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Contemporary societies are increasingly multireligious, multiethnic, and multicultural, but to what extent are they ready for coexistence? This paper evaluates the competencies for intercultural and interreligious dialogue in two very different contexts: Barcelona and Melilla, two cities with great ethnic and cultural diversity, in which it is easy to have contact with people of different cultures and religions. To this end, we worked with a total of 1353 adolescents and young people, and four scales were used to evaluate intercultural and interreligious sensitivity, conflict management skills, and prejudices towards unaccompanied migrant minors. The findings suggest that in neither of these two contexts do adolescents and young people form relationships with these minors, despite accepting religious diversity and being educated at school in topics relating to coexistence and spirituality. In fact, participants showed a high level of prejudice towards this population. Implementation of more effective intervention programs in both cities is therefore recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an urgent need to develop a coherent political strategy to address the current crisis of care. Allocation of care through the market or the state leads to a care and democratic deficit. Organising care on the logic of the commons provides an alternative paradigm rooted in democracy and solidarity. Municipalism aims to build institutions to enable the commons; it represents a political strategy for the crisis of care at scale. In this paper we explore Barcelona en Comu 's experiments in care to build upon what has been termed 'care; municipalism'. Our case study focuses on domestic care work as a domain that reflects the core inequalities of the crisis. Through our analysis we have identified three key features of care municipalism: firstly, a feminist narrative of care; secondly, new forms of organising care and thirdly, building social infrastructures. The paper closes with a reflection on the limitations of Barcelona en Comu 's experiments in care from a perspective of the commons, before outlining a future research agenda to contribute towards more caring cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 crisis severely disrupted the lives of hospitality and tourism workers worldwide. In Southern European cities, overly dependent on the visitor economy, a substantial part of the workforce plunged into uncertainty, adding to the rising challenge of housing affordability resulting from a rapid financialisation of real estate assets over the last decade. This paper examines how interactive service workers have coped with, resisted and negotiated such augmented and double-edged precarity during the COVID-19 crisis in Barcelona. From an intersectional perspective, the study deploys an assemblage-based analysis to trace the variety of ways through which capacities for sustaining labour and securing homes emerged during the pandemic. We foreground a topology of adaptation practices and different trajectories nested to critical events to reveal the many forms in which social precarity is produced and embodied in labour and housing spaces. The research findings suggest that pre-pandemic labour and housing conditions were linked to the awkward welfare arrangements and the forms of social protection during COVID-19, which in most cases created new conditions for precarity and hopelessness. Different contingencies were coped at the margin of institutional support, nuancing emerging geographies of precarity and (re)produced through residential deprivation and embracing informality. The desire to work in the tourism and cultural sectors while imagining where and how to dwell surfaced as a controversial negotiation that affected workers unequally and foregrounded the possibility spaces of the precarious geography of tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of a smart city is still being developed despite the lack of a single universally accepted definition. It is implemented through different approaches in different cities around the world. The presented study concerns the improvement of this idea and the possibility of applying the solutions from Barcelona to the city of Kraków. This paper is based on the author's experience and observations during a trip to Catalonia and its capital - Barcelona - as well as a study of literature on the smart city. The author takes into account the specific topographical and environmental conditions of each city and the human-environment interactions that have shaped both cities over the centuries. The paper continues to focus on the challenges to smart cities following the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has demonstrated the need to modify ICT (Information and Telecommunications Technologies) applications related to the functioning of the city. Preliminary conclusions drawn from the pandemic also indicate that further development of smart cities should be based not only on ICT applications in public services and public spaces, but also on guaranteeing individual spaces for citizens to live in long-term isolation. In addition, attention was drawn to the need to improve both direct and electronic communication, especially by telephone with the authorities of Kraków, to enable "co-governance" in areas where the voice of the city's residents can be very valuable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an urbanized world, the challenges posed by climate change need to be met through innovative planning for cities and regions. Urban resilience demands that cities adopt new models centered on carbon neutrality, ecosystem services and biodiversity enhancement, circularity, and social inclusion. In light of the multiple interdependencies of metropolitan systems and the natural and territorial potentialities present on their fringes, this paper discusses the metropolitan fringes as strategic for urban resilience and sustainable transitions. By combining a mixed-method analysis of adaptation and urban plans with semi-structured interviews performed with key technicians, the analysis is focused on an inter-municipal fringe zone within the Barcelona Metropolitan Area - the Besòs territory. Aiming to contribute to the discussions related to Territorial innovation for cities and regions, the paper offers a multi-scale perspective and illustrates innovative urban transformation strategies across scales. The results highlight that governance and multiple planning and participation instances together with technical and financial support are essential for consensus building in an incremental process. Furthermore, the planning