Urban renewal planning in Barcelona: what can we learn from experience?

Montserrat Pareja & Teresa Tapada+ .

Key words: urban planning, urban renewal, social impact, gentrification, housing .

Research Centre for Economic Welfare. University of Barcelona. Actively involved in EARHA (Expert Unit in Rehabilitation Advice). mpareja@valles.com + Social Anthropology Department. Autonomous University of Barcelona. mtapada@seneca.uab.es 1

1. Introduction Almost all social sciences recognise the importance of space in daily life. Urban spaces contribute and reinforce people individuality: dwellings, squares and housing projects, pieces of our identity become content and continent of our social life.

If urban space creation is dynamic then, the historical centres are especially sensitive to changes. Urban conversions determine a breaking-off with everyday life, with those things that are known. Moreover, in some cases, they involve a re-adaptation to new places and landscapes. Residential mobility in the city centre is induced by several reasons such as housing improvement or the development of an urban plan. In all cases, families need to adjust transitorily or definitively.

With the urban renewal process developed in Barcelona city centre during the last decade in our view and the benefit of a certain degree of hindsight, the aim of this paper is two-fold: on the one hand, we would like to analyse and evaluate the urban planning instrument used to accomplish the local government goals. On the other, we would like to estimate the social impact of the renewal taking into account the different actors involved, for instance, newcomers and former residents. To go deeply into this particular aspect, we would like to identify potentialities that allow gentrification to take place.

First, the article will overview how the renewal has been planned. The whole renovation process is a complex and a overreaching plan which affects different areas of the district of Ciutat Vella. These areas, despite its intrinsic differences, shared the urban planning instrument designed by the local authorities to renew the district. New models of intervention have been proposed in order to stimulate urban regeneration of the city centre. Private and public partnerships have been involved to resolve the social and urban problems located in this area of the city. Financial incentives to private companies, publicprivate enterprises and the impact of urban upgrading schemes are, among others, factors that have been taken into account in the urban setting. Different instruments have been used to stimulate public and private participation in the economic take-off of these areas: increase of infrastructure, construction of cultural equipment, demolition and rebuilding of the most deteriorated areas.

Secondly, taking into account literature about gentrification and displacement, we would like to analyse the social impact of the urban renewal strategy in Ciutat Vella. Since the end of the eighties, the area has received successive public interventions jointly with private participation, whose aim was to recover a degraded and deteriorated environment. As a consequence, its inhabitants have been extremely affected by these measures: on the one hand, former occupants of demolished dwellings have been re-allocated and, on the other, new houses have been occupied, in some cases by newly arrived families to the district.

As a point of debate or even as a kind of conclusion, we would like to stress the need of an evaluation of urban planning results from a wider perspective. Despite the powerful argument to intervene in the area in

order to, for instance, the improvement of the urban environment quality, the social effects of that kind of intervention may counteract the expected success. The relationship between goals and outcome should be carefully examined in an area where renewal executions are almost accomplished. In this sense, the analysis we offer can be considered where renewal processes are still in its preliminary phase.

2. Urban renewal in the inner city: a model of intervention Ciutat Vella, the old city centre of Barcelona, is being transformed through urban renewal strategies as many other inner European areas. Several characteristics found in the majority of historical centres define a degraded environment: on the one side, demographic issues such as ageing population, concentration of minority and marginal groups and high rates of unemployment and poverty. On the other, deteriorated housing structures, deficient infrastructures and high-density zones.

During the eighties, one of the main priorities of the local government of Barcelona was to improve the social welfare of the area. The former planning instrument, the Metropolitan Plan of the city (1976) pursued to open up the area by constructing wide roads following the Eixample 1 pattern, without excessive concern about the specific characteristics of the existent social network. As an example, this Plan did not include any criteria to endow the area with public equipment and other means to improve living conditions of traditional inhabitants. Consequently, it was absolutely necessary to provide a new legal entity to approach the rehabilitation of several areas of the old centre. In 1986, the Decree 317 of the Generalitat of Catalonia 2 declared Ciutat Vella as an rea de Rehabilitaci Integral -Integral Rehabilitation Area- (ARI, from now on) at the request of the municipality. It can be considered that under this measure, planning instruments such as PERIs (Special Plans of Interior Reform) were ready to tackle the urban renewal process in the whole area. The intervention programme under the ARIs guidelines included land management, building of parking places, new housing development and rehabilitation, renewal of infrastructures and urbanisation of open spaces.

