The Barcelona Metropolitan Area (BMA) is located in Catalonia, northeastern Spain. With a population of over 3 billion people, the BMA is one of the most populous metropolitan areas on the ...Mediterranean coast. A local climatic modification known as the urban heat island (UHI) occurs in the urban areas. The UHI is usually quantified by means of air temperature, although remote sensing can be used to extract a thermal image of the earth's surface to provide temperature values throughout the study area. Estimation of the land surface temperature (LST) for the BMA enabled us to establish the spatial patterns of LST and to detect the poles of heat and cold within the BMA on 24 dates during the 2013–2018 period, distributed among the 4 seasons of the year. To this end we performed a principal component analysis (PCA) and a cluster analysis (CA). Moreover, we employed the Random Forest (RF) regression method to quantify the influence and variation of diverse geographic covariates according to season and location in the study area. Finally, to determine the influence of land covers on temperature, the thermal values of the 4 land covers included in the Corine Land Cover dataset were analyzed: industrial units, continuous urban fabric, green urban areas, and forest areas. Results show that the heat poles are concentrated in industrial areas primarily, followed by urban fabric areas. On the contrary, the cold pole is found in green urban areas, as well as forested areas. The maximum temperature range between land covers was detected in spring and summer, while in winter this difference was negligible. Our study showed that green urban areas presented temperatures up to 2.5 °C lower than in urban areas. The results of the present research are intended to serve as a roadmap for enhancing thermal comfort in the BMA.
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•We extracted the main LST spatial patterns in the BMA.•Industrial areas and urban fabric exhibited the highest LST on all seasons.•Forest and green urban areas clearly reduced LST on all seasons.•Green urban areas presented up to 2.5 °C lower than urban fabric.
In this paper, I explore the impacts of holiday rentals in the historic centre of Barcelona. The intention is to contribute towards a conceptualisation of this unexplored phenomenon with the aim of ...better understanding why it represents the new gentrification battlefront in several tourist destinations. I suggest that the rhetoric of the sharing economy conceals the fact that holiday rentals are actually a new business opportunity for investors, tourist companies and individual landlords and, for this reason, long-term residents represent a barrier to capital accumulation. I show that there is an increasing conversion of housing into accommodation for visitors and that such conversion involves different forms of displacement. Importantly, when residents move out, the only buyers tend to be tourist investors. In such a context, I suggest that the growth of vacation flats produces conditions that solely enable the reproduction of further accommodation for visitors, rather than for long-term residential use. I call this process ‘collective displacement’, that is to say, a substitution of residential life by tourism. Ultimately, throughout this paper I suggest the importance of undertaking critical research relevant to those experiencing urban inequalities. Documenting and producing data about the way in which displacement takes place can be a crucial political tool for those who are fighting for staying put.
This article deploys the theoretical work of David Harvey to comprehend contemporary processes of the urbanisation of 'platform capitalism'. It isolates several of Harvey's key conceptual innovations ...in order to use them to contextualise the development of platform capitalism and to explain the significance of platforms and start-up 'ecosystems'. The article then applies these as heuristics to explain and critique how dynamics of financialisation, assetisation, and the reproduction of specific supplies of labour-power have fused with supply-side urban entrepreneurial placemaking processes to produce the 22@innovation district. The article homes in on the case of the quick commerce delivery platform, Glovo, to illustrate the more deleterious and contested aspects of the contemporary urbanisation of platform capitalism in Barcelona.
In the last few decades, local governments have looked at developing their cities to increase their attractiveness for tourism consumption. Urban and tourism planners have focused their attention on ...adapting different local attractions to target the tourist visit and provide them with recreation and entertainment. By consuming locally sourced traditional or farmed products, tourists adopt the values associated with local identity codes. This experience allows tourists to enjoy the city more as if they were local citizens. In this sense, one method of behaving as a local is to visit a food market. This study investigates the attributes that affect tourist satisfaction in relation to food market visits and explores whether tourists intend to revisit these food halls. Based on a survey relating to La Boqueria, currently one of the most renowned food markets in Barcelona, three factors were identified: physical environment, location and accessibility, and price. The results reveal that physical environment is an important tourist satisfaction predictor, while price and location and accessibility influence revisit behaviour. The results also suggest differences between first-time visitors and repeat visitors related to attributes perception, while there is no statistically important difference on the path level.