strategies of the case study sought to integrate and enhance the green and blue infrastructures and transform consolidated urban areas with a focus on energy transition, sustainable mobility, circularity, and social inclusion. In conclusion, it is argued that resilience has a multi-scalar perspective within the metropolitan context and should be integrated with planning policies at different scales from a coordinated vision. Although adaptation and urban projects have a critical local element, a broader and more strategic vision is necessary, especially in metropolitan fringe areas. • Although adaptation and resilience have an essential local element, a broader and more strategic vision is necessary. • Metropolitan planning and governance towards urban resilience must have a multi-scalar perspective. • Metropolitan fringes are key to urban resilience and sustainable transitions due to their environmental and urban attributes. • A coordinated metropolitan vision with technical and financial support is vital for sustainable urban transitions in fringe areas. • The intermediate scale is critical since it represents a bridge between supra-municipal instances and municipalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban areas are increasingly adopting the tool of urban food policies (UFPs) to address food-related challenges, especially for a sustainable transition of their food systems (FS). Indeed, FS were assessed to have a great environmental impact, and cities are recognized as privileged actors to address this challenge. More recently, the problem of justice in such transition was raised. One dimension of vulnerability proven to crosscut all FS stages, and to increase exposure to climate change effects, is gender. However, literature on just food transition and UFPs does not seem to always consider this dimension of potential vulnerability. This paper firstly elaborates on the concept of "just food transition" (JFT), then presents relevant literature on gender differences in FS to argue that interventions aimed at JFT should apply gender mainstreaming. Later, it analyzes twenty relevant cases of UFPs to assess whether they consider gender differences, with the aim of demonstrating that, although theory seems to prove its relevance, a gender mainstreaming approach is still widely lacking from policy practice and rather some policies risk to reinforce existing gender stereotypes related to the FS. The paper ends with conclusions and suggestions for further research. • Gender differences have been proven to exist throughout all stages of the food system. • Just food transition literature tends to overlook implications of gender differences. • A gender mainstreaming approach is widely lacking from urban food policies. • The urban food policies of Zaragoza and Barcelona are innovative in their attention to gender differences in urban matters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the framework of urban pedestrian networks, this paper presents a method of modeling the street network from the perspective of foot traffic, beyond the vehicle-focused street centerline representation approach in transportation research. A scalable method to extract the centerlines of the complete walkable urban area from its polygon representation at a one-meter resolution is discussed, using open-source tools. To evaluate the betweenness centrality in a spatially directed graph, the process is applied to the study of the 'walkable Barcelona', focusing on three key parameters: 1) the street width, 2) the longitudinal slope, and 3) the crosswalks connecting the sidewalk platforms. The results identify the uneven distribution of these parameters within a complex urban fabric, and the high-resolution cartography allows the identification of critical areas within the network, introducing future lines of research and applications of the workflow. This is especially relevant considering the increasing awareness of citizens and the urban agendas worldwide, aimed at improving and widening the sidewalk infrastructure that supports local activity in cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the last decade's major challenges faced by tourist cities has been dominated by the increasing tourism flows that have harmed the quality of life of residents, the neighbourhood's sense of belonging, and the stakeholders' concerns regarding reliance on tourism. However, tourism mobilities are not the only drivers of structural change in cities. The advent of temporary residents, digital nomads, international students, short-stay expats, and creative workers have shaped the way cities have evolved together with tourism mobilities. This paper will present research conducted in the Vila de Gràcia neighbourhood in Barcelona, which has undergone a thoughtful transformation in terms of tourism-oriented businesses specialisation, housing market prices, sociodemographic changes, the use of public space and nightlife leisure. Gradually, the Vila de Gràcia neighbourhood has become an emblematic area of leisure and tourism consumption experience in Barcelona. Based on ethnographic fieldwork begun in 2017 and in-depth semi-structured interviews with lifelong and new residents, the research analyses residents' attitude toward touristification processes related to social discontent, nightlife noise, the rise in housing market prices and overcrowding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) tomography (TomoSAR) has been widely used in the three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of urban areas using the multi-baseline (MB) SAR data. For urban scenarios, the MB SAR data are often acquired by repeat-pass using the spaceborne SAR system. Such a data stack generally has long time baselines, which result in different atmospheric disturbances of the data acquired by different tracks. These factors can lead to the presence of phase errors (PEs). PEs are multiplicative noise for observation data, which can cause diffusion and defocus in TomoSAR imaging and seriously affect the extraction of target 3D information. In this paper, we combine the methods of the block-building network (BBN) and phase gradient autofocus (PGA) to propose a novel phase compensation method called BBN-PGA. The BBN-PGA method can effectively and efficiently compensate for PEs of the MB SAR data over a wide area and improve the accuracy of 3D reconstruction of urban areas. The applicability of this proposed BBN-PGA method is proved by using simulated data and the spaceborne MB SAR data acquired by the TerraSAR-X satellite over an area in Barcelona, Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air pollution in urban areas poses a significant and pressing challenge