Disentangling the Compact City Drivers and Pressures: Barcelona As a Case Study
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Disentangling the compact city drivers and pressures: Barcelona as a case study Downloaded from: https://research.chalmers.se, 2021-10-02 03:00 UTC Citation for the original published paper (version of record): Adelfio, M., Kain, J., Thuvander, L. et al (2018) Disentangling the compact city drivers and pressures: Barcelona as a case study Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift, 72(5): 287-304 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00291951.2018.1547788 N.B. When citing this work, cite the original published paper. research.chalmers.se offers the possibility of retrieving research publications produced at Chalmers University of Technology. It covers all kind of research output: articles, dissertations, conference papers, reports etc. since 2004. research.chalmers.se is administrated and maintained by Chalmers Library (article starts on next page) Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift - Norwegian Journal of Geography ISSN: 0029-1951 (Print) 1502-5292 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/sgeo20 Disentangling the compact city drivers and pressures: Barcelona as a case study Marco Adelfio, Jaan-Henrik Kain, Liane Thuvander & Jenny Stenberg To cite this article: Marco Adelfio, Jaan-Henrik Kain, Liane Thuvander & Jenny Stenberg (2018): Disentangling the compact city drivers and pressures: Barcelona as a case study, Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift - Norwegian Journal of Geography, DOI: 10.1080/00291951.2018.1547788 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00291951.2018.1547788 © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group Published online: 05 Dec 2018. Submit your article to this journal View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=sgeo20 Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift–Norwegian Journal of Geography https://doi.org/10.1080/00291951.2018.1547788 Disentangling the compact city drivers and pressures: Barcelona as a case study Marco Adelfio , Jaan-Henrik Kain , Liane Thuvander & Jenny Stenberg Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96, Gothenburg, Sweden ABSTRACT The compact city is globally acknowledged as the most adequate urban model to encourage sustainable urban development. Its validity is often assumed, despite the lack of clarity on what such compactness entails. The knowledge gap is even wider regarding how different drivers and pressures influence the development of more compact cities. Therefore, the authors analyse indirect and underlying processes (drivers) and more direct events, actions, and processes ARTICLE HISTORY (pressures) affecting compact city development. Since compact city driving forces are extensively Received 7 July 2017 influenced by local situations, their research focused on district-level case studies within the Accepted 9 November 2018 compact city of Barcelona Municipality. Mixed methods were used, and the authors used both qualitative and quantitative data. The results revealed that drivers and pressures can both EDITORS Per Gunnar Røe, Kerstin support and counteract compact city qualities and therefore any intervention has to be tailored ff to local conditions. In particular, the results of the in-depth analysis of local pressures and their Pottho , Catriona Turner progression over time foster an understanding of context-related nuances, thereby shifting KEYWORDS attention from taken-for-granted compact city qualities to the driving forces that produce Barcelona, compact city, beneficial compactness. The authors conclude that the diversity of drivers and pressures requires driving forces, local scale the involvement of a multiplicity of stakeholders and actors in urban planning, implementation, and management. Adelfio, M., Kain, J.-H., Thuvander, L. & Stenberg, J. 2018. Disentangling the compact city drivers and pressures: Barcelona as a case study. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift–Norwegian Journal of Geography Vol. 00, 00–00. ISSN 0029-1951. Introduction how such drivers impinge on compact cities, and what degree of influence and types of pressure they exert. The concept of the compact city is globally acknowledged Therefore, the objectives of this paper are: in both research and policy as the preferred urban pattern to be applied to present and future cities (EU 2007; Euro- 1. To identify drivers that indirectly encourage compact pean Commission 2011;Hofstad2012; UN-Habitat 2012). city patterns Nevertheless, the concept is too often taken for granted 2. To understand how such drivers are linked to pressures fl and its definition remains unclear and non-uniform with a direct in uence on such urban development. (Churchman 1999;Burton2002;Neuman2005). This not only affects the understanding of compact city qual- In relation to the extensive debate on the pros and cons ities (Boyko & Cooper 2011), but also becomes even of compact cities (Neuman 2005; Boyko & Cooper 2011; more significant when the different driving forces behind Holman et al. 2015), and since the focus is on urban driv- compact city development are examined (Holman et al. ing forces not urban qualities, we assume that compact fi 2015). In response to this vagueness, in this paper we city development is mainly bene cial but we acknowledge explore urban driving forces, divided into indirect/under- that there are also many problematic aspects. lying processes (drivers) and more direct events, actions, Literature review and processes (pressures), and their diverse consequences for compact city development. Despite previous research From its origins, the compact city as a concept has been on development drivers (Christiansen & Loftsgarden referred to as an ideal model of city (Dantzig & Saaty 2011; Zondag & Borsboom n.d.), it remains uncertain 1973). It has become an established concept through an CONTACT Marco Adelfio adelfi[email protected] © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/ 4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. 2 M. Adelfioetal. extensive body of scientificliterature(Jenksetal.1996; maximize their profits by constructing high-rise and Churchman 1999;Dieleman&Wegener2004;Boyko dense buildings in attractive areas. This understanding &Cooper2011; Westerink et al. 2013)andthereisa is shared by Brueckner (2011). clear predominance of positive views on the compact The above-mentioned perspective mainly relates to city (Moliní & Salgado 2012). According to Hofstad the supply side, represented by institutions and develo- (2012,2),thecompactcityhas‘emerged as the preferred pers. However, an important feature of urban driving response to the goal of sustainable development’ in forces is that they act from both the supply and demand recent decades. Still, the features of a compact city are sides, sometimes simultaneously (Gray 2007). From the not univocally defined in the literature (Neuman demand perspective, Vilà (2014) examines the role of 2005). In this paper, we adopt a wide understanding of neighbourhood associations in promoting social equity urban compactness, in which intensity and diversity in in Barcelona, and Barrios & Rodriguez (2008) explore land use and functions are seen potentially to lead to home buyers’ preferences for multifamily dwellings in improved mobility, resource use, social equity, social Spanish large cities. Walks (2015) connects compact diversity, economy, and green spaces (Boyko & Cooper city development with gentrification and considers 2011). affluent populations as a key driving force. By outcom- By contrast, the academic literature on compact city peting other social tiers, the demand of the high-income driving forces is relatively limited. Although there are population for central locations contributes not only to articles on driving forces leading to urban sprawl (e.g. Sal- densification, but also to the privatization of such areas. vati & Sabbi 2014; Marraccini et al. 2015), the literature Morikawa (2011) and Rosenthal & Strange (2004) on driving forces linked to urban compactness is scarce. clearly adopt an economic point of view, in their ana- Furthermore, driving forces are typically discussed in lyses of the relationship between service industry pro- quite general and unspecific terms referring to macro- ductivity and urban population density. In this sense, scale processes, such as urbanization pressures, climate the service industry acts as a compact city driving and climate change, energy scarcity, economic growth, force by demanding population agglomeration. From and growing or declining populations (OECD 2012;Li an urban green structure position, Artmann (2013) et al. 2017; Pili et al. 2017). The compact city is thus typi- shows how different sociodemographic conditions cally idealized and dogmatized (Holman et al. 2015), but (population size, household size, living space, popu- without exploring the driving forces supporting its lation age, and number of private cars) can be linked implementation. Such idealization is also favoured by to soil sealing. the fact that the concept is heavily endorsed by inter- Although above-mentioned examples are relevant national institutions such as the UN, the EU, and the and valuable, the current literature on compact city driv- OECD, all