Barcelona City Council Research Articles

Optimizing Assistive Technology Operations for Aging Populations

The combination of increasing life spans and low birth rates is accelerating the pace at which the share of older adults in the population worldwide is rising. As people age, their autonomy tends to decrease which leads frequently to the need to use support equipment to perform their daily living activities. Governments, at all levels, are establishing programs to enable this population to live with dignity at home, receive more proper care, and to participate in all life’s activities in a joyful and independent way. Within these programs, we can find the Assistive Technology (AT) organizations that makes available to the population assistive technology equipment as wheelchairs or hospital beds. These organizations collect and store donated products for lend them to needed users. The management of these products’ flow, the location of the access centers, and design of the transportation schemes is not straightforward, due to several complexities, such as a highly uncertain demand and offer, budget limitations, and restricted availability of human resources within the organizations, most of which are volunteers. In this paper, we analyze the AT operations, based on a Circular Economy perspective, and we develop tools that can help the managers of these programs to make better logistics decisions. These tools are based on mathematical models and efficient algorithms that have been developed to solve location, inventory, and routing operational problems in the AT organizations. We have been inspired by the social program of the Barcelona City Council, Banc del Moviment, but the tools can be used and extended to other programs around the world.

Challenges in strategies for socioeconomic democratization. Assessing solidarity economy policies in Barcelona

ABSTRACT To understand how policies for the social and solidarity economy can contribute to economic democratization and identify the challenges linked to this, we examined the impetus plan which Barcelona city council implemented between 2016 and 2019. Based on semi-structured interviews with policy actors, social entrepreneurs and engaged activists, and on participative observation of two city council assessment workshops, we explore the limitations of the social and solidarity sector from a political economy perspective. Barcelona's approach has previously been acknowledged as an outstanding and innovative strategy that confronts the lack of transversality across public administrations and the complexities around co-construction within the social sector itself. In this examination, we observe how sector actors address issues of cultural tensions around economic thinking and stress the need for a plural and transformative approach towards economic activity. We conclude that, to couple social and solidarity economy policies with economic democratization goals and enable tracking of changes in cities’ socioeconomic governance, it is necessary to work with an integrative perspective that takes into account other policy fields besides social entrepreneurship, and other types of actors, while also considering the connections between public bodies and the social and solidarity economy sector.

The Role of Local Government in the Drive for Sustainable Development Public Policies. An Analytical Framework Based on Institutional Capacities

The role of local governments in promoting policies to combat climate change is critical. In order to play this role, local administrations must have different capacities that allow them to analyze, manage and transform their environment through public policies. This article aims to contribute to the academic debate on the role of local governments in the articulation of climate change policies and sustainable development. The proposal combines a conceptual and analytical contribution, which is illustrated by means of a case study analysis. At the conceptual and analytical level, the article proposes a review of the contributions from the perspective of public policies and organizational management models in order to introduce an analytical framework based on four capacities: strategic, analytical, managerial and collaborative. This framework is developed based on the design of a strategy to measure the existence of these capabilities in a given local government by means of specific indicators. This analytical framework is applied through a case study of Barcelona City Council and its policies to combat climate change and promote sustainable development. The results of the analysis highlight the importance of the combined action of the four management capacities mentioned as a precondition for the articulation of this type of policies at the local government level.

Exploring the strategic communication of the sharing city project through frame analysis: The case of Barcelona sharing city

The term ‘sharing’ has become popularized in academic and practitioner circles. Recently, the concept of the sharing city has emerged. However, there is no homogenous global discourse about the sharing city. This could lead to very diverse interpretations of what the sharing city is and how it should be implemented. This study explores how the sharing city project is understood and strategically communicated by the municipality of Barcelona. A frame analysis of 67 documents published in the Barcelona City Council website during 2015–2018 has been used. Additionally, documents about strategies, plans and public policies related with Barcelona Sharing City were taken into account. Municipality's initiatives in relation to the sharing city spread across eleven areas including education, housing, entrepreneurship among others. Using the prognostic, diagnostic and motivational framings, it is found that the municipality aims i) to promote the sharing city as the combination of a top-down approach and citizen participation, ii) to constitute the notion of sharing as an opportunity for the city's future iii) to generate trust towards the local administration presenting it as an agent for the city's change. Also, the notion of sharing and sharing economy are explored in the case of Barcelona sharing city.