for modern society. Unfortunately, the existing network of pollution detectors in many cities is limited in scope and fails to adequately cover the entire geographical area. Consequently, the implementation of spatial prediction algorithms becomes essential to generate high-resolution data. In this paper, we introduce two significant contributions: 1) We formalize the air pollution prediction problem as a Maximum A Posteriori (MAP) estimate within the framework of a Markov Random Field and 2) we propose a message-passing algorithm, which stands out as an efficient solution that surpasses the current state of the art. The experimental procedure has been carried out using the case study of the city of Barcelona, based on a dataset extracted from the BCN Open Data portal. [Display omitted] • Spatial prediction of air quality is tackled with a novel formalization and method. • The use of a Message Passing style algorithm is proposed. • The model is trained with data specific to the city of Barcelona. • The presented method outperforms other existing methods for the given problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air pollution in urban areas poses a significant and pressing challenge for modern society. Unfortunately, the existing network of pollution detectors in many cities is limited in scope and fails to adequately cover the entire geographical area. Consequently, the implementation of spatial prediction algorithms becomes essential to generate high-resolution data. In this paper, we introduce two significant contributions: 1) We formalize the air pollution prediction problem as a Maximum A Posteriori (MAP) estimate within the framework of a Markov Random Field and 2) we propose a message-passing algorithm, which stands out as an efficient solution that surpasses the current state of the art. The experimental procedure has been carried out using the case study of the city of Barcelona, based on a dataset extracted from the BCN Open Data portal. [Display omitted] • Spatial prediction of air quality is tackled with a novel formalization and method. • The use of a Message Passing style algorithm is proposed. • The model is trained with data specific to the city of Barcelona. • The presented method outperforms other existing methods for the given problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current urban and transport planning practices have significant negative health, environmental, social and economic impacts in most cities. New urban development models and policies are needed to reduce these negative impacts. The Superblock model is one such innovative urban model that can significantly reduce these negative impacts through reshaping public spaces into more diverse uses such as increase in green space, infrastructure supporting social contacts and physical activity, and through prioritization of active mobility and public transport, thereby reducing air pollution, noise and urban heat island effects. This paper reviews key aspects of the Superblock model, its implementation and initial evaluations in Barcelona and the potential international uptake of the model in Europe and globally, focusing on environmental, climate, lifestyle, liveability and health aspects. We used a narrative meta-review approach and PubMed and Google scholar databases were searched using specific terms. The implementation of the Super block model in Barcelona is slow, but with initial improvement in, for example, environmental, lifestyle, liveability and health indicators, although not so consistently. When applied on a large scale, the implementation of the Superblock model is not only likely to result in better environmental conditions, health and wellbeing, but can also contribute to the fight against the climate crisis. There is a need for further expansion of the program and further evaluation of its impacts and answers to related concerns, such as environmental equity and gentrification, traffic and related environmental exposure displacement. The implementation of the Superblock model gained a growing international reputation and variations of it are being planned or implemented in cities worldwide. Initial modelling exercises showed that it could be implemented in large parts of many cities. The Superblock model is an innovative urban model that addresses environmental, climate, liveability and health concerns in cities. Adapted versions of the Barcelona Superblock model are being implemented in cities around Europe and further implementation, monitoring and evaluation are encouraged. The Superblock model can be considered an important public health intervention that will reduce mortality and morbidity and generate cost savings for health and other sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last three decades, the most populated Spanish cities have experienced significant spatial, social, and economic changes. The new urban economies have played an essential role in the acceleration of such transformations, entailing a range of both positive and negative impacts at the spatial, social, economic, and environmental levels. This paper presents a quantitative analysis of how the advancement of the globalization and deindustrialization processes has encouraged social polarization in the cities of Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia, as well as a significant increase in intra-urban socioeconomic residential segregation. The article concludes by arguing that the increase in levels of social inequality and residential segregation reflects the trend towards polarized urban models, which reproduce in urban space the differences observed in the social structure. • Large Spanish cities have experienced significant changes due to globalization and deindustrialization processes. • The advancement of structural processes has led the emergence of a polarized occupational that tends towards greater wage inequality. • Social inequality has become a structural phenomenon in Spanish global cities • Residential segregation has increased due to the gentrification and touristification of urban centres and the suburbanization of poverty. • This dynamic indicates the emergence of polarized urban spaces, which reproduce in the territory the differences observed in the social structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Worldwide, one of the most important causes of mortality is air pollution. To solve this problem, governments have implemented policies to reduce on-road and industrial emissions. In this regard, the Barcelona city council and Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB) started implementing the Nova Xarxa de Bus (NXB) to redefine the bus network following the criteria of