How and why does land use vary in el
Raval area of Barcelona?
Map of Spain, showing the geographical location of Barcelona.
Map of Barcelona, showing the Raval.
Map of el Raval, showing the location of the flagship investments.
This coursework is an investigation of land use variations in El Raval,
Barcelona. It is the inner city of Barcelona, and its history dates back from
medieval times. El Raval is the result of the extension of Barcelona to the
mediterranean coast, and has historically accomodated peole of low social
standards. Many convents and monasteries have been established throughout
the 15th and 16th In more northern areas of El Raval in order to help the poor
who lived in the southern areas.
With the arrival of the industrial revolution to Barcelona, new changes in land
use took place in el Raval. Cotton textiles and weaving factories were set up in
the south of el Raval, and steam-powered weaving factories were established in
the west. These created so much pollution, that the walls around el Raval, which
have stood there for centuries, had to be demolished in order to allow the inner
city to ventilate from all the fumes. An increase of migrant workers to work the
factories for very little amounts of money, very low hygene standards and its
proximity to the port all collaborated to ensure the Raval to be a hotbed for
crime, and a red light district would develop near the port area of el raval, which
still exists and functions today.
Under Franco’s dictatorship, the whole Catalan region suffered from
deliberate lack of funding and this was again reflected in the lack of
development of infrastructure in el Raval, and as a result the quality of life
hardly improved from times of the industrialisation. The end results of infant
mortality rates and life expectancy surveys carried out in el Raval in 1975 could
easily be compared to those of a third world country, with nearly every fifth
newborn being born dead.
However, Barcelona is not the only city which suffers from a problematic
inner city. Crime rates in the inner cities of Chicago, Liverpool and Manchester,
to name a few, also suffer from very high high rates and have their inhabitants
also have significantly lower living standards than the areas surrounding them.
Most towns and cities with an inner city are noted for having a particular pattern
in land use, as explained by the Burgess model. However, Barcelona’s case is
more specific, even though the main principle is similar:
The Burgess model (universal)
1) This is the Central business district. It contains office and other
commercial buildings, sometimes large shopping malls and expensive
shops.
2) The second area is the inner city. Here, the land use is mostly low class
residential, although some land being used for industry may still be found
(in the form of factories which are no longer being used i.e. Liverpool or
industrial plants which are still working i.e. Chicago)
3) The third area is mostly low class residential.
4) The fourth class consists of middle class residential.
5) The fifth area is high class residential.
The Burgess model applied to Barcelona. Blue is low class residential, red is the CBD and green is the
middle class residential land use.
However, significant changes have been sweeping through el Raval in the past
two decades. After the end of the Spanish dictatorship and with the help of the
funding provided by the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, the Barcelona council
undertook a large campaign in order to raise the living standards in el Raval.
These urban regeneration schemes and government investments have
dramatically affected the social, environmental and economic landscape of the
Raval neighbourhoods. As a result of this, el Raval’s land use has drastically
changed, with new parks being built on derelict land, new shops and enterprises
being opened, new hotels and shops being opened.
An example of the “multiplier effect” development scheme:
Directed gentrification and how it can create jobs and
businesses indirectly.
The strategy used by the Barcelona council is that of directed gentrification, a
method which transforms neighborhoods from low class to middle and high
class. It does this by the establishment of “flagship” buildings, usually large, high
profile and high investment projects, such as new museums, theatres, sport
facilities, hotels or art galleries.
The development of these flagships (see page 2 for location) will attract new
businesses and companies to the location of the flagship, and the increase in the
service sector will help make the area more affluent. This is called themultiplier
effect, and it helps change the area by primarily changing people.
The aims of this study include: identifying and dividing the representative
areas (zones) from which data information shall be collected, to collect data
using various geographical and statistical sampling methods including the use of
stratified numbers and using a grid overlay to select our representative areas, to
compare land use with historical records in order to positively identify the
changes that took place and finally to identify economic, social and
environmental differences between the areas. In order to do this, a suitable
survey will be developed which will be filled in as the data is being collected in el
Raval, by categorizing them into overall impressions of environmental and
residential characteristics of the different zones of study, and to include a
perception survey and an index of services and amenities. As perceptions also
play an important role in evaluating the success schemes of the Barcelona
council involving land use change in el Raval, they shall also be collected and
analyzed. In the case that any problems should be encountered during the
investigation stage, these shall be described and, if possible, overcome.
Obtaining evidence:
The first thing which we will need to do is to do a “pilot study”. This is when
you walk an area to look at different representative areas. Each area has to
contain social, environmental and economic evidence of the zone at hand.
As we walked the “Barrio Chino”, we realized that we need to divide El Raval
in 4 zones, or areas. This is how we divided it:
These are our 4 representative areas. We then collected our data by
interviewing people on the street, which we would have considered to be
representative of the area, we would also note the state of housing, the general
hygiene on the streets, and other factors. The perceptions, as it is supposed to
come from self, were filled in by ourselves from the evidence which we have
seen in that specific area. It was important to try to find the correct
representative areas (which we did by taking good care at evaluating what we
have seen when we did the “pilot study”) in order to avoid bias. Our evidence
were based on the following:
- Residential decay
- Environmental quality
- Perceptions
- Adjective pairs
- Index of services and amenities
This primary data is vital to our investigation, as without it we would not be
able to evaluate the changes which took place in el Raval. We would collect
these the following way: we will walk the area being investigated and we will
memorize all the factors for which we need to collect evidence for that zone and
then we will move on to an “assembly point” where it is generally safe to stop
for a period of time longer than 10 minutes where we will be able to write down
our answers.
A piece of secondary data which we managed to vaguely obtain was how the
prices vary between different evidence. We investigated how much the soft
drink “Coca Cola” varied in the different zones. We did this by merely asking
convenience shop keepers throughout the zones for the price.
We will not be able to collect any secondary data from our trip to el Raval, so
we will have to obtain secondary data from different sources. The piece of
secondary data which I have chosen to investigate is the census. I will be using it
to show the changes between the population of men and women throughout
the years.
Our zones were selected by random sampling. We used random numbers in
order to get our final sampling zone within the areas. We labelled a map of el
Raval’s grid squares with numbers, and then we used a number-generating
program to define which grid squares we are going to investigate. We did this in
order to reduce bias.
Census data. This secondary piece of information we obtained from
www.geographyfieldwork.com. It is a reliable piece of data, as it was collected by
government officials, as well as it is helpful at making predictions of what class
of males/ females are most present in each census zone, if you already have
your “perceptions” done.
The overall primary data put in a table. The numbers on the 3 sides of each
square represent for the result each group got, while the number in the middle
is the addition of all these. The added number is the one which we are going to
work on in our “presenting data”
Residential
quality
34.5
37.5 22
13
Environmental 45.5
quality
10
54
30
Perceptions
+3
24 10.5
29
21
+8
-6
20
6
25
23
10.5
11
14
17
-0.5 -15.5
19
25
18.5
20
-1
-10
-0.5
Index of
services and
amenities
+1
12
-16
-5
26
25 52
50 55
51 37
28
46
25
12
40