Nicarbazin has no effect on reducing feral pigeon populations in Barcelona.

Nicarbazin is an anti-coccidial product sometimes used as a contraceptive to reduce the size of feral pigeon populations. However, its effectiveness in reducing pigeon population size in cities has caused some controversy. Here, we evaluate its effectiveness in the city of Barcelona. In 2017, the Barcelona City Council set 23 feeding stations with nicarbazin and ten with placebo (untreated corn). Censuses were undertaken before and after one year of treatment, within a 200-m radius around each feeder. We also censused 28 circles of 200 m radius distributed randomly 200 m from the feeders and 28 circles > 500 m from the feeders, which acted as controls. Population size across the whole city was also evaluated pre- and post treatment. We found that feral pigeon density did not change after one year of treatment, either in the circles around feeding stations with nicarbazin or in the areas around control stations at 200 and > 500 m from the feeders. Population size in placebo circles rose after a year by 10%. A pigeon census for the whole of Barcelona showed a 10% increase. Overall, our results indicate that the nicarbazin treatment had no effect on feral pigeon population size, and we advise against its use as a pigeon control method, at least in large cities.

Natura et urbis in the socio-educational renovation of Barcelona City Council (1909–1933)

ABSTRACT During the first third of the twentieth century, Barcelona turned into a metropolis with emerging industry. To confront the growing social problems, Barcelona City Council undertook a renovating educational programme focused on hygienic and natural principles as well as on new active teaching methodologies and progressive education. Thus, a completely parallel network of institutions was created alongside the public schools – school camps, day trips to the beach, open air schools, etc. – that aimed at improving the living situation of children, most specifically via the promotion of direct contact with nature. At that time, Barcelona City Council disseminated information widely regarding all these initiatives with the publication, between 1909 and 1933, of around 70 illustrated brochures. The main aim of this article is, using these publications, to present the discourses that were disseminated and built up around the idea of nature and to understand how this relates to the urban environment.

Capacidades analíticas y gobernanza de datos en la administración pública como paso previo a la introducción de la inteligencia artificial

In order to face the challenges associated with the so-called revolution 4.0 and the digital transformation, it is critical to rethink the capacities that public organizations have. Among these capacities, those associated with management and data analysis stand out. The article aims to provide evidence and reflections to this debate, both at a theoretical and applied level. To this end, a conceptual framework is developed through two key approaches: that of analytical capacities, focusing on the organizational and systemic level, and that of data governance. With the integrated analytical framework, the case study of Barcelona City Council is carried out. This case includes different initiatives that provide evidence and arguments both on the achievements and on the unresolved challenges. The main findings that arise from the analysis are the importance of the strategy associated to a political and managerial leadership, as well as the relevance of the organizational configuration and the establishment of roles and responsibilities of the different actors involved. Additionally, the need to establish new models of relationship with the environment to generate shared institutional intelligence, associated to open learning and innovation processes, is highlighted. The conclusions highlight the validity of analytical schemes that integrate data governance with the development of analytical capacities that allow public administrations to face of future challenges. At the applied level, lessons learned are provided in relation to the organizational leadership of the transformation processes of public organizations. A special attention is given to the design of the central data governance unit which combines centralization at the conceptual and strategic level and the decentralization at the operational level, involving both internal and external actors.

Cartography and Urban Planning: The City Plan of Barcelona by Miquel Garriga i Roca (1856–1862)

ABSTRACTDue to the passing of Spanish laws that promoted the creation of urban cartography and the need to redevelop an overcrowded city, the Barcelona City Council commissioned the architect Miquel Garriga i Roca in 1856 to create a municipal plan. During the following six years he compiled what is known as the Plan of Barcelona, a collection of cartographical documents that depicts with unprecedented levels of detail how Barcelona appeared right after the demolition of the city walls. This paper explains how and why the maps were commissioned, how they were made, and the resultant cartographical output.

Sobre arquitectura (en el pabellón de Barcelona). La exposición como forma de investigación

Mies van der Rohe was thinking about architecture when in 1929 he designed the German Pavilion for the Barcelona World’s Fair, a building that set out to portray the new Weimar Republic. Without a programme as such, and with hardly any time, its ultimate purpose was to showcase itself as the culmination of a previously dormant research project studying a series of exhibition stands for German industry. It was a temporary museum for a new genre of architecture that depicted the myth of “permanent void” once it was disassembled, with fourteen images considered as examples of a new spatial arrangement. Barcelona City Council was thinking about architecture when it decided to reconstruct the Pavilion in the 1980s, while each year a call is made out to architects and artists to think about architecture by holding a series of temporary installations, highlighting the paradoxical value of the exhibited exhibitor and the (in)visible void ABOUT the key characteristics that (un)define it.