connectivity, efficiency, and rationality. This policy was implemented in seven phases from 2012 to 2018. In this context, this paper analyses the impact of this policy on Barcelona's air quality using a dataset from 2008 to 2016. Using a difference-in-difference approach, we show that implementing these new routes increased air quality in Barcelona. Additionally, we show that pollution decreased in each phase analysed, especially in the air quality stations near the main roads. From our results, we can infer that an optimal bus route design can improve air quality in urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite growing public opposition, megaevents such as the Summer Olympics continue to proliferate both in the Global North and South, thus reshaping the built environment of cities and the living conditions of their inhabitants. This paper presents a novel analytical tool that expands the perspectives from which to explore urban megaevents. Building on the controversy among megaproject scholars around Albert Hirschman's Hiding Hand principle, we study the diverse roles that optimism can play in the justification, planning, implementation, and evaluation of megaevents. This approach has the potential to unveil key urban policy agendas underpinning the hosting of megaevents. It does so by focusing on two key aspects: first, the various types and degrees of power exercised by the involved stakeholders in their attempts to justify and support or oppose an event during the planning phase, and second, the coping mechanisms deployed by the promoters as they face unexpected constraints during the implementation phase. In doing so, the approach can help to develop more nuanced and context-specific criteria for evaluating the success of megaevents. We exemplify the approach by using the 1992 Barcelona Olympics as an illustrative case study. • The Hiding Hand controversy provides a framework for the analysis of urban megaevents. • We use the Barcelona 1992 Olympics as case study to illustrate the framework. • Sincere and strategic overoptimism play diverse roles throughout a megaevent lifecycle. • The analysis exemplifies the context-dependence of the notions of success and failure. • Sincere and strategic overoptimism typically operate in tandem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper incorporates an explicit mobility dimension into the definition of the neighbourhood and explores its possible implications for the study of spatially distributed phenomena. We analysed the distribution of robbery and theft in Barcelona, Spain, as a testing application. Crime data were aggregated to nonoverlapping units (census tracts) and to a new measure of overlapping neighbourhoods, that we named 'walkhoods', accounting for the distance that can be covered in 5 min at a walking speed of 1 m/s, considering all possible physical barriers. The outcomes of regression models shed new light on the relationship between mobility and crime. When the walkhood scale is established, human mobility patterns have a stronger effect on the outcome variables than when census tracts are used. Results point to walkability constraints and social distances imposed by the massive presence of sporadic users in public spaces as strong predictors of crime occurrence, arguably due to their negative effects on neighbourhood social ties formation. Our findings suggest that more flexible definitions of the neighbourhood could address the social and spatial heterogeneity of urban spaces more properly than traditional approaches. • We propose a new measure of the neighbourhood as a function of walkability. • We called it walkhood and used to study the distribution of crime in Barcelona. • Crime is highly dependent on the concentration of sporadic visitors in public space. • The walkhood is equipped to address the spatial and social heterogeneity of cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the growing interest in transparency policies and, concomitantly, the need to include a gender perspective in analysing the actions of public authorities, the intersection of both fields has attracted limited attention from the research community. The scarce contributions to this topic do not provide a framework that supports an empirical examination of institutional transparency and gender, and therefore, the implementation of these policies remains unexplored. This paper contributes to the debate on institutional transparency and gender perspective by developing an index of gender inclusion in transparency policies based on the information available on official local government websites, and by identifying and analysing factors that drive variations in the municipal councils. The research focuses on the municipalities of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (MAB) and includes other cities for comparative purposes. The findings indicate that the number of inhabitants of the municipality, the presence of women in its political bodies and institutional factors, and particularly the volume of the budget, are positively associated with the incorporation of a gender perspective on institutional websites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Located between Marseille and Barcelona, Montpellier is one of the most attractive cities of the Mediterranean coast. It has more than 460,000 inhabitants and grows by 7,500 more inhabitants every year. This is largely due to its positive image and its freshly constructed neighbourhoods "Antigone" and "Port‐Marianne." From the late 1970s, the municipality's strategy was to organise the urban sprawl to the east and then towards the sea in the south of the city. The Lez, a small coastal river, well known for its spectacular flash floods, was the spine of this new urban growth. Internationally renowned architects and planners have been recruited to build these new "green" neighbourhoods (in French "éco‐quartiers") located on lands that used to be flooded regularly. This urban policy is largely due to the Montpellier's former mayor Georges Frêche and his deputy, the geographer Raymond Dugrand. The "urban planning" concept, or "urban design" projects, have largely been used by the local experts and officials to describe this development, but seem to be misused in this case. It has being mostly a political city‐project, still having the same objective as more than 30 years ago: to turn Montpellier towards the seaside. This paper will return to the strategy used at that time and, in retrospect, all the interrogations that have followed in terms of sustainable development and flood risk management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a framework for performing automatic analysis of Land Use Zones based