ABSTRACT
The growth and decline of cities has been a constant theme in urban literature and policymaking (Kantor and Turok, 2012). The 2008 financial and economic crisis has accentuated this concern in European cities, where historically a compromise had been reached between particular economic interests and social responsibility (Häussermann and Haila, 2005: 53). While urban governing elites of all major cities are enthralled by the idea of city marketing and claim competitive advantage to attract important events such as Olympic Games, festivals and the like (Martinotti, 2005: 91) there is a need for more nuanced analysis of the institutional choices required to maintain a balance between the capacity to compete in the global economy and to maintain social cohesion (Ranci, 2013). Although national regulatory structures (with the exception of financial markets) play a strong role in European cities (Le Galès, 2002, 2005; Kazepov, 2005; García and Judd, 2012), local actors can exhibit relative autonomy in their policy choices in order to achieve social cohesion through welfare policy instruments (Andreotti et al., 2012). Two policy fields in governance decision-making that impact directly on the population: employment, and housing and neighbourhood cohesion. This chapter2 analyses the development of policies for economic development and social cohesion in Barcelona during the period 2003-2014. We focus on the changes in these two policy fields. First we examine housing policies in Barcelona in the context of the expanding – and then bursting – Spanish housing bubble. We look at the regenerated section of the East-side nineteenth-century industrial neighbourhood of Poblenou, where the knowledge-economy district of 22@ was planned and developed from the late 1990s. Second, we will examine active employment-policy changes in relation to the creation of good quality jobs. Since the 2008 economic crisis, policies targeting the quality of jobs have been increasingly substituted by policies to mitigate increased unemployment in a context where housing affordability and accessibility have become an acute problem for those who cannot afford paying their mortgage or their rent. The concept of social cohesion is articulated at different levels of government, from national to neighbourhood (Eizaguirre et al., 2012). In this chapter we take the
national level as the regulatory background whose employment and housing laws have influenced local policies while we focus on the territorial scales of city and neighbourhood. The Barcelona story is particularly telling because of the city’s important economic diversification in the post-industrial urban regeneration over many years and of the policy readjustments before and during the economic crisis both in employment and housing and moreover because of a political change in the governing majority. Barcelona was governed by left-wing coalitions for 32 years, from 1979 to 2011, and by a conservative minority from 2011 to 2015. This change accounts for the transformation of a model of governance developed during the first period, and for different policies for social cohesion and economic development. Historically, Barcelona’s modern development since 1979 occurred in a context of consolidation of democracy and of a redistribution of power over three levels of government in Spanish administration: central, autonomic (regional) and local (provincial3 and city). The local level saw its competences increased, although financial resources were transferred mainly from central government to regional administrations, limiting the possibilities for developing policies at the local level. A process of regional recentralization concurrent with the devolution from central government of financial resources prompted local authorities to create mechanisms for coordination with regional and central governments. This governance structure has conditioned the implementation of local policies in Barcelona since the required financial support was controlled by the regional government. Politically, Barcelona’s left-wing coalition government, led by the Catalan Socialist Party, often had to confront the conservative Catalan regional government (CiU) that ruled from 1980 until 2015 with the exception of a seven-year period between 2003 and 2010, when the left-wing coalition also governed at the regional, Catalan level. This seven-year period of aggregated power was instrumental for the implementation of housing and neighbourhood policies, as we will explain later on. The long period of political hegemony by a socialist-led coalition at the local level explains the consolidation of the governance model of the city, based on public leadership with participation from civil society and consensus-building with private and civil society actors (Blackeley, 2005; García, 2003, 2008; Degen and García, 2012). As Michael Parkinson (OECD, 2005) has pointed out, place shaping was actually first introduced in Barcelona, where the local government developed a governance model based on strong links with civil society, especially neighbourhood associations and trade unions, but also with the Chamber of Commerce and the institutions behind the Barcelona trade shows (Ferias). This model made possible the necessary consensus to implement a programme of redistribution of urban resources based on the consolidation of civic, social and political rights. Social cohesion as a main policy objective was introduced by the progressive coalition fronted by the charismatic mayor Pasqual Maragall in the early 1980s. This good negotiator coordinated a flow of resources from many levels – the EU,
and national and regional funds – to the city to implement policies in education, social services and many other fields (Truño, 2000: 65). He also improved the public realm through the engagement of citizens in urban regeneration. However, Barcelona’s governing coalition initiated an internal transformation with the successful bid for hosting the Olympic Games of 1992. The nomination for the games in 1986 brought the creation of public-led partnerships with private actors to develop urban projects, and the reorganization of the local administration in order to improve efficiency. Private actors were further stimulated by the entrance of Spain into the European Community in 1986, which yielded a new pool of resources for policies linked to economic development and exports to European markets. As a result Barcelona experienced an urban and economic transformation with an increase of 64.4 per cent in per-capita GDP between 1986 and 1999 (Pareja-Eastaway et al., 2007). The celebration of the Olympic Games consolidated a model of local governance based on public-private partnerships and strategic planning (Degen and García, 2012: 3). The so-called “Barcelona model” has shaped policies for economic growth since then. After the games, strategic planning was extended to different policy areas such as transport, tourism or culture, with an increasing emphasis on competitiveness in attracting businesses and tourists. While innovation and foreign investments were gaining priority in local government with an economic agenda for growth, the quality of life of the population and social cohesion still figured on the policy agenda. Successive city mayors emphasized economics by reinforcing the strategy for economic growth based on knowledge-intensive activities and culture linked to urban regeneration. In 2000 the city council started the urban renewal of the eastside of the city (Littoral front and 22@ district), a former industrial area destined to become a knowledge-based district. This intervention generated concerns regarding the over-emphasis on business and the neglect of social housing, and weakened the consensus with neighbourhood associations, which actively challenged the new turn in the development of the city. These concerns grew with the organization of the mega project Forum de les Cultures in 2004, seen as a project that served only particular interests rather than the whole city (GarcíaRamon et al., 2000; Miles, 2008). The forum, a four-month macro event, functioned as a catalyst to develop the Diagonal-Mar neighbourhood, with exclusive new housing designed for high-income consumers promoted entirely by private developers worldwide. Seen as the demise of the “Barcelona model” (Borja, 2010; Miles, 2008) this private intervention and the strong opposition it generated was yet another incentive for the Catalan parliamentary debate in the same year and the consequent passing of the Neighbourhood Act. We will come back to the importance of this Act in our analysis of housing policies. In sum, Barcelona’s intense economic transformation brought a weakening of the governance model of the city, which was based on combining growth and social cohesion via social consensus. In 2011 a new conservative leadership took office and ruled the city until 2015.4 This new government brought important changes in policies and in the debates on the model for the development of
Barcelona and of the metropolitan area. We concentrate here on the changes in approaches to housing and to employment policies in Barcelona with the outbreak of the crisis and the change of political colour in the city council. We focus on policies during 2003-2014 and on the effects of the beginning of financial crisis in 2007.