Mapping the History of a Territory: Bon Pastor (Barcelona) – Social Remembrance and Heritage Project

The topic of the article are the complex stages of the formation of the Bon Pastor neighbourhood in Barcelona, and contemporary efforts to create the remembrance space system that would preserve the social memory and historical identity of the place. The author presents how the urban development plans for the district were transformed as a result of major changes in national politics, economy, and social policy, since the 1930s, through 60s and 70s, till today. The article describes the Bon Pastor Civic Memory project as an interesting example of a participatory action aimed at the preservation of local heritage.
 The implementation of the Civic Memory project was possible due to the neighbours’ initiative and their cooperation with cultural and academic institutions. The aim of this project is to mark certain points of the territory which possess historically and socially significant value, and to enhance them through public art, urban design and other implementations envisaged. The Association of residents of Bon Pastor (Barcelona) has been characterized, since 1974, for its combative and vindictive nature, at the same time as for its great capacity to launch solidarity initiatives and manage complicated processes to improve the living conditions of residents of the neighbourhood. After the struggles to obtain a health centre, the improvement of communications by metro and bus, and the constant improvement of public space, in recent years, the Association is co-managing with the Barcelona City Council, the radical transformation of the neighbourhood.
 The different phases for the remodelling of the neighbourhood, by replacing the so-called “cheap houses” with new buildings, with more spacious apartments and with better material conditions, is coming to an end and now, the possibility opens up, driven by the neighbours and the Museum of the History of the City (MUHBA) to have a metropolitan museographic space devoted to the presentation and study of the evolution of workers’ and popular housing in Barcelona.

Methodology for the Pre-diagnosis of Residential Buildings in Vulnerable Areas in the City of Barcelona

In a paradigm of raising urban economic and social inequality among south European cities, public administrations are confronted with the challenge to foster the improvement of the most deprived residential vulnerable areas. In the framework of the implementation of a building rehabilitation program on vulnerable residential neighbourhoods by the Barcelona City Council, the current research presents a technical and experimental approach on 16 of the most vulnerable areas. The aim of the study is to obtain a qualitative evaluation of the residential vulnerability as well as the identification of buildings with a most deprived physical state. The purposed methodology approaches a first pre-diagnosis of the building state and the detection of buildings that present a major need for rehabilitation actions, providing prioritization criteria. Rehabilitation is here considered from a wide and integral perspective, taking into account both socioeconomic aspects that describe the housing community and specific physic conditions of the built stock. Such methodology is complemented with the interchange of information with local actors, both from the social tissue and the neighbourhood local administration. The results of the present research provide the public administrations with the identification of data sources and a systematization of technical and social qualitative information onsite on a database, as well as the elaboration of a GIS analysis and cartography in a compendium of maps. The actualization and testing of quantitative information on specific areas provides the public administration with a set of very relevant tools in order to address specific and complex vulnerable areas and to efficiently invest public resources with the aim to improve both physical and social conditions of deprived neighbourhoods in long term.

How Relevant Are the Best Practice Projects as Strategy for Knowledge Management? Case Study of Best Practice on Social Rights Database of Barcelona City Council

Best practice databases have spread as part of the knowledge management strategies in public administration. However, research on its objectives, methodologies and impacts is still scarce. What potential and challenges does these initiatives have when trying to revalue the professionals’ knowledge and their participation? What kind of results and impact do they have? This paper builds a guide to answer these questions, identifying three key dimensions for the analysis of good-practice databases: 1) the methodology, 2) the communication of its results and 3) the impact on the people responsible for the practices. The article applies this guide to the analysis of the Best Practice on Social Rights Database of Barcelona City Council and identifies key aspects. Regarding the methodology, reliability and suitability of the practices included in the databases is still a challenge. However, there are mechanisms to ensure rigorous analysis and avoid distrust in best practices databases. Regarding the communication of results, knowledge transferability cannot be taken for granted. The kind of information to communicate is a key factor: the more contextualized and realistic (no only emphasizing positive aspects) the information is, the more possibilities of being transferred will exist. Finally, regarding the assessment and the impact of the best practice databases, this document identifies some strategies of what has been called second generation of knowledge management. It is essential to design specific mechanisms so that the best practices databases can have an impact on the learning, particularly in relation to the group of professionals involved.

