Urban Development Between Participation and Protest in Barcelona

Resourceful Cities Berlin (Germany), 29-31 August 2013

Urban development between participation and protest in Barcelona

Catarina Gomes de Matos*; Helena Cruz i Gallach**

Paper presented at the International RC21 Conference 2013 Session: Participation between Consensus and Contestation

(*) Freiburg/Germany [email protected]

(**) Institut de Govern i Polítiques Públiques Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Mòdul de Recerca A. 1ª planta, Parc de Recerca de la UAB Bellaterra, Barcelona Spain [email protected]

1 © the author(s) Not to be quoted without permission

2 Extended Abstract

The inner city marina Port Vell in Barcelona is located right on the border of the old town, which is the touristiest part of the city. The Old Harbor, originally built as a commercial port, was transformed into a marina in the 1980s and equipped to receive small and medium size yachts. When in 2010 the international enterprise Salamanca Group obtained the concession for the management of Port Vell, a redevelopment of this area was planned in order to make the marina accessible for so called super yachts up to 180m length. The plans include the establishment of a privatized high security zone, surrounded by a fence, as well as the construction of a car park and new buildings. The plans were confirmed by the Port Authority and the necessary changes in the urban development framework plan were made by the city council in April 2013. The reformations of Marina Port Vell are accompanied by a formal participatory process. But besides these formal participation procedures initialized by the political authorities, the residents of Barcelona also are trying to interfere in the planning process in forms of protests. These protests are an expression of the citizen’s dissatisfaction with the existing formal participation opportunities.

This paper aims to contribute to the debate about the contradictory role of participation in urban planning by examining the limits and opportunities of democratic urban planning. In order to define demands for a democratic urban planning, we transfer the general theoretical concept of the political by Chantal Mouffe in the specific context of urban planning. Confronting these theoretical ideas with the empirical example of Barcelona and the Marina Port Vell we discuss how democratic urban planning can put in practice, what is the role of formal participation processes and to what extend can protests democratize urban development processes.

The paper has been divided into three parts. The first part concentrates on the current prevailing discourse in urban politics and planning. In this discourse, engaging the local population in planning processes and using so called participatory processes to create a broad consensus between all stakeholders are considered to be democratic elements in urban planning. We will use the case of Barcelona to illustrate this. The second part develops a critique on this discourse based on the theoretical framework of Chantal Mouffe. She states that dissent and antagonism are irredeemable aspects of a democratic society. Based on this crucial element of her theory, we will argue that participatory processes initiated by the political authority do not necessarily lead to more democratic urban planning. It rather makes

3 real democratic interventions impossible. On the basis of this theoretical framework, demands for future democratic public planning are developed. The third part deals with alternative planning practices. Starting from the theoretical critique formulated in the previous chapter we will discuss options to implement a democratic urban planning in practice. We will use the example of Port Vell in Barcelona to discuss if actions which are initiated by the citizens, such as protests, can be regarded as democratic interventions in urban planning.

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