The Plenary Council endowed itself with a specific programme of local action for Ciutat Vella. This programme defined many objectives that should be kept into account during the urban transformation:

1.

The provision of public equipment and the opening up of new public spaces facilitating public land for those purposes.

2. 3.

The promotion of neighbourhood participation in certain decisions The stimulus to economic activity to modernise and attract new services

1 2

The Eixample was the first enlargement of the city in the XIX In 1983, the Royal Decree 2,329/1983 of 18th July passed at national level defined the figure of Integral Rehabilitation Areas as a means to upgrade and improve living conditions of degraded urban areas. 3

4.

The improvement -through rehabilitation, demolition and new construction- of housing conditions

Summarising, two facts were of great importance: the social aspect of the municipal action pursuing to upgrade living conditions of residents and the urban renewal process, that involved newly created cultural public establishments, the transformation of the urban medieval framework and the renewal of the main infrastructure.

As one can imagine, public funds were not enough to start this complex process. The ARI considered the creation of mixed enterprises to develop the project. PROCIVESA was the most important: its capital was shared by the local government, financial and commercial entities and specifically created private management institutions like the Rehabilitation Office. The total amount of investment during the 19881995 period was EUR 1,396 million, public funds represented EUR 596 million and private investment was around EUR 800 million (current prices). In this sense, the private sector contributed to a social purpose financed by the gains obtained in the intervention. This company was declared the beneficiary of the forced expropriations 3 .

The area of the rehabilitation was divided into four neighbourhoods separated by boundaries defined by and related to the historical urban development of the city centre. The historical division of the inner city was used to divide the areas of rehabilitation. All those zones have different urban characteristics that must be considered in order to understand the differences between the particular urban renewal projects, the above mentioned PERIs.

The four neighbourhoods were Barceloneta, Raval, Gtic, and Casc Antic. In 1986, when the ARI was passed as the legal instrument to implement the rehabilitation, only two of them had specific renewal projects, already approved by the public authorities: Barceloneta and Raval 4 . Both plans were included as an important part of the general project of urban renewal.

As it has been mentioned before, several traditional problems of inner cities result from population composition: the high concentration of marginal groups, ethnic minorities, ageing society and unemployed are usually located in the old city. Barcelona is not an exception: Ciutat Vella evidences the majority of these characteristics (see Annex) . This fact decisively influences the design of any process of urban renewal: groups potentially affected by intervention measures manifest a especial sensitivity to changes and, in addition, are in a particular position to accept strategies of their reallocation.

3 4

3,368 dwellings and 1,000 commercial establishments were approximately involved. Barcelonetas PERI was passed in 1985 Ravals PERI was passed in 1983

In addition, the loss of population in favour of the periphery has characterised Barcelona during the last decade. The movers have been mainly middle and high-income class families looking for a better environment and enjoying the proximity of the city through well-communicated transport network. In this sense, the creation of new attractive centres within the boundaries of the city such as a renewed historical district can be understood as an interest for local authority policy objectives. Graph 1 shows the recognised loss of population of traditional urban areas. It has not identically affected the different districts or even neighbourhoods of the city of Barcelona. It seems quite evident that the decrease in number of inhabitants started sooner in the old city while the latest data (1996) confirms the trend for the whole city.