Empirical correlations between different geotechnical parameters are frequently sought after by exploiting multivariate databases. An example are estimations of total unit weight from cone ...penetration tests (CPTu), which are very useful in earlier design stages. If the underlying soil database includes data from many different soils a single correlation may lack precision. Precision is gained when the underlying database is narrowed down to some specific soil type, but the applicability of a soil-specific correlation is also limited. A way out of this dilemma is to apply clustering techniques to a general database before developing separate correlations for different clusters. Projecting the clustered data back to a convenient classification space (e.g., one spanned by normalized CPTu metrics) new data can be easily assigned to different clusters and the appropriate correlation used. This idea is illustrated here using Bayesian Mixture Analysis (BMA) to identify hidden soil classes within a general geotechnical database that supports correlations between soil total unit weight and CPTu readings. It is shown that BMA supported clustering improves the accuracy of previous regressions, and, more importantly, facilitates the formulation of novel and more accurate regressions. A simple discriminant criterion is developed to facilitate application of cluster-based regressions to new sites. The good performance of the method is illustrated with application to a deltaic site.
•Clustering technique to treat global geotechnical dataset.•Bayesian Mixture Analysis for clusters identification.•Novel cluster-based regressions for total unit weight prediction from CPTu readings.•Improvement of accuracy and precision of total unit weight estimates from CPTu.•Novel criterion for cluster-based correlations application.
Este artículo analiza las narrativas legitimadoras vinculadas a las políticas de promoción económica local de atracción de talento en contraposición con las motivaciones y perspectivas de estas ...personas. La combinación del debate teórico con el estudio de caso sobre los discursos de atracción en el distrito tecnológico del 22@ de Barcelona señala las disyuntivas existentes entre la perspectiva oficial y la realmente existente. La narrativa legitimadora defiende que el distrito tecnológico supone el mantenimiento del sentido histórico productivo de Poblenou y conecta con unos sujetos deseados sobre el espacio urbano, los trabajadores tecnológicos, que asocia a un ideal de emprendimiento histórico de la ciudad. Pero las perspectivas de los trabajadores tecnológicos ponen en cuestión este razonamiento en dos sentidos. Por un lado, los trabajadores tecnológicos locales se muestran decepcionados por la diferencia entre las promesas de vanguardia laboral y tecnológica de la narrativa oficial y el espacio urbano resultante. Mientras que, por otro lado, los discursos de los trabajadores internacionales atraídos revelan una desconexión con el discurso oficial de emprendimiento y expresan un interés por una dimensión recreativa.
This study explores digital nomadism (DN) from the perspective of local service providers. Anchored in the new mobilities paradigm, it aims to explore the territorial impacts of DN in Barcelona, ...focusing on coworking and coliving businesses. How do service providers perceive digital nomads? How do they adapt their businesses to digital nomads? Three main findings emerge. Firstly, this article pinpoints the importance of shifting the focus from identity of digital nomads to the practice of working remotely while travelling in order to have a more nuanced discussion over the local impacts of DN. Secondly, it presents six adaptation strategies of local businesses and their broader implications for the city, including the emergence of new services, the reconfiguration of the built environment, and ongoing gentrification processes. Thirdly, the study sheds light on the complex interactions between public and private sectors in adapting urban services to digital nomads, often at the expense of the local communities.
The paper examines the geography of three street centrality indices and their correlations with various types of economic activities in Barcelona, Spain. The focus is on what type of street ...centrality (closeness, betweenness and straightness) is more closely associated with which type of economic activity (primary and secondary). Centralities are calculated purely on the street network by using a multiple centrality assessment model, and a kernel density estimation method is applied to both street centralities and economic activities to permit correlation analysis between them. Results indicate that street centralities are correlated with the location of economic activities and that the correlations are higher with secondary than primary activities. The research suggests that, in urban planning, central urban arterials should be conceived as the cores, not the borders, of neighbourhoods.
This article reintroduces the concept of ‘appropriation of space’ into current theoretical debates and empirical approaches in environmental psychology. We present an analysis of a case study ...conducted in a Barcelona metropolitan river corridor, aimed at exploring how the development of people-place bonds can foster pro-environmental behaviours in a natural open space.
The multi-method qualitative analysis based on participant observation, documentary research and interviews with 57 inhabitants reveals a long-term process of appropriation of the riverside environment that typically results in a sense of responsibility of the subject towards it. The article specifically shows that the time factor is crucial in the explanation of the process of appropriation, and that future longitudinal studies in this and other cases will be required to assess more accurately its importance. Finally, we stress the benefits of taking proper advantage of citizens' cumulative awareness of the management of river corridors.
•Reintroducing space-appropriation into theoretical debates and empirical approaches.•People-place bonds and pro-environmental behaviours in natural open spaces.•Social recovery of river corridors in the metropolitan region of Barcelona.•The dual model of space appropriation as a dialectic and territorial process.•The importance of the time variable in the explanation of people-place bonds.
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