to sub urban areas. Therefore, Barcelona is gradually becoming a socially polarized city (Balibrea, 2001). It is evident that 40% of the total incomes go to the first quintile of population while last quintile of population in while last quintile of population in the city gets only 7.3% (Marshall, 2004). It can be argued that projects are in place to ensure housing for low income group but there is also a growing concern that these houses will be left unused or will not reach to the target group as many of the properties may not be affordable for low income people (www.aviewoncities.com, 2006).

Photograph 2: Barcelona in 2005

(Source: Authors 2005)

Multiple cities in one city

The sequence of successive planned developments has brought significant change in the urban form of Barcelona. Spontaneous restructuring to utilize spaces has resulted into some developed parts like new city. Sometimes these developed parts have failed to provide any apparent connection to the overall functionality of the city. In addition, the older parts as well as under utilized or of leftover areas are still existent (Berry and Greal, 1995) with an appearance of poverty and decay hand in hand with the new architectural works those represents a rich and. dazzling impression. Therefore, Barcelona has gradually become a multiple cities in one city (Lasarte et. al., 1996).

Mobility and accessibility

Traditional narrow streets with monotonous facades have been replaced by vibrant pedestrian streets (Example - La Rambla) along with modem and high tech transport facilities to connect the city and city suburbs (Berry et al., 1995). Also, roads have been built to connect it to other regions of Spain and Europe to increase accessibly through better mobility. Nevertheless, increased mobility has led to a Barcelona that has more cars and more traffic congestion than ever before. At the same time, inter regional and international connectivity has surprisingly affected the accessibility within the inner city. For example, only 2% of the area of metropolitan region has average accessibility to the rest of the area equal to or over than 60 minutes. In addition, 44% residential areas force the local residents to walk more than 500 meter to catch a local train or bus (Marshall, 2004).

Urban Sprawl

By the application of the 1976 PGM a degree of control over the growth has been imposed on 17 municipalities of Barcelona region but the rest of the municipalities have been almost out of control. As a result, general trend for the whole Barcelona metropolitan region has been an outward expansion of the metropolitan region, with the most rapid discontinuous growth occurring in the fringe. The area of urban sprawl in the region between 1972 and 1986 has been 20, 000 hectares but that figure has doubled in 1986 (Albert, nd.).

Figure 2: Urban sprawl in Barcelona

(Source: Albert, nd.)

Cheaper land value in urban fringe has led to considerable investment in land and housing by developers (Carbo', 2002 cited in Rocaa et. al, nd). Moreover, the industries in the territory and infrastructures and facilities there to make the territory usable resulted into new compositions of immature, scattered and small areas of urban nature in the entire periphery of Barcelona municipality (figure 3).

Figure 3: Development of urban area in Barcelona and its region

(Source: Barcelona City Council, 1992)

New urban Image

New buildings, open spaces with iconic land marks, green corridors along the roads, gardens and similar developments have radically changed the image of the city and the city appearance, This is fact that ongoing transformation is unavoidable to enter in the competitive world market. However, this new image of the city on many occasions does not match the long history and tradition of Barcelona. For example, 22@ industrial area has carefully refurbished by keeping old facades and chimneys but the changes that has taken place can merely be compensated by keeping only chimneys to represent the long history that has been hosted in Pablenou(old name of22@ area), Therefore, planners of Barcelona are finding themselves into a new challenge to add new in a city that has a glorified past.

Design dimension of Planning

It must be admitted that on many occasion, planners and designers have managed to attain the market led objectives by revitalizing the city through design led planning approach in a city that is mostly dominated by architects rather than planners. Domination of urban design has truly converted Barcelona to an urban design lab, a lab where experiment turns into reality instantly. So, in many cases social and economic consideration has been ignored. For example, open spaces are generated in Barcelona to promote more public activities adding land marks and designs but in the long run these places are becoming shelters for illegal immigrants and for the urban poor or overnight accommodation of many destitute.

Environment

The development fever of Barcelona has imposed new threats to the local as well as global environment. High energy consumption, increasing traffic congestion, car dependency, waste generation and decay of existing green spaces are new planning challenges. Moreover, Barcelona is more polluted than ever because only within two decades the green house gas emission has increased to 27% and contribution to climate change in global context has also dramatically increased. The ecological footprint has also increasing in Barcelona (3.25 hectare/ person) (Marshall, 2004). Therefore, planners of Barcelona may have to pay the cost of environmental degradation that has been caused by the market led development approach.

Deterioration of participatory planning

Large scale plans like Olympic Plan, Forum 2004, 22@ increasingly undermining the participatory approaches with more and more emphasis on the potential entrepreneurs and future customers of the city. Although the power of planning is enjoyed by a few top officials (Marshall, 1996), these officials like city mayor or planners have played positive roles till to date. However, it does not mean that dynamic roles will be played by the next generations as well. Therefore, the possibility is there that the voice of citizens groups may not be heard at the top level in near future.

CONCLUSION

Policy makers of Barcelona should be praised for their techniques and efforts for managing funding, political support and planning techniques to transform the city. New structures, activities and transportation and communication networks are in place to make sure that the city can confidently enter into the period of coming decades. Around 200 urban projects have turned depressed Barcelona to a vibrant city. However, rapid development approaches have imposed new hearths and challenges for the city. Market led approach and design based planning approach in many cases have partially resulted in to a city that have failed to fulfill the need of common people of the city and in some cases led to an unsustainable growth.

If solution to planning challenges leads to new challenges, it will not ensure sustainable revitalization. City revitalization will not be successful unless it ensures better living quality both for present and future generation of the city. The case of Barcelona is therefore a case of success in terms of becoming a global city but a case of failure in terms of its effort to ensure better living environment to the citizens. Thus, planning responses in Barcelona to solve the transformation challenges represent the good sides as well as the bad sides of neo liberal, design oriented planning practice.

REFERENCES

Albert, S., nd. Els Espais oberts en el planejament metropolita: realitats I propostes, BCC, Barcelona.

Barcelona City Council, 2004. Barcelona towards Sustainability, BCC, Barcelona.

Barcelona City Council, 1992. Pia Territorial Metropolita de Barcelona, BCC, Spain.

Berry, J. and Greal, S., 1995. European Cities, Planning Systems and Property Markets, E&FN Spoon, Lpndon.

Bohigas, 0., 1985. Reconstrucci-n de Barcelona. Madrid: Ministerio de Obras Publicas y Urbanismo, Barcelona

Butter, C., et al, 1997. European Cities in Competition, UK

Ferran, B., 1995. An Economic Analysis of the Barcelona '92 Olympic Games:Resources, Financing and impact, Barcelona

Lasarte, M., 1996. 1856-1999 Contemporary Barcelona, lnstitut d'Edicions, Barcelona

Marshall, T., 1990. Letter from Barcelona, Planning Practice and Research, Vol. 5(3), No. 25 , Taylor and Francies, UK

Marshall, T., 1996. Barcelona-Fast Forward? City Entrepreneurialism in the 1980 and 1990, European Planning Studies, Vol 4, No 2.Taylor and Francis, UK

Marshall, T., (ed.), 2004. Transforming Barcelona, Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, UK

Rocaa, J., et. al., nd. Monitoring Urban Sprawl Around Barcelona's Metropolitan Area with the Aid of Sattellite image, Spain

www.aviewoncities.com explored on January 1, 2006

www.bcn.es explored on January l, 2006