A renaissance for the Cerdà Plan. 10 points
The recently started Colau superblock project in the Eixample of Barcelona would mean, if carried out,liquidationPla Cerdà, which shapes the modern city. I reasoned this statement in myprevious article, and concluded by stating thatthe answerThe needs of the Barcelona of the third millennium are precisely met, respecting, deepening and updating, Cerdà's own logic.
Here are 10 points as an outline of the answer:
1.Solve the Colau disaster.
Cleaning the filth to which so many streets and squares have been subjected is an urgent imperative. The first step is to recover normality and an aesthetic, if not excellent, at least decent, for the entire urban space, including public lighting. It is about the city being reborn, with a facelift of what it has best.
2.A public transport model at the height of the third millennium is imperative
That must functionally express the city we want. Its nature conditions all urban change. It must articulate: 1) The plot of the city of Cerdà with the metropolitan area and the whole of Catalonia and, therefore, commits the other public administrations to a common all-electric plan, which incorporates buses, railways, metro, new media and peripheral parking lots as exchange nodes. 2) The introduction of new transportation systems, along with the improvement of current ones, through new technologies. An example could be high-capacity axial bus lines synchronized with traffic lights. 3) The application of urgent measures, consistent with the new model, to satisfy the most pressing needs of those of us who live or work in Barcelona, together with the progressive and systematic development of the entire model. The city must know what is going to be done with transportation and mobility, how and when. (Naturally, the tram along Diagonal disappears where it belongs: the drain of nonsense).
3.Develop, deepen and update the Cerdà plan.
In all its virtues and based on its own nature, ordering the space according to its criteria, recovering its streets and chamfers; eliminating all traces of trash; liquidating the Eixample de Colau superblock attempt, reviewing the few superblocks created to avoid, as is the case with the Sant Antoni market, its early degradation. Priority is given to investment to recover the central spaces of the blocks as gardens, the current Vía Laietana project is modified and mobility is specified with technology and criteria offluidity. The space around the large squares indicated by Cerdà is reorganized and superblocks are applied where according to the Pla they were possible. All of this is framed in a public policy that prevents gentrification, which has its main bastion in tourist apartments.
4.The renaturalization of the city.
Integrating humanized nature within it, placing as one of its purposes the extraordinary increase in wooded space. Transforming all the squares, especially the hard ones, to turn them into well-kept spaces of vegetation. Rethink all existing green spaces for improvement and link all this transformation to the creation of green axes without threatening mobility. The waste of Avenida del Paral·lel as a green axis and the insufficient tree cover on the local slope of the Collserola are good examples of what should not be. Encouraging the greening of roofs and facades is another need. A green city means the possibility of reducing the ambient temperature by a few degrees, reducing pollution by Co2and dangerous microparticles, creating a healthier environment. This policy should not be residual, but primary, because it is essential to confront the climate crisis. The maximum use of groundwater and recycled water, and the multiplication of water sheets, jets and vaporizers, using sustainable energy, is a necessity and not a luxury.
5.The entire Barcelona Cerdà XXI Projectshould be framed in a plan of Catalonia's owna
To alleviate and overcome the ravages of the climate crisis: successive heat waves, torrid nights, scarcer and torrential rains and new and more public health problems. In environmental terms we will not return to the past, and our attitude to remake the country and the city should be equivalent to the history of the countries of northern Europe, where an extreme climate has not prevented them from producing and living well.
6.The city must become an energy producing centerrenewableon a large scale.
To achieve this, at least three measures are necessary: organize and encourage the installation of solar panels, simplify the bureaucracy of the process, and - decisively - effective regulations that allow the surpluses produced to actually be contributed to the general electrical network, and be fairly compensated by it. The current situation is a barrier that prevents the transformation of households from consumers to energy producers.
7.It is necessary to rethink the entire old townto make it much more habitable, hygienic and dignified.
The respect for history and tradition that we must maintain should not be incompatible with demolishing or transforming what is necessary, what is bad, unhealthy and unworthy as a home. And build in better climatic and hygienic conditions, offering social housing to those who until now live in terrible conditions. In short, it is about reviewing what Cerdà had prepared for the old city and adapting it, instead of having discarded it outright. Building in height and gaining green space is a strategic option. The climate crisis is going to make this part of Barcelona more unlivable, which will degrade to an even greater extent.
8.You have to dare to grow downwardsbecause this will help better control adverse weather conditions and better environmental control.
The idea that the car will disappear in thirty years is absurd. What will we replace it with? bicycles and scooters in a very aging city? Will SEAT make flower pots instead of cars while paying good salaries? What will occur will be its transformation and rationalization, but the car will still be there. What is required is to make it compatible with environmental quality, and in this sense underground development is part of the solution. To set a reference, Madrid could reduce CO emissions right now2if it captured the gases emitted in its underground pathways and transformed them into oxygen and some of thepossible applications, such as neutral synthetic fuels, various materials and industrial uses. That's also what the future is about: reusing C02from the atmosphere, and this is more economical if underground emissions are channeled.
9.An effective policy that prevents the systematic appropriation of public capital gains is vital.
This is an application of urban economics to Cerdá's conception of equality in public space, and addresses multiple aspects that will allow the city to be fairly organized; from the tourist apartments and rooms, to the excess and disorder of terraces and other street occupations, such as street vending, the misuse of public space of bicycles, scooters, the invasive parking of motorcycles on the sidewalks, of cars, of disorder of discharge and municipal services, cost generator, etc. It is still a contradiction, one more, that it is under a progressive government that the privatization of the city's common goods has grown the most.
10. And, in summary and overall, indicative and integrated planning is necessarythat unites purposes, objectives, resources, agents, time and space, articulated to agreat agreementthat makes the city a task and, as far as possible, a common dream.
We need to consensually identify what is necessary and urgent, the order of priorities, and be clear about the paths to follow, establishing medium and long-term planning of how we must transform the city so that it becomes a sustainable model and, at the same time, , capable of providing a productive and friendly life to its inhabitants and those who work in it.
