Inspirations of Urban Planing from the Impact of Tourism on Barcelona
Name: Chun Liu Programme: Housing and Urbanism Subject: Transnational Cities
Tutor: Jorge Fiori, Elena Pascolo & Giorgio Talocci
Barcelona Model is a successful city renovation reference which transforms the post-industrial city into a multi-side development metropolitan. Tourism has been a crucial topic during the transformation invariably in the recent 30 years for Barcelona, and we can recognise its charm from the top-bottom view, attracting many tourists and investments to the city, promoting many industries' developments in Barcelona. But if we change our perspective from locals, we would realise the two-sided characteristic of the tourist industry that also caused many problems unavoidably. We could see how the government of Barcelona attempted to solve the issues, and we could also get inspiration and experience from them. Therefore, the essay will see from the view of the government's strategic planning, the point of view of local people, data, and real situations in the city, aiming to explore the advantages and disadvantages of tourism's impacts on Barcelona, to study and get inspiration from the existing planning of civic participation as supplements for the strategic planning in Barcelona.
1. Tourism as a significant part of Barcelona's strategic planning
During the epoch of the economic crisis, it seems like a miracle for Barcelona to keep promoting the economy by holding the Olympic Games in 1992, the event was also the starting point for the Barcelona government to realise the significance of attaching importance to the tourist industry. 1After the bid for the Olympic Games was announced in October of 1986, Barcelona began to follow the ambitious strategic plans to be a more well-developed metropolitan, the projects included but were not limited to the plans for mobility improvement, construction of new facilities, coastline construction, hotel plan in 1988, local culture expression, encouraging private enterprises investment of construction involvement, etc. In addition, it aims to attract people and firms from all over the world to travel and invest in the city—all of the mentioned plans more or less affected local tourism development. 2
Implementing the "Hotel Plan" encouraged the city to enhance from 118 hotels and 18,569 beds in 1990 to each number of 148 and 25,055 in 1992. and by 2000, it reached 187 hotels and 31,338 beds. The number keeps growing until now. 3
Through the planning department, the City Council ensured the continuity of a public-led urban transformation in which the private sector and other civil society sectors (Chamber of Commerce, Barcelona Fair, Business Association) followed suit. During this same period, the private sector also started to be encouraged to invest in the regeneration of the waterfront, such as real estate developers, savings banks, electricity companies, gas companies, telephone companies, and hotel owners, among others. In conjunction with new investment in large infrastructure projects, the
1 Jordi Borja and Manuel Castells, Local and Global : The Management of Cities in the Information Age, 279
2 Josep Maria Montaner, "The evolution of the Barcelona model (1973-2004)," 14 Monica Degen and Marisol Garcia, "The Transformation of the ‘Barcelona Model’: An Analysis of Culture, Urban Regeneration and Governance," 6
3 Tim Marshall, Transforming Barcelona, 40
Fig.1-3: Top: The Olympic zones in Barcelona, Source from Busquets
Middle: The coastal front under construction in 1990 and the Olympic village in late 1991, Source from Busquets
Bottom: Barcelona attraction map, Ash
City Council's economic department gains political weight and begins to exert a more substantial influence on strategic planning documents. These infrastructure constructions and collaborations between different sectors and companies are also essential for developing tourism.4
It is safe to say that today Barcelona is culturally strong and dense, thanks largely to the fact that it has placed culture at the centre of urban development through cultural policies that are committed to values, innovation, creativity and co-existence.
---Mascarell5
The urban renovation plan in 1994 firstly recognised the culture as a crucial section in promoting the city to globalisation. Cultural infrastructure is considered key to attracting conferences and tourism in the plan as a tool to develop cultural and civic associations, cultural industries, and private sponsors of urban cultural events managed by public administrations. The first cultural sector called "Institut de Cultura de Barcelona (ICUB) "was born in 1996. The culture was not given a specific function in Barcelona's development until 1999, the government also named it as "knowledge economy", and the setting of the institution was directly related to the increase in the general cost of culture. The expense of cultural activities almost tripled from 1997 to 2005. Impressive architecture, culture, and entertainment are the city's three main vital points during these cultural plans. Many attractions such as Casa Mila, Park Guell, Casa Batlló, and many other meaningful and gorgeous cultural attractions were advertised a lot. Many travellers are attracted by their unique artistic charm, so we could understand that the plan also influences tourism in tourism Barcelona.