on Location-Based Social Networks (LBSNs). We model city areas using a hierarchical structure of POIs extracted from foursquare. We encode such structures in kernel machines, e.g., Support Vector Machines, using a new Tree Kernel, i.e., the Hierarchical POI Kernel (HPK), which can take the importance of the individual POIs into account during the substructure matching. This way, HPK projects structures in the space of all their possible substructures such that each dimension corresponds to a semantic structural feature, weighted according to the discriminative power of POIs. We generated four different datasets for the following cities: Barcelona, Lisbon, Amsterdam and Milan, where we trained and tested our models. The results show that our approach largely outperforms previous work and standard baseline built on simple features, such as counts of different POIs. Finally, we apply a mining algorithm to extract the most relevant features (tree fragments) from the implicit TK space according to the weights the kernel machine assigned to them. Our approach can produce an explicit set of representative features that can be used to classify and characterize urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on participant observation and interviews conducted in Barcelona during 2017 and 2018, this article presents the case of the citizen participation process «Rethink the 22@» as an inspiring public policy for civic deliberation. While there are several studies which explore citizen participation as a complement to governance in representative democracies, there is still very little research looking at the implementation of the deliberative processes and even less focussed on urban planning. This paper seeks to contribute to this vacuum. In the decade of the 90’, the emergence of «global cities» restricted urban governance to the interests of capital investment. In the 2010s’ a factual combination of the collapse of the real estate market and the emergence of the 15M provided a fertile ground for the implementation of direct democracy activities. In 2017, the Barcelona City Council approved a new Regulation for Citizen Participation which promotes the deployment of participatory processes. Within this regulation «Rethink the 22@» is the only participatory process dedicated to urban planning. This article considers this process to be a relevant reference due to its quantity and plurality of participation, for its deliberative methodology, and for its urban extension and multiplicity interests involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standardized heavy rainfall profiles may contribute to a best knowledge concerning flash floods, ground erosion and runoff. Taking advantage of the rain rate gauges network of Barcelona city and applying a short integration time of 5 min, the heavy rainfall records with amounts above 25 mm and longer than 60 min have been selected along 15 years, being detected 499 records corresponding to 67 episodes. The amount distribution of these records are analysed at time deciles. By grouping these standardized rainfall profiles according to their similarity by means of the average linkage clustering algorithm, 10 clusters are derived, each one of them characterized by different time evolution of rainfall. The representative standardized rainfall profiles for every one of the clusters, together with maximum 5-min rain amounts and rainfall amounts characterizing them, permit to distinguish rainfall patterns. In addition, the extreme heavy rainfalls which may lead to flash floods are identified, as also their respective synoptic situations. In short, this analysis offers a description of heavy rainfall patterns in Barcelona city, complementing previous papers on the normalized intensity curves and 5-min intensity return periods. These heavy rainfall analyses would be very useful when designing drainage and sewerage systems in urban areas as Barcelona, where flash floods may be expected due to episodes of notable rainfall amount and intensity. The imperviousness density of the soil and an appropriate sewerage structure should be adapted to mitigate the effects of these copious and intense episodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combination of satellite direct reception and terrestrial 5G infrastructure is essential to guarantee coverage in satellite based-Internet of Things, mainly in smart cities where buildings can cause high power losses. In this paper, we propose an accurate and fast graphical method for predicting the satellite coverage in urban areas and SatCom on-the-move scenarios. The aim is to provide information that could be useful in the IoT network planning process, e.g., in the decision of how many terrestrial repeaters are really needed and where they should be placed. Experiments show that the shadowed areas predicted by the method correspond almost perfectly with experimental data measured from an Eutelsat satellite in the urban area of Barcelona. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Barcelona as a paradigmatic case, the aim of this paper is to explore the ways in which contestation organised by sublocal grassroots movements in the context of the current urban crisis operates, both in terms of content and form of protest. Our thesis is that resident mobilisation in the neighbourhood of Ciutat Meridiana is expressive of a new cycle of (urban) social mobilisations in Spanish cities. In such mobilisations, more or less spontaneous initiatives which emerged to counteract the effects of the crisis at the community level are simultaneously serving as platforms for reciprocity and political contestation. Establishing a dialogue with the literature on social innovation, in this paper we claim that these micro-local urban practices are linked to broader social movements and thus play a fundamental role in the political empowerment of citizens living in highly segregated and vulnerable urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the organisation chart of the Taula de Canvi of Barcelona, from its inception in 1401 until the end of the 15th century. More specifically, it takes a look at the officers who worked in the bank during that period of time, in order to establish what their roles were and how that roles evolved over the 1400s. Likewise, the changes documented in their number and salaries are analysed, both aspects closely connected to their labor-related claims to the municipality. Al last, some of the main problems that affected the correct functioning of the Taula during that century are also shown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid growth of cities in recent decades has unleashed several challenges for urban planning, which