Map of Spain, Showing the Geographical Location of Barcelona

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 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”