The tourism activities constitute the promotion of a vast urban movement, doing its projects mainly based on cultural and architectural fascination, and they attracted the public and private investment and have experienced a very sharp increase in demand, which has caused it to double in ten years from 3.8 million overnight stays in 1990 to over 7.7 million in 2000. 29% of visitors came from Spain, and the rest mainly from the United States, the UK, and other European countries. The data on visiting reasons also illustrated its tourism development, business travellers accounted for more than 50% of total travellers in the early 1990s, but the proportion decreased to 36.7% while tourist travellers accounted for 43.9% in 2000. The increase in external cultural demand is complemented by a significant increase in internal demand. The Barcelona adult loves to do the leisure activities such as going to the beach, going to the movies, eating out, visit museums and exhibitions. The urban policy attempts to link the emergence of this new demand with the creation of new leisure activity centres within existing cities. 9
The 1992 Olympic Games is also one of the reasons promoted Barcelona to be a "city of trade fairs and congresses", which gave the world a wonderful international image and impression, and then attracted many travellers as well as many business resources they gathered here for trade. Various institutions and organizations are working to maintain the reputation and trying to have sixth ranking for trade fairs and congress city, and Barcelona rose up to the seventh in the world ranking of international congress cities in 1992 finally.10
6
2. Barcelona greatly benefit from tourism
The increasing economy of tourism thanks to more free time for relaxation of people from all over the world. Tourism could be recognized to be an essential point for the city transition Barcelona, generally from a manufacturing heart into a service centre. Barcelona also built new shopping centres and new office towers based on the initial infrastructure constructed by the 1992 Olympic Games, which became what Bernard Frieden and Lynn Sagalyn called "essential equipment for a first-class city".7 It is not unusual for such attractive cities to attract investment and grow rapidly.
According to Susan Fainstein and David Gladstone, tourism is also a cultural commodity, including 2 identities of material with income and creating work opportunities, and nonmaterial with changing social and economic structure and some indirect results from the industry. As a result of these symbolic consequences, urban tourist spots are created and promoted, and visitors feel their significance. Just as the dual nature of the tourist city economy mixes the material and the immaterial, it also mixes the public and private elements of building and operating tangible urban infrastructure.8
4 Monica Degen and Marisol Garcia, "The Transformation of the ‘Barcelona Model’: An Analysis of Culture, Urban Regeneration and Governance," 6
5 Monica Degen and Marisol Garcia, "The Transformation of the ‘Barcelona Model’: An Analysis of Culture, Urban Regeneration and Governance," 8
6 Ibid, 5
7 Dennis R. Judd, The Infrastructure of Play : Building the Tourist City, 34 8 Dennis R. Judd, The Infrastructure of Play : Building the Tourist City, 35
3. Tourism also caused some social problems in Barcelona
Although the over-developed tourism industry in Barcelona has obviously brought many benefits to the city, the most obvious one is attracting a large number of tourists, driving many local industries and consumption, and even improving the city's international influence. Although tourism has brought many benefits to the city, Barcelona also got a lot of visible problems.
First of all, the vast number of tourists crowded the daily living space of the locals. For example, the famous street in the El Ravel district called La Rambla was full of local people before the government developed the tourist industry in Barcelona. Still, tourists take up almost all the space in the street. Around La Sagrada Familia, the grand church which Antoni Gaudi designed, many visitors come to worship the masterpiece every day. Moreover, traffic congestion has been a longterm problem, which influences the daily commuting of local people. The noise of tourists and vehicles is also annoying.11
Secondly, the residential buildings surrounding the scenic spots face serious problems, with the number of tourists increasing every year, the local people whom original had real estate there started to transform the housing into hotels, homestays, and some tourist apartments to welcome the visitors, they made tremendous profits from that obviously, many other people started to imitate them, they rent many houses around the famous attractions, decorate them as the homestay, part of which is even illegal, and it seems very difficult for the government to deal with the unlawful tourist
9 Ibid, 3
10 Jordi Borja and Manuel Castells, Local and Global : The Management of Cities in the Information Age, 280
11 Youtube, "Bye Bye Barcelona (Full length)"
apartment. At the same time, people who live in the same building lose their neighbours as part of everyday life. Most of the tenants are young people, and they love holding parties at night, the noise disturbs other residents a lot. The community fees paid by these homestays are the same as those of ordinary citizens, but the people who rent the homestays do not treat the house as careful as the residents who originally lived here, which is also the ignorance of the protection and maintenance of the old buildings. To improve the situation, the government planned to regulate some exact districts and old buildings for specialised tourist apartments, which means the residents lost their own homes, granted that they could receive compensation from the government, they still need to follow the regulation to leave the area, a city without original inhabitants will lose its own vitality, becoming a neighbourhood or city that only considers the arrival of visitors, which just like a home with nothing but the living room, only have public space facing to the guests without private space. 12 It seems the administrations still made plans considering how to manage the city easier rather than how to plan this city for residents to live more comfortably. Also, the problem that the land and houses surrounding scenic spots increase substantially is another reason to "force" the leaving of locals.13
What's more, Local businesses gradually disappeared, overmuch tourists have crowded out the living areas of citizens. Compared with tourists, the needs of citizens have become insignificant. Many traditional shops in Barcelona are less and less visited, and they are gradually eliminated and replaced by new ones. Emerging businesses are again mainly aimed at tourists, such as souvenir shops and fast-food restaurants.14 This is a vicious circle that eventually leads to the loss of locals.