Graph 1. Population
2.000.000 1.800.000 1.600.000 1.400.000 1.200.000 1.000.000 800.000 600.000 400.000 200.000 0
8 8 0 5 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 5 0 5 1 6 19 8 18 8 18 9 19 0 19 0 19 1 19 2 19 3 19 4 19 5 19 6 19 5 19 6 19 7 19 7 19 8 19 9 1

Ciut at Vella

Barcelona

If we translate this figure into percentages, the city of Barcelona lost 3.4% population during the 19861991, with a considerable increase, 8.1%, in the same ratio for the following years 1991-1996. Surprisingly, Barceloneta and Raval, two of the neighbourhoods affected by urban renewal plans, show a deceleration in the percentage of loss: at the end of the eighties, both neighbourhoods suffered a loss of approximately a 10% by the mid-nineties, the percentage decreased to 7% in the case of Barceloneta and to 6% in the case of Raval. The Central District of Barcelona was not a homogeneous area, therefore, the specific renewal projects had to be adapted to the specific conditions concerning population and urbanisation characteristics. The planning projects had in common to avoid displacement of the population affected by the urban renewal project and to improve their living conditions. The social and urban frameworks of the different subareas in Ciutat Vella are quite different. Nevertheless, the inner city has generally been characterised by high-density areas. Taking into account only land addressed for residential uses5 , the average density rate for the three years considered is 621 households per residential Ha in Barceloneta and 386.5 for Raval. The amount for Ciutat Vella is 372.8. A closer look at the temporal evolution show that both
5

Our data strictly refers to residential land. 5

neighbourhoods have reduced their density rate around 16% during the ten-year period. This is mainly due to the effect of the urban renewal process in those areas, especially thanks to the generation of new open spaces and the creation of new residential land, usually through the conversion from other uses.

The PERI concerning the Raval neighbourhood was approved in 1983 by the Local Council of Barcelona 6 and was the first to be implemented. Because of that, this instrument established the general framework under which later renewal processes were conducted.

The first step of the strategy dates from around 1989. The delay between the approval of the plan and its execution was a result of several difficulties such as determining institutional responsibilities of those involved in the renewal process or legal problems encountered related to owners of buildings to be demolished.

The improvement of living conditions of inhabitants avoiding, as much as possible, their displacement outside the affected zone and to recover the potential centrality of the older city were, among others, the broad objectives of the Ravals PERI. The promotion of the housing stock rehabilitation which was highly heterogeneous, the construction of new open spaces demolishing old degraded buildings and the recovery of old historical buildings in order to locate cultural centres such as concert-halls or museums were included in the document as specific targets (PERI, 1983)

The PERI of Raval revealed two different sectors: the North and the South. The Red Light District of Barcelona was located in the Southern area, easily connected to and accessible from the city harbour whereas the North was characterised by a great amount of historical and cultural buildings. This clear territorial division had a parallelism to the residential housing stock conditions, its density and the degree of marginal population. The Southern area had a higher degree of residential structure deterioration, social problems as unemployment, higher level of immigrant population -in a legal or illegal situation-, lower degree of education and was perceived as an unsafe area.

The acute tensions generated by this social and residential picture, were a powerful reason to start with the renewal plan and to demolish an important part of the residential building stock. The most important action looking to open up the environment was the construction of a central pedestrian corridor across all the neighbourhood from South to North and a big open space as a central square in the inner centre of Raval.

As a consequence, several groups were affected by this clearance and were obliged to move, usually after receiving a compensatory amount of money depending on their situation and relation with the house they were living in. The general rule under which those displacements took place was that all people living in

the neighbourhood had the right to continue living in the neighbourhood in protected housing, not exactly comparable to what is understood by social housing outside Spain 7 . The affected household had two possibilities: on the one hand, to buy the new flat at a lower price than the market price. The loan would be for 25 years with increasing interest rate and subsidised re-payment quotas and, on the other, to rent the new flat. If families did not have enough money to pay the loan quota or the rent, other options were considered such as housing for life or usufruct. All inhabitants were indemnified for the expenditures caused by the move.

