The Life-Sized City - Barcelona
The return of our Screenings & Discussions online events
Our winter series of Life Sized City screenings and discussions started in Barcelona – we chose this episode for its parallels with York around housing and gentrification, and tourism. As with all these films it included input from local politicians and professionals and many local activists – many of them involved in creating change by simply getting on and doing good stuff.
The film explored some of the housing and planning issues and innovations – the Superblocks, where traffic interventions give street space back to people and especially children. And the historic neighbourhood of La Barceloneta – largely avoiding pressures of gentrification in part thanks to small apartments of around 30m2 – “not easy to gentrify”. There was the sound of birdsong in the urban streets – we discussed this later and wondered whether we habitually dial out urban sounds – it was suggested some of us are tuned in to things like birdsong, but most of us miss it (the peregrine falcons near the Minster are a niche interest!). There was a question about what would make the city more liveable – “fewer cars and more social housing” – probably something that applies in York too.
A central chunk of the film explored the Can Batlló complex – a former industrial site which had been rescued from dereliction by local people simply heading over the wall and opening it up to use – food, arts, all sorts of culture including a circus skills school set up in a big shed which looked like a close cousin of the Foundry buildings on York Central. We touched on Spark in York as being in this tradition of bringing creativity to land or buildings – as “meanwhile” use but often in the fairly long term.
We discussed the differences between citizen action in the film and back here; UK community projects tend to spend long years negotiating access and use of places like this rather than simply occupying them. We noted the political history of Catalonia and the strong tradition of muscular local action.
There are some similarities between the political balance there and here – control can be gained by small groups amidst balanced opposing views – but it plays out very differently. The film showed local group PAH taking very vocal action against a faceless developer (Blackstone) who had been buying up mortgage defaults, and managing to negotiate (tentative) next steps with the security guards – probably not an expected route here.
As with many of the Life Sized City films, food was shown as having a role in change and in bringing people together – in this case social project and restaurant Mescladis, which works with migrants to provide training and work in hospitality, leading to support in gaining legal residency. We touched on the work Good Organisation is doing in York with homeless people and the tourism industry (and a specific project for the former Hydraulic Power House where YoCo is involved).
The film also wandered into interesting territory about the use of space – there was early on a comment about “structure and content” – the buildings and spaces the city creates, and the people within who then shape their and others’ experience by what they do there. In York we focus a lot on “world class public realm” – paving and benches and detailing around trees – but do we think enough about what the My York Central public vision described as “public space for people to be collectively creative”?
A good article on reimagining space for women here.
The film looked at Tata Inti – a project doing pop-up play for small children, simply turning up in outdoor spaces and bringing the props needed for safe play. We noted that we have Emma Bearman in the area – with a containerful of creativity and play props. Can we create more opportunities for her and others to bring play to neighbourhoods where it is absent? Given the shortage of play facilities in both existing and new neighbourhoods, might regular pop-up visits augment what provision there is?
We pondered the issue of weather – Barcelona on the face of it suits outdoor activity more than York but also noted the growth of café culture here; with a coat and a blanket we use the outdoors far more than we used to. We also noted we have a very large number of empty shops in the city centre – connecting back to questions of ownership, monetisation of space and the potential for citizen action.
A good look at winter placemaking here.
There was a further look at creative/active use of space in the creation of Barcelona’s skatepark, but also the “accidental” skateable architecture resulting from the hard landscaping for the Olympics – if you fancy a skate around it then take a trip here! Skating was written into the My Castle Gateway open brief – early evening activity to keep public spaces safer, but still very much viewed by authority as “bunches of teenagers hanging around”. (If you’d like a bit of background in how skateboarding grew out from its environment then there’s a great podcast here).
The film explored a couple of examples of transport where investment appears to have been misplaced. The city has two tram networks which stop either side of the centre, disconnected. And cycling infrastructure which largely ignored well-established guidance on good practice, in one case treating a two-way segregated cycle route as the central reservation of a dual carriageway, isolating cycle users from connecting routes, not to mention the roadside shops and businesses that they’re likely to want to access. It’s frustrating when much-needed improvements don’t happen, but doubly so when they’re done in a misguided way.
Lastly, the film explored overtourism and how for example some public spaces were being blocked off to tourists to retain space for kids to play. There was obvious frustration about tourist tax revenue being spent on encouraging more tourism, and when we discussed this the view was that a future tourist tax in York would – unless there is pressure to do otherwise – be directed back towards tourism.
You can view The Life Sized City Barcelona episode here.