have been exacerbated by their aging population. Among the most pressing problems in cities are those related to mobility and environmental quality, by which a global concern has flourished around enhancing pedestrian accessibility for both environmental and health-related reasons. To tackle this issue, this paper presents a new framework that combines multi-objective optimization with a graph model that aims to support urban planning and management to enhance age-friendly cities. The framework allows designing urban projects that improve accessibility and reduce noise and/or air pollution through the installation of urban elements (ramps and escalators, elevators, acoustic and vegetation panels), while considering the overall economic cost of the installation. To explore the trade-off between these objectives, we resort to multi-objective evolutionary algorithms, which permit to compute near Pareto-optimal interventions over the graph model of the urban area under study. We showcase the applicability of the proposed framework over two use cases in the city of Barcelona (Spain), both quantitatively and qualitatively. Results evince that the framework can help urban planners make informed decisions towards enhancing urban accessibility and the environmental quality of age-friendly cities. • Improvement of urban accessibility and environmental quality is formulated as a multiobjective optimization problem. • A framework using graph modeling and multiobjective metaheuristics is used to efficiently solve the formulated problem. • Results over two scenarios in the city of Barcelona (Spain) are examined quantitatively and qualitatively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent times, the emergence of coworking spaces (CSs) has changed not only the way workers cooperate, but also how they carry out their activities. This phenomenon, limited mainly to urban areas, has spread heterogeneously across cities. The paper focuses on the location of CSs in Barcelona, Warsaw and Utrecht, three European cities that differ in terms of the typology of creation of these workspaces. In the three analysed cities, CSs are mainly private initiatives, although in Barcelona they are developed by small entrepreneurs, while in Warsaw they are developed by large multinational CS chains. Using K-density (Kd) functions and density maps, we contribute to the empirical literature by identifying how CSs coagglomerate with the service sectors, how CSs are concentrated in core areas of each city and how these factors differ between cities, taking into account the typology of CSs. We found that the CS location and coagglomeration depend on the spatial structure of the city and its development model; therefore, policymakers should take this into account in order to implement appropriate policy measures to attract CSs • CSs agglomerate differently in cities with different levels of urban hierarchy and reveal different CSs location strategies. • The coagglomeration of CSs with Knowledge Intensive Services (KIS) and symbolic knowledge base firms has been confirmed. • Market and high tech KIS with CSs build an urban entrepreneurial ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2005 Barcelona passed an Ordinance to ‘promote and guarantee peaceful coexistence in the city’. This put an end to five months of a political race against the clock. In those weeks, incivility made it to the government’s political agenda and the proposal was drawn up, discussed, amended and finally passed, generating a heated political debate, capturing the attention of the media and articulating a change of course in the government’s approach to community safety and urban disorder. This paper traces back the political and policy process of the Barcelona Ordinance in the context of the literature on the subject, looking at how civility and incivility were defined in this particular local context, but in light of similar processes of ‘defining up’ of deviancy elsewhere. It ends by highlighting the similarities and differences between similar processes in different countries, the policy transfer mechanisms and the active role played by cities in defining the urban security agenda in and beyond the urban sphere between the 1990s and the 2000s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tributary streams or torrents form runoff axes that are unique to the Mediterranean. They have contributed to the formation and growth of some cities. The approach in this paper is to investigate the importance of the streams in the process of urbanization in Barcelona, as well as interventions in these urban axes as public spaces. The study was conducted in two phases. The: first was a literature review and an analysis old maps obtained in the Historical Archive of Barcelona City. AHCB with satellite photographs and current mapping in CAD format obtained from the Cartographic Institut of Catalonia ICC. The second phase studied the characteristics of the Ramblas as emblematic streets for their design characteristics as public spaces, and from an empirical study based on the observation through field visits. The work concludes by recognizing the contribution of urban interventions carried out in the Ramblas to become one of the most emblematic streets of Barcelona. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large-scale microsimulations are increasingly resourceful tools for analysing in detail citywide effects and alternative scenarios of our policy decisions, approximating the ideal of 'urban digital twins'. Yet, these models are costly and impractical, and there are surprisingly few published examples robustly validated with empirical data. This paper, therefore, presents a new large-scale agent-based traffic microsimulation for the Barcelona urban area using SUMO to show the possibilities and challenges of building these scenarios based on novel fine-grained empirical big data. It combines novel mobility data from real cell phone records with conventional surveys to calibrate the model comparing two different dynamic assignment methods for getting an operationally realistic and efficient simulation. Including through traffic and the use of a stochastic adaptive routing approach results in a larger 24-hour model closer to reality. Based on an extensive multi-scalar evaluation including traffic counts, hourly distribution of trips, and macroscopic metrics, this model expands and outperforms previous large-scale scenarios, which provides new operational opportunities in city co-creation and policy. The novelty of this work relies on the effective modelling approach using newly available data and the realistic robust evaluation. This allows the identification of the fundamental