Several exceptions to the general rule appeared. Those had to be negotiated with the neighbourhood association. Those cases referred to people that were living in the affected houses without any contract and were usually social conflictive people. They would not be accepted in the new dwellings, then, the alternative was compensation. In addition, some groups decided to solve the housing question on their own, again, compensation was agreed. In case of ownership, forced expropriations were the general approach. The local government established the selling price and, in case of non-acceptance by the owner, the courts decided the fair price.

3. Linking urban planning to social impacts Certainly, urban restructuring processes and housing policy in itself pursue to some extend a diminishing effect on segregation not only from the demand side where requirements to success are difficultly reached- but also from the supply side- where even the private initiative can be satisfactorily involved (Musterd, Priemus & Van Kempen, 1999). Indeed, urban planning measures are more or less explicitly addressed towards the undivided city. The case of inner cities where the built environment and the complex social network determines any type of intervention are a particular context where those measures can be implemented.

We would like to focus our attention on the social effects of urban planning and to align our arguments to several contributions that highlight the limited success of the use of physical residential instruments to reduce segregation. Following Murie (1998), combating segregation requires intervention through more policies than housing or physical urban planning such as community development, education, and promotion of economic activity.

Generally speaking, an urban regeneration process in an inner city implies two kinds of population flows in some degree: gentrification, understood as a substitution of former inhabitants by newly arrived

Public housing programmes in Spain are mainly addressed to owner-occupation and few resources are oriented to other formulas of social housing such as rental or co-operative. 7

families (Smith, 1996) and displacement 8 of concerned people. They can be displaced in two directions: from outside the neighbourhood to inside, the newcomers, and from inside the district to outside or also in the same area of the city centre.

The central district improvement after the different interventions makes it extremely attractive to newcomers. This is a fact that must be carefully analysed because newcomers attract other type of investors. The reasons why these flows of individuals, small investors, locate their interest on the city centres must be analysed from the social and psychological point of view. The gentrifier sees the central district as a well-connected place with the rest of the city, close to theatres, cinemas and other cultural activities of which he is a consumer in some degree. The historical factor must be taken into account: the gentrifier considers the city centre as a place related with its historical past. Also the public or private investment in equipment and infrastructure makes the area more attractive. The newcomers are part of a social group that identifies this part of the city as a social value added to the economical investment that means the acquisition of a house in the centre. The landscape and especially the dwelling are a sign of social status in terms of its typological characteristics and location (Duncan, J, 1980). The results of the appropriation of the space of the inner city by the gentrifiers can be a stimulus to natural renewal. However and accordingly to Van Kempen and Priemus (1999), the observed limited communication links between the two communities, that is newcomers and former population, weakens ,to a certain extent, the possibilities to reduce polarisation. Additionally, a risk of indirect expulsion of the autochthonous population of the area, legal or illegal ,due to speculative forces in the housing market, appears.

A closely related factor to urban renewal is relocation or displacement, which implies a change of housing of an existing community. Urban renewal operations involve several relocation processes. Some specialists on the subject suggest two kinds of displacement, voluntary and involuntary (Guggenheim & Cernea, 1993). To the first group belong the ones motivated by the intent to improve the quality of life (implies migration or economical investment) while those involuntary displaced are pushed by natural disasters, renewal or upgrading projects and wars. As a starting point displacement can be considered as an opportunity of inversing quality of life. Even granting the positive character of this change, the relocation cases analysed by researchers highlight the often traumatic experience for the community affected. According to Cernea (1998:7-8): By its nature, displacement is always and extraordinary disruptive and painful process, economically and culturally: it dismantles production systems, it disorganises entire human conditions and it breaks up long established social networks. (..) Research has found that forced resettlement also tends to be associated with increased stress (psychological and socio-cultural), and heightened morbidity and mortality rates.

See different definitions of relocation and displacement in Adu-Aryee, 1993:150-151;Cernea, 1988,1985,1987; Scudder & Colson,1982,Bartolom, 1985.