Also, the impact of Mega-project constructions could replace some citizens-oriented living patterns, the projects that were built for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics tend to displace the neighbouring areas, and the influenced districts might lose their own culture, which means the mega-projects might disperse some unique characteristics of the neighbourhood, effect travel attractiveness adversely.15
In addition, the citizens lost the Park Guell as their relaxation of the public area. Park Guell has initially been a hot place for local people to relax, but due to its publicity during the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, the park attracted unprecedented tourists, which caused locals to lose their former relaxation in the public area. In order to limit the flow of people, the government began to charge entrance fees. Only residents who live in surrounding blocks could enter for free, other locals who live far away need to register to enter the park for free at a particular time that the government determined, that they could no longer decide to enter the park freely.16 It is understandable that some indoor or private attractions limit the number of visitors with entrance tickets, but it seems not so reasonable for the same measure in public interests. If the not-free Park Guell is just the beginning, what about the coastal areas of Barcelona? The government started to develop the coastal region after the Olympic Games, which vigorously developed the economy definitely. However, from another perspective, these designed buildings could also be regarded as squeezing the space of the
12 Ibid, 11
13 Ibid, 11
14 Ibid, 11
15 Dennis R. Judd, The Infrastructure of Play : Building the Tourist City, 298
16 Ibid, 11
beach. These beaches have already been narrow and crowded, and we could see many people lying on the beach to enjoy the natural scenic spot, which shows that both locals and tourists like this public space. In case of the government wants to control the flow of people in these places, it is absurd to choose to charge or "close" the beach. It would lose the excellent experience of the local people to enjoy the life in the city and put the cart before the horse when government always thinks from the aspect of tourism.
The crime rate in Barcelona cannot be ignored as well. The crime index increased to 74.36 in the past 3 years, which is relatively high.17 And many tourists report that their things will be stolen if they are not careful. We can often see anti-theft tips on travel websites and some notices on the streets, metro stations, and restaurants. Although they steal less from locals, the thieves also cause security problems.
Although the strategic significance of Barcelona in Spain and Venice in Italy is somewhat different, they could be compared to each other slightly. Venice is a typical tourist city, some say Venice is experiencing a slow death since almost all the buildings in the developed area serve tourists, and hotels, souvenir shops, and restaurants could be found everywhere.18 Where do the locals go? When the author travelled to Venice, she found that the citizens on the island lived in the quiet streets on the edge of the city, where could be observed the daily life of local people in the area barely, with almost no supermarkets and squares. These services were concentrated in places with more tourists. Although Barcelona is different from Venice, we have already seen some above-mentioned similar phenomena stepping in "death" in Barcelona, which is not a good sign and the scenarios we do not expect to see.
4. Some further thinking from the aspect of civic involvement
We could recognise that the Barcelona government attempted to solve the problems caused by tourism, but they did not always consider the issues in creating a better living environment for the inhabitant. Both travellers and citizens are the people who have activities in the area, but the former stay temporary while the latter stay for a long time.
In fact, before the plan for Olympic Games, there was already democratic planning and civic design implemented from the period 1979 to 1985. The newly elected socialist City Council emphasized the importance of ideas from citizens in 1979, the mayor Pascual Maragall firstly put forward the concept of "social cohesion" into the Barcelona's governance, and they encouraged neighbourhoods to take part in the urban planning, the view from bottom to top is the key to participating in the urban renovation.19 But the new plan for the Olympics changed the original urban renewal model
17 Data source from NUMBEO, "Crime in Barcelona, Spain"
18 Bloomberg, "The Long, Slow Death of Venice"
19 Monica Degen and Marisol Garcia, "The Transformation of the ‘Barcelona Model’: An Analysis of Culture, Urban Regeneration and Governance," 3-5
from 1986 because the urgency of constructing Barcelona as an Olympic city became the most crucial point, and the number of infrastructure and buildings grew fastly. It is understandable that "urban planning of citizen participation" is relatively inefficient and slow when we compare it to the Olympic plan with urgency, some unavoidable ignorance of considering the locals existed. The projects during the period had to be finished within very close deadlines, and their scale became more extensive and more critical, showing the urban potential. After October 1986, projects not so related to the event, for instance, the urban park planning, became minor, and carrying out opinions by citizens seem not in the immediate interest. The City Council negotiated directly with the leading developers who could push for the massive emergency projects required by the Barcelona Olympics since then, avoiding working with smaller agencies such as neighbourhood and street committees with slower processes involved, the latter is obviously more in the public interest. 20 The projects that were built at the time show the consolidation of collaboration between the public and private sectors, but some civic problems came out as well since the government made plans from the view of bottom-up, which is temporary reasonable.