challenges of simulation to accurately capture real-world dynamical systems and to their predictive power at a large scale, even when fed by big data, as envisioned by the digital twin concept applied to smart cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper examines sound level meter errors when measuring direct fly-over aircraft noise in presence of background noise. Since the meter is unable to separate aircraft noise from background noise, an array of 12 microphones is used to measure direct aircraft noise avoiding the effect of the ground reflections and urban background noise. Using this technique, aircraft noise can be separated from the background noise providing a reference value of the aircraft sound pressure level for the sound level meter measurement. Measurement is carried out using both a sound level meter and the array in an urban environment with high background noise level near Barcelona Airport. Finally, the experimental measurement errors of the sound meter are within 1dB of the theoretical values. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A good knowledge of the hydraulic behaviour of an urban catchment and its surface drainage system is an essential requirement to guarantee traffic and pedestrian safety. In many cases, inlets have been situated according to spatial density criteria. Indeed a more rational location of inlets on urban catchments must be defined according to an accurate analysis of the relationship between street flow and inlet hydraulic efficiency. Moreover we lack specific hazard criteria in terms of the maximum acceptable flow depths and velocities on the streets that do not cause problems to pedestrians. In this paper the results of two different experimental campaigns are presented. The first was carried out to evaluate inlet hydraulic efficiency; the second was carried out to address the pedestrian stability in urban flood conditions, whose aim was to propose new hazard criteria. On the basis of the experimental results, a methodology was developed to assess flood hazard in urban areas during storm events. If a refined topographic representation of urban areas is available, a two-dimensional numerical simulation of urban flooding can be performed using complete shallow water equations. According to this approach a numerical application for flood hazard assessment in a street of Barcelona is shown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Metro and RENFE strikes increase air pollution. • Air pollution is slightly affected by bus strikes. • Effects on pollution are larger for public transports with no direct substitutes. • Metro and RENFE commuters switch to private cars when there is a strike. • FGC users switch to non-pollutant transports during strikes. Many Spanish cities' air contains excessive levels of pollutants caused by traffic. These pollutants are associated with high concentrations of vehicles in urban and surrounding areas, such as Madrid and Barcelona. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 96.8% of Spain's population breathe polluted air. This paper provides empirical evidence on the effect of public transport strikes on Barcelona's air quality through an econometric analysis. The period analyzed included 147 days of some kind of public transport strike: bus (57), metro (21), trains (71), and tram (4); and also four general strikes. The estimates show that public transport strikes increases the concentration level of SO2, CO, PM 10 , and NOX throughout the city, especially in the case of metro and RENFE trains. These results also allow us to understand how commuters substitute transport modes and to propose specific policies to increase public transport use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the relationships between urbanisation and residential water consumption, taking as a case study the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona. More precisely, it investigates the influence of certain demographic, behavioural and housing factors on this consumption using descriptive statistics and a regression analysis. The data are derived from a sample of 532 households in 22 municipalities of the study area. Results show that income, housing type, members per household, the presence of outdoor uses (garden and swimming pool), the kind of species planted in the garden and consumer behaviour towards conservation practices play a significant role in explaining variations in water consumption. It is concluded that, along with prices and incomes, further research is needed on other demographic and housing variables in order to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the determinants of domestic water consumption in areas periodically affected by water stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: One of the most controversial ideas in the debate on urban sustainability is that urban sprawl causes problems of ecological stress. This widespread assumption has been tested by measuring the ecological footprint left by commuters in the 163 municipalities of the Barcelona Metropolitan Region (BMR). This paper explores the determinants of the ecological footprint of commuting municipal variability by using the following regressors: population density, accessibility, average household income, and job ratio. The results confirm that urban form appears as the main determinant of ecological footprint variation among the municipalities of BMR. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In recent years many post-industrial cities have implemented ambitious re-imaging strategies to appeal to a variety of external audiences. This paper identifies a conceptual framework within which the effects of these initiatives on tourists' images can be understood. The framework contends that re-imaging can affect different city image components through the connotations and synecdochical images generated. The value of this framework is then illustrated by its application to the re-imaging initiatives adopted by Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. This case study reveals that the mechanisms identified in the framework are useful ways of explaining how city images are modified. It also suggests that the pursuit of image change through these processes has important implications for the general direction and outcomes of wider regeneration objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the relationship between city and affection as revealed through an investigation into the feelings and emotions of a sample of inhabitants of Barcelona and São Paulo towards their cities. A study of affection in the context of a city has its origin in the assumption that it is possible to develop an ethical-affective