According to Downing (1994:2) one of the difficulties to consider in urban renewal processes is how to evaluate the change in social terms. The re-establishment of the local economic activities in the neighbourhood is obviously not enough. Most of these activities are directly related to social networks that support the exchange of privileged information. The destruction of these channels of communication implies impoverishment of social life and the resulting economic impoverishment of those residents affected by the renovation of the area. How to evaluate this negative impact has not been resolved yet.

The renewal plan of the Barcelona city centre has not finished yet. The general renewal strategy approved, as it will be explained below, is almost totally accomplished in only one of the neighbourhoods affected: Raval. In the rest of the cases the theoretical planning has been executed in a very limited percentage and in small projects. Despite the general delay in the implementation, the impact on population started long before due to the expectancy on the outcome of the whole process. The city centre of Barcelona is being transformed from a place were immigrants temporarily lived during their process of legal regularisation into a place of political interest concerning housing issues in order to create a renewed image of Barcelona 9 .

It is worth to stress that the characteristics of Ciutat Vella have favoured the attraction of immigrants. These particularities are not only economic reasons but also other type of motives such as the support of existent familiar and social networks or the possibility of not being legally registered.

The central district of Barcelona has been a heavily populated area due to the space constraint caused by the city fortification and the high growth of population during the XVIII century and more recently during late 50s and 60s. In the last period the area attracted people that came from rural areas of the country, looking for single rooms with extremely low rents in flats or pensions. At present, the arrival of national immigrants has ended but has been substituted by new flows of foreigners coming from the North of Africa, Asia and Latin America. In this case, the lack of legal stability concerning their stay in Spain and the very restrictive immigration laws, recently passed, makes it difficult to know the exact amount of people living in the city centre.

Despite the fact that the urban renewal process has not started yet in some areas, some features can be distinguished: on the one hand, several buildings have suffered an accelerated degradation process as a result of the owners expectancy about future demolitions. On the other, new speculative investments in the area are taking place in order to take advantage of the future high prices now observed in those areas where the renewal process has finished.

As an example, during the mid-eighties, the town council engaged in a regularisation campaign of lowprice pensions in the district. A high number of them were closed because of their failure to comply with health regulations. 9

The housing market can be used as a key indicator of what type of population can afford to live in an area and, as a result, if gentrification can take place or not. In our case, as it can be easily noticed in Graph 2, a high rise in rents occurred between 1990 and 1994 in the Raval neighbourhood and in the whole Ciutat Vella, while in Barceloneta, where the renewal has not started, rents have remained considerably steady.

Graph 2. Average rents of two neighbourhoods and the district.

A v e r a g e r e n t. C u r r e n t p r i c e s.
60000 50000 40000 30000 20000 10000 0
19 90 19 92 19 94 19 88 19 84 19 86 19 98 19 96

B a r c e lo n e t a

Rav al

C iu t a t V e lla

Source: El mercat de lloguers a la ciutat de Barcelona (1999)

As a consequence, the affordability criteria determine what typology of families can be found in the territory. It is reasonable to assume that the traditional typology of inhabitants has been modified by the upward trend in prices and rents. On the one hand, some of the neighbourhoods in the inner city have ceased to be the clear alternative for those that were looking for a first shelter in the city, not only immigrants but also low-income demand segments, especially young former inhabitants. On the other, existing owners and tenants have observed an enormous rise in the potential selling price and successive increases in their rents. This has created negative perceptions on the first group, looking for less expensive alternatives and positive expectations on the other, despite the voluntarily displacement involved.

The principal groups of people affected by the renewal were first, the autochthonous population understood as those people born in the neighbourhood. Secondly, the non-Catalan population settled during the sixties and the recently arrived foreigners whatever their legal situation. They have all been witnesses to the changes.