Are participatory measures a viable solution when it comes to developing urban spaces in times of crisis? According to the right-of-centre city council that came to power in Barcelona in 2011, the answer is "yes", as reflected in..."Pla Buits", whereby the city subsidises associations and other groups in exchange for developing municipally approved activities on vacant urban lots, until...better uses found for these public spaces.21
"Pla BUITS" is a civic engagement project launched in Barcelona in 2012. After the 2009 economic crisis, the old Barcelona models were called into question, including their attitude towards developing tourism, influencing the design of new public spaces and maintaining those already in use. Barcelona City Council saw an opportunity and recognised the need to work with residents, rather than only keeping their old model of decision-making practices and seeing participation as just a city meeting or a vote. Different types of local organisations and some individual citizens are actively involved in the project. They play a role in both the design and implementation phases, making it a clear example of collaborative production. The government, local organisations and citizens collaborated to renovate some of Barcelona's empty open spaces. It invites some non-governmental organisations to find specific solutions for individual cases.22 The Urban Planning Department of Barcelona held an open competition last for 4 months to see short-term management of 19 vacant cities for a period of 1 to 3 years, the results could show a better solution for the vacant lots. These city voids were initially designated in the 1976 local master plan for housing, public facilities, streets or green space, which will be evenly distributed among the 10 districts in Barcelona.23
As mentioned, the overmuch travellers in Barcelona occupied too many urban spaces Barcelona, the "Pla BUITS" plan is a project questioning for searching suitable urban areas for inhabitants, trying to find a balance between the everyday life of locals and booming tourism. In this project, the citizens are the group of people who experience the possible lifestyle and find answers, the NGOs
20 Josep Maria Montaner, "The evolution of the Barcelona model (1973-2004)," 14
21 Paula Orduña-Giró and Sébastien Jacquot, "The participatory production of temporary public spaces in times of crisis, the "Pla Buits" project in Barcelona," 1
22 Mila Gascó and Carola van Eijk, "7.1 Case Study-The Spanish Project Pla BUITS," 77-78
23 Paula Orduña-Giró and Sébastien Jacquot, "The participatory production of temporary public spaces in times of crisis, the "Pla Buits" project in Barcelona," 2
offered some growth or maintenance techniques while the government stood at the view of the observer who designed the "urban experiment".
After the observation during the competition for 1 to 3 years, the Urban Council appreciated 10 urban farm projects from the 14.24 The urban farm could satisfy residents' needs for relaxation and provide enough outdoor space for activities, the farms and gardens always bring people peace of mind, which could reduce anxieties about the unemployed situation caused by the economic crisis. During the pandemic time of Covid-19 from 2019, the urban farms and gardens also create a small public area for people to contact each other, even if they only have eye contact. The urban voids could make up a little for the fact that citizens could not live much on the streets crowded with tourists.
With the reduction of comfortable urban public spaces, "Pla Buits" might be a new era of treating public spaces in Barcelona. First, the plan is adapted to the austerity context and so represents more than a response to a shortage of economic resources. Furthermore, the project addresses the neglected use of empty spaces. It is an opportunity to test a new balance among the administration, NGOs, and locals. Rather than creating a strategy to define the collective field for urban development, the city authorities test the possibilities offered by citizens' prospects. The urban voids that were defined by old urban planning for definitive uses, or the ones that have lost their original intention, could be reconsidered and replaced by more appropriate uses that could be decided and experienced by citizens.