Carbon footprint of tourism in Barcelona

This study evaluates the carbon footprint (CF) of Barcelona tourist activity taking into account the above 30 million visitors who visit the city every year. This study analyzes the main sources of emissions considering direct (Scope 1) and indirect emissions (Scope 2 and 3) as a consequence of energy use. This research has been carried out in close collaboration with Barcelona City Council and in the context of the new Strategic Tourism Plan for Barcelona city. The impacts of arrival and departure transport, accommodation, leisure and professional activities and Intra-urban transport from Barcelona city were all included. The total CF of Barcelona tourist activity is about 9.6MtCO2eq/year, which represents an emission of 96.9 kg CO2eq/visitor·day. The main source of emissions is arrival and departure transport (95.6%), and particularly aviation. These results show that if substantial reductions in CO2 emissions are to be achieved, initiatives strategically focused on transport and also accommodation are necessary.

Las administraciones locales como vigilantes del cumplimiento de la Ley de Transparencia por las entidades sin ánimo de lucro. Análisis del caso del Ayuntamiento de Barcelona

The application of the new obligations established by the Transparency Law to certain non-profit organisations presents operational challenges for effective monitoring and control. However, for these organizations to gain the confidence of its stakeholders and to fight inefficient management, transparency is essential. This article presents a case study of the organisations that have received grants or public subsidies to the Barcelona City Council in 2016 are obliged to comply with the Law of Transparency of Catalonia. The principal aim is to determine if the organisations to which it grants subsidies are included among those that are subject to this legal requirement and if they really meet those requirements in order to allow the accountability of citizens. To evaluate transparency the TransparEnt project is used. This is an own and proven methodology based on a series of indicators that evaluate the quality and transparency of the information. Therefore, there is no legal analysis of the Transparency Law, nor an assessment from this perspective, but we start to establish indicators based on the Transparency Law, to evaluate the information displayed on the websites of the organisations. The principal results show the difficulties of the Barcelona City Council to correctly monitor the transparency of the organizations. The conclusions propose the creation of shared resource structures and the reinforcement of training and awareness strategies to overcome the lack of tradition, knowledge and resources that both non-profit organisations and local public administrations suffer from.

Sowing Resilience and Contestation in Times of Crises: The Case of Urban Gardening Movements in Barcelona

Urban gardens have been observed to multiply in response to crises. However, the meaning and motivations behind the emergence of gardening movements varies greatly over space and time. In this paper we argue that bottom up urban gardening initiatives taking place in Southern European countries in form of land occupation and communalization represent forms of resistance that enhance social cohesion and collective action in times of need. Specifically, this research examines the role of urban gardens in (i) building community resilience and (ii) articulating forms of resistance and contestation to development pressure and commodified urban lifestyles. Our research is based on data collected among 27 urban gardening initiatives in Barcelona, Spain, including 13 self-governed community gardens and 14 public gardens. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews with gardeners and with staff from the Barcelona City Council. Our results show mechanisms through which urban gardens can contribute to build resilience by nurturing social and ecological diversity, generating and transmitting local ecological knowledge, and by creating opportunities for collective action and self-organization. We further examine collectively managed gardens as urban commons that emerge as a form of resistance to the privatization of public urban space, and that offer opportunities to experiment with new models of urban lifestyles. We show how gardening initiatives can be seen to represent an emerging form of urban green commons that provides a suitable ground to ‘sow’ resilience and contestation in times of crises and socio-ecological deterioration.

