Urban Neighbourhood Regeneration and Community Participation: An Unresolved Issue in the Barcelona Experience

Abstract

The urban neighbourhood regeneration in the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona (MRB), Spain, during the 1980s and early 90s provided significant good urban design outcomes, particularly its public open space production. However, this successful ‘Barcelona model’, based on an accurate morphology of the physical interventions, has masked the much less ambitious participatory processes. In general terms, Barcelona’s experience shows a significant imbalance between the quality of both the urban design proposals and the participatory process of the urban renewal. The assessment of this experience solely from a physical perspective is controversial and for this reason an integrated approach is required. This chapter intends to contribute to this holistic analysis and delves into the correlation between physical outcomes and participatory processes in the urban neighbourhood regeneration of the MRB. According to this logic, it analyses the urban renewal tools in terms of their relationship between the participatory process and the urban design quality. Specifically, we state that the inclusiveness of formal participatory frameworks doesn’t necessarily guarantee the higher civic potential of the physical outcome.