Conclusion
The Barcelona model changes all the time in order to adapt to different urban and civic requirements in different periods as time flows. We could observe that Barcelona has realised the importance of public participation in urban planning since the early 1980s. Then Barcelona, as an Olympic city, made the 1992 Olympics plan begin with the rapid and efficient construction of many large-scale Olympic supporting buildings and facilities. Although the relatively inefficient citizen participation in planning was cut off, it showed its construction capacity to the whole world and attracted a large number of tourists and investments. They also began to develop tourism at the time, thus significantly improving Barcelona's economic and international status; Barcelona made a successful transition from a post-industrial city wonderfully. From 1995, Barcelona made cultural and economic development policies after the Olympic Games, which also resulted in the continued outbreak of tourism and a booming economy. The residents gradually discovered that the tourism industry has been over-developed, and the administration could face the ignorance of people, receiving their suggestions of living experience and trying to solve the problems. And then, the "Pla Buits" plan was raised to encourage citizens' participation again in 2012 and try to improve the daily life of the inhabitants.
Barcelona's development has not been smooth sailing, but the Barcelona model has been a case study for many urbanists; maybe because of the Barcelona government's emphasis on citizens, and they are daring to explore new suitable urban plans worthy of study.
24 Paula Orduña-Giró and Sébastien Jacquot, "The participatory production of temporary public spaces in times of crisis, the "Pla Buits" project in Barcelona," 2-3
Bibliography: E-book
1. Tim Marshall, Transforming Barcelona. (London: Taylor & Francis Group, 2004), https://www.taylorfrancis.com/ books/mono/10.4324/9780203643969/transforming-barcelona-tim-marshall
2. Jordi Borja and Manuel Castells, Local and Global : The Management of Cities in the Information Age. (London: Taylor & Francis Group, 1997), https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aaschool/detail.action?docID=1474525
3. Dennis R. Judd, The Infrastructure of Play : Building the Tourist City. (London: Taylor & Francis Group, 1997), https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aaschool/detail.action?docID=1974465
Journal article
1. Mónica Degen and Marisol García, "The Transformation of the ‘Barcelona Model’: An Analysis of Culture, Urban Regeneration and Governance," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Volume 36.5 (2012): Issue 2, https://contentstore.cla.co.uk/EReader/Index?guid=bcf42b76-470a-eb11-80cd-005056af4099&pcid=1511111& t=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJqdGkiOiI4YTZkYTI5MS0zNmI2LTQwMDYtOTUzYS1hZjE wMmY4YmI3NTkiLCJuYmYiOjE2NTE3OTI1MzUsImV4cCI6MTY1MTc5MjgzNSwiaWF0IjoxNjUxNzkyN TM1LCJpc3MiOiJEQ1MiLCJhdWQiOiJSZWFkZXIifQ.fYXbUGCRCq1tfQDbpJGIQkKHErAGvFWcI2ras2_ dyG0&b=False
2. Josep Maria Montaner, "The evolution of the Barcelona model (1973-2004)," from Josep Maria Montaner, Critical Files. The Barcelona Model, 1973-2004 (Barcelona: Ajuntament de Barcelona, 2012), 10-24, https://issuu.com/ bcncat/docs/critical_files
3. Paula Orduña-Giró and Sébastien Jacquot, "The participatory production of temporary public spaces in times of crisis, the “Pla Buits” project in Barcelona," from metropolitics, https://metropolitics.org/IMG/pdf/met-ordunagirojacquot-en.pdf
4. Mila Gascó and Carola van Eijk, "7.1 Case Study-The Spanish Project Pla BUITS," Co-production and Co-creation: Engaging citizens in public services, 77-79 (2018), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335161162_71_Case_ Study-The_Spanish_Project_Pla_BUITS
Website content
1. Bye Bye Barcelona, "Bye Bye Barcelona (Full length)," Youtube, November 24, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watc h?v=kdXcFChRpmI&list=PL1LAu8Yd1IBiEExinECGMu74rt2RREx4q&index=2
2. Chiara Albanese, Giovanni Salzano and Federico Vespignani, "The Long, Slow Death of Venice," Bloomberg, June 30, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-06-30/venice-is-dying-a-long-slow-death
3. NUMBEO, "Crime in Barcelona, Spain," NUMBEO, accessed on May 1, 2022, https://www.numbeo.com/crime/ in/Barcelona
Table of figures:
• Cover page: Chun Liu, Barcelona, Spain, 2022
• Fig.1: Busquets, 2005, https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-Olympic-zones-in-Barcelona-SourceBusquets-2005_fig2_42318296
• Fig.2: Busquets, 2005, https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Barcelona-the-coastal-front-under-construction-in-1990and-the-Olympic-village-in-late_fig1_42318296
• Fig.3: Ash, https://barcelonahacks.com/barcelona-map/
• Fig.4-5: Chun Liu, Barcelona, Spain, 2022