Methodology for the Detection of Residential Vulnerable Areas – the Case of Barcelona

In a context of a shifting environmental, economic and social paradigm, European cities face a situation that is at the same time challenge and opportunity: the need for urban rehabilitation of the vulnerable degraded socio residential fabric. Public administrations in big cities and metropolitan areas are confronted with both the undercurrent need of actualization of the built stock and the rise of urban residential vulnerability. The city of Barcelona, as many others, is the result of multiple phenomena with high urban and social consequences. The socio spatial integration of immigrant population, the touristic rise and gentrification processes are current situations simultaneously taking place in the city. In parallel, a framework of economic crisis in which public investments in urban and social matters decrease, provides a temporal juncture that results into an increase of social polarization and socio economic inequality that becomes evident and expressed in the territory. This research focuses in the case of Barcelona, and presents a methodology based on a system of indicators elaborated through the exploitation of statistical data complemented with very specific data supplied by the Barcelona City Council. The accurate knowledge of socio demographic, socioeconomic and residential and urban characteristics is crucial in order to define the very complex urban dynamics that describe in the city neighbourhoods and areas. Residential vulnerability is defined as an assembly of objective conditions that relate to residential space and indicate situations of social discrimination and structural disadvantage of the population, related to a specific time and context. Thus, it is relevant to analyse the concentration of certain indicators of vulnerability in specific places or neighbourhoods, to contrast its effect on the socio-residential situation and its temporal evolution in order to identify tendencies. The present study contributes to the identification of data sources and a system to calculate the purposed indicators, the elaboration of a GIS analysis in order to determine the characterization of neighbourhoods and census sections according to each indicator, and the identification of areas with a higher degree of problematic based on synthetic analysis. A very relevant knowledge basis that can be used by public policy makers in order to establish measures that define vulnerable areas where to carry out actions that foster urban equality.

Online network organization of Barcelona en Com\xfa, an emergent movement-party

The emerging grassroots party Barcelona en Comú won the 2015 Barcelona City Council election. This candidacy was devised by activists involved in the Spanish 15M movement to transform citizen outrage into political change. On the one hand, the 15M movement was based on a decentralized structure. On the other hand, political science literature postulates that parties develop oligarchical leadership structures. This tension motivates to examine whether Barcelona en Comú preserved a decentralized structure or adopted a conventional centralized organization. In this study we develop a computational methodology to characterize the online network organization of every party in the election campaign on Twitter. Results on the network of retweets reveal that, while traditional parties are organized in a single cluster, for Barcelona en Comú two well-defined groups co-exist: a centralized cluster led by the candidate and party accounts, and a decentralized cluster with the movement activists. Furthermore, results on the network of replies also shows a dual structure: a cluster around the candidate receiving the largest attention from other parties, and another with the movement activists exhibiting a higher predisposition to dialogue with other parties.

The educational renovation of the Barcelona City Council and its photographic diffusion (1908-1936)

The educational renovation of the Barcelona City Council and its photographic diffusion (1908-1936)

La renovación escolar del Ayuntamiento de Barcelona y su difusión fotográfica (1908-1936)

Barcelona City Council’s actions in the framework of Catalonia’s educational renewal movement of the early decades of the twentieth century were very significant. They involved a series of measures to improve education, hygiene, and childcare provision, and to create schools and introduce innovative educational methods. All of these activities were promoted in a series of publications in which photography played a vital role. The aim of this article is to analyse the iconic and visual discourse that Barcelona City Council tried to disseminate regarding its schools policy and educational renewal plans using photography. In essence, we intend to examine how, through its visual message, it attempted to implant in the public imagination the main ideas behind its educational renewal project, ideas that coincided with the scientific pedagogy of those years. The historical method was used to carry out this study, working with photography as a witness. The aim is to demonstrate how preventative hygiene, physical exercise, active learning processes, the importance of the natural environment, the need for modern buildings and well-lit and ventilated schools, and attention to diversity comprised core values in the dissemination of the discourse that is the subject matter of this research.

Decision-making tool for the assessment and selection of construction processes based on environmental criteria: Application to precast and cast-in-situ alternatives

This paper presents a quantitative environmental impact assessment tool for the decision making of construction processes including structures, infrastructures and buildings by means of an Environmental Impact Index (EII) to be applied at design and/or construction stages. The research is based on multi-attribute utility theory, interviews with experts representatives of the different stakeholders in construction, and an analysis of fifty-nine European and Spanish environmental legislative acts. The resulting tool was applied to two construction alternatives for road drains (one precast and one cast-in-place). The findings show that the tool enables the prioritisation of construction processes and the selection of the best alternative in terms of environmental impact and that the results are stable to reasonable weight variations. The tool contributes to decision making in the context of project management in construction: it can help professionals in public administration, and design and construction companies. It helps to quantify the cradle-to-gate impact of construction work, which has usually been less studied than the operational impact in the life-cycle assessment of buildings. The tool is being piloted in construction projects of the Barcelona City Council.