In order to estimate some of the effects on autochthonous population, we will use the outcome of a research project conducted after two years of the first reallocation phase (Tapada, 1999). On the one hand, the use of quantitative data through the cluster analysis offered two main conclusions: firstly, heterogeneity characterised the built environment, that is to say, there was no concentration of

10

deteriorated housing in the targeted area 10 , so no direct need to be demolished although the general quality of the housing stock was low. Secondly, while introducing social variables in the aggregation test, the studied area showed a high concentration of social groups with similar characteristics: low-income families, unskilled and unemployed. On the other, the qualitative data obtained through in depth interviews 11 to recently relocated families exhibited the change of dwelling as a traumatic experience although they considered themselves well treated by the institutions during the process. Several problems arose when people started to live in their new apartments: daily relationship problems with other neighbours jointly with difficulties to adapt to the new space. As a matter of fact, several of these inconveniences were more or less predictable but the need of rehabilitation of the building only two years after its construction in order to introduce at the spatial level, specific patterns of behaviour, seems to be excessive.

The interviews offered insights into the nature of family income: great irregularity and no experience or habit in budgeting. Consequently, unpaid monthly rents of the new apartments became considerably common among those families. Also, the level of families debt had increased since the availability of additional services such as gas, electricity and so on implied regular monthly bills. As an alternative, the reproduction of former systems of economic subsistence was identified in order to obtain additional sources of income such as the illegal rent of rooms.

4.

Relating urban changes to social life: some facts to debate

The research aim was to draw out social and economic consequences of a particular and finished renewal project in order to improve the implementation of new urban renewal plans addressed to other areas. In this sense, we consider that a completed urban renewal, as Raval, allows to learn from the past experience and to reduce negative effects as much as possible while implementing new reforms. Although targeted local communities are obviously different, we believe that general facts can be defined. Notwithstanding, one of the main findings is that the peculiarity and the uniqueness of a concrete territory are the best elements to take into account while structuring an urban renewal action.

To start with, the elimination of segregation and concentration of minorities and marginal groups, among others, is a well-accepted goal in inner city policies: the achievement of an un-divided city, despite the relative advantages for those who live in, it is internalised as a rule for policy-makers. Then, urban planning is considered the main instrument to achieve such an objective. Generally speaking, there is

In this sense, Octavi Mart (2000) confirms this result through the elaboration of an exhaustive inventory of demolished buildings taking into account its architectonic value. 11 Around 35 families were interviewed. All of them living in a new building specially addressed by authorities to people living in the demolished area. 11

10

not much discussion about the purposes of urban renewal processes in the inner city. However, a great point of debate should be how local authorities intervene not only in the physical aspect of the city through demolitions, creation of open spaces and re-buildings- but also in the social network to reduce and even to eliminate negative side effects.

The considered case study is an example of the use of urban planning instruments, in particular, the creation of a big avenue through the demolition of what was considered one of the critic zones of the old city. The instrument was used in order to improve the quality of living, to eliminate the existence of a highly deprived area and economically revitalise the inner district. It seems quite difficult to discuss the objectives and general goals of the process, probably there is a great degree of coincidence but our suggestion after the research is why not to evaluate from a broad perspective what it has really happened after the renewal. Unfortunately, during the last months new groups mainly formed by young drug-addict immigrants have appeared in the area 12 and, as a consequence, criminality rates in the old renewed district have increased 13 . The lack of a decided intervention by local authorities has determined neighbours to organise themselves against these groups creating a conflictive social environment in the zone. Additionally, a recent interview to people living in certain neighbourhoods in Barcelona 14 evidences a high negative perception of immigrants in Ciutat Vella by its inhabitants.

A second point of debate when describing an urban renewal development is the level of share between public and private initiatives to succeed in the upgrading of a particular area. On the one hand, public initiatives contribute to impulse the beginning of the regeneration mainly introducing the playing rules and investing in public equipment such as cultural or sanitary construction. On the other, the private sector results indispensable to develop further steps of the operation. However, this partnership must be considered in urban renewal projects affecting the city centre, the public institutions must be aware of the collateral consequences that private intervention could imply. Public control over the process seems absolutely necessary in order to avoid the negative effects associated to profit maximisation and those related speculative facts, specially oriented to the residential housing market. The free market forces without any control or restriction can blur the well-intentioned goals established at the very beginning of the urban restructure.