rationality in the creation of spaces of both public and private interest, a dimension that can serve to optimize the action of the inhabitants of a city. The theoretical/methodological approach adopted was essentially interdisciplinary, with a basis in social psychology, as can be seen in the data-gathering instrument. In order to assess the city's affective dimension, individual interviews were carried out and a questionnaire was applied to individuals in groups. In the latter subjects were asked to make a drawing representing their city and to answer some questions regarding this pictorial representation. The sample consisted of 200 subjects, half of whom were from Barcelona and half from São Paulo. Most were in the age range 18-35, undergraduate or graduate students, with females and residents of the metropolitan areas of the two cities studied being in the majority. The qualitative data were classified according to their meaning and content, using the categories that had been established in the pilot study, namely contrasts, insecurity, pleasantness, and belonging. A statistical analysis was then performed on the resulting categories. After being categorized, catalogued, and qualified by metaphors, the responses gave the following images: city of contrast, city of attraction, city of destruction, city of surprises, city of movement, and pleasant city. These images show feelings and emotions about Barcelona and São Paulo that act as representations. This presents the need to revise the affective dimension in the meaning structure of cognitive maps as proposed by Lynch. As a result, the new category of affective maps is therefore proposed, as being the category that expresses affective meanings and serves as an indication of the level of esteem for the city, two aspects that act as reference points for the involvement and participation of a city's inhabitants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expansion of accommodation establishments in an urban area might bring about a transformation to its commercial structure to meet tourists' needs. This can result in the loss of the area's identity, jeopardize its authenticity, and worsen the residents' quality of life. Yet, beyond some anecdotes which currently dominate the policy debate, no empirical evidence exists identifying which specific businesses abound around accommodation establishments. This paper proposes to fill this gap by estimating in Barcelona the degree to which each commercial sector appears to be geographically coagglomerated with the accommodation industry. Barcelona seems to be an appropriate case of study since it has already shown signs of the touristification of the commercial sector in neighborhoods that comprise most of the tourist accommodation offer. The results of this study allow identifying the particular commercial sectors that most and least coagglomerate with accommodation establishments; and show that tourism-oriented sectors tend to colocate with accommodation establishments, whereas residential-oriented ones do not follow this pattern. These results might help design policies aimed to preserve neighborhoods' identities and community resilience in tourist cities. • This study analyzes the spatial coagglomeration between tourism accommodation establishments and other commercial sectors. • A methodology from urban economics is used to study spatial patterns associated with urban tourism. • Tourist-oriented sectors tend to be coagglomerated with accommodation establishments. • Resident-oriented sectors tend to be geographically dispersed with accommodation establishments. • The results might help design urban and tourism policy to preserve neighbourhoods' identity and allow community resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The built environment can mediate or constrain the opportunities for social interaction, essential to the formation of social ties. This study uses the large inflow of immigrants in Barcelona between 1998 and 2008 to study whether the configuration of buildings and open urban areas in a block is associated with the residential segregation of immigrants—a proxy for social interaction. Based on a rich set of shape metrics, I use machine learning techniques to classify each block in Barcelona into one of eight typologies, which provide a summary measure of their built environment. I then combine these data with measures of residential segregation constructed at the building level using data on the exact address of each resident of Barcelona. The findings show that some features of the built environment of a block—as measured by the typologies—are systematically associated with reduced residential segregation of Spaniards and newly arrived immigrants in that block. • The paper uses the large inflow of immigrants in Barcelona between 1998 and 2008 to study how the configuration of buildings and open urban areas has mediated the residential segregation of immigrants. • The empirical analysis combines several geometric indicators for urban shape and uses Machine Learning techniques to create a categorical measure of urban form. • The results suggest that certain spatial qualities of the built environment are associated with the degree to which immigrants become segregated and are potentially relevant to the fields of urban design, planning, and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of the symptoms of obsolescence shown by housing estates built in the 1960–70s, numerous approaches have contributed to the debate on this urban form characteristic of functionalist urbanism. The study of open spaces—an aspect that, to a large extent, is responsible for the quality of housing estates—is still an ongoing research approach. However, fifty years after their construction, it is possible to see how its initial homogeneity has led to very different situations that are difficult to categorise. Only by addressing the specific urban processes that each housing estate has undergone will it be possible to promote conservation and regeneration strategies that are suitable for each case. This paper aims to develop a methodology that will help to offer a diagnosis of the urban quality of housing estates. The approach is based on urban morphology from a diachronic perspective, since the transformation processes are assessed from the initial situation to the present one. Through the basic elements that define the urban form the proposed methodology works with nine 'physical' variables. The specific analysis provided by the methodology helps in the definition of regeneration strategies for open spaces. The methodology was tested for three case studies in Spanish cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]