Thirdly, the potentialities for gentrification after an integral rehabilitation and regeneration project are one of the general trends that we have identified. After a large public investment in an area jointly with the private initiative, a particular type of population becomes enormously attracted by the renewed site: the housing market as a key factor constraints the varied range of demand segments that can afford to live in the remodelled zone. Then, population movements take place and create some disorders in the social and El Periodico de Catalunya, July 12nd 2000 and October 6th 2000 Local government statistics confirm an increase in detentions, 19.17%, in Ciutat Vella compared to last year. In addition, an 80% of recidivist delinquents live in the old centre.
13 12

12

economic network of the affected area. Former inhabitants suffer in a specific way the several transformations of the known urban landscape. Even in this case, generalisations are not appropriate because some of them still remain in the same area while other have been displaced to other parts of the city. Further research should be conducted in order to measure and valuate those flows of relocation.

Nevertheless, the choice of newcomers generates some impact in the destiny area. The appearance of a new social class, the so-called new middle class, in an area traditionally occupied by low income families, minorities and marginal social groups determines a lack, at least temporarily, of identity. One of the arising questions in front of this population displacement is, up to what extend, the arrival of this new kind of families influence the polarisation concept usually understood as a segregated urban pattern comparing the inner city, frequently the target of renewal processes, and the rest. Moreover, we think that the divided city can be found inside the renewed inner city. As far as these two types of communities, former inhabitants and newcomers, coexist and share the same urban space but in most of cases, do not establish social relations, we understand that potentialities for polarisation in the renewed area are plenty.

Summarising, the evaluation of the social and economic impact of the urban renovation should also take into account people affected, including the sector of illegal population that lives in the neighbourhood. As far as replacement always involves displacement, it is indispensable to include research about those families displaced in different directions in any evaluation of an urban renewal strategy. Some of them will move inside the neighbourhood or a closer area but others will move further away from the district. If we try to evaluate the impact of the renovation plan we have to consider both population flows as object of research although entails obvious difficulties.

The level of public investment and the control by local authorities of the renewal process can diminish negative effects. The evaluation of real cases offers some suggestions about how to cope with social problems resulting from the impact of rehabilitation. Large specific research has been done in the past about the development of gentrification and displacement in a city centre. In short, suggestions to avoid negative side effects would be to clearly implement an integral approach providing the area with managerial framework taking into consideration the different sensitivities providing not only an urban renewal means but also deep social integration. We consider that the main objectives behind an urban renewal strategy are generally looking for an un-divided city and introduce the idea of the integral approach. However, the implementation of those well-accepted targets might in some cases fall short from the desired objective.

Opini dels ciutadans vers la inmigraci. Ciutat Vella, Sants-Montjuic, Eixample. Regidoria de Benestar Social. Ajuntament de Barcelona. Not published. 13

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5.

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PRIEMUS,H., MUSTERD,S. &VAN KEMPEN, R. (1998) (eds) Towards undivided cities in Western Europe. New Challenges for Urban policy. Part 7 Comparative analysis. Delft University Press.

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Annex

Annex Table 1. Population by age. Percentages.

1986 From 0 to 14 years 12,63 1991 10,61 1996 9,92

15

From 15 to 65 years More than 65 years

63,76 23,62

63,00 26,39

62,21 27,87

Annex Table 2. Unemployment rate and income family level

1986 Unemployment rate 30.02 Income level 62.70 100 1991 Unemployment rate 20.27 13.69 Income level 65.5 100 1996 Unemployment rate 30.63 20.62 Income level 65.4 100

Ciutat Vella Barcelona

Annex Table 3. Immigrants according to place of birth. 1996.

Total population Born in the city Born in other parts of Catalonia Ciutat Vella Barcelona 83,829 1,508,805 43,625 888,314 6,131 13,0251 Born in the rest of the A.C 25,486 431,855 8,587 58,385 Born abroad

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