Designing healthier cities to improve life quality: unveiling challenges and outcomes in two Spanish cases

ABSTRACT

This study assesses the early outcomes of the Poblenou Superblock in Barcelona and a nature-based solutions project in Valladolid. By critically analysing available data and collecting residents’ perceptions, the analysis depicts to what extent the project’s interventions enhanced environmental quality and residents’ well-being. Results highlight the role of the traffic space recovery strategy in Barcelona as a driver for larger benefits, allowing the creation of socially attractive public spaces along with greenery. This led to more appreciated interventions, possibly boosted by the post-pandemic context and city branding strategy. A potential downside concerns the likely gentrification processes triggered by these improvements.

KEYWORDS:

• Healthy city
• urban renewal
• urban planning
• green infrastructure
• urban greening

Author contributions

Federico Camerin: Conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, validation, investigation, project administration, software, data curation, writing – original draft, writing – review & editing. Davide Longato: Conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, validation, investigation, resources, software, visualization, writing – original draft, writing – review & editing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. This calculation was done considering that all the planned interventions are fully implemented, although for some of them the latest information available indicates that they are just partially completed (e.g., tree planting along the green corridor) (URBAN GreenUP 2020), and this was confirmed by on-site surveys during spring 2023.

2. Number of people contacted may be different from the total number of questionnaires effectively submitted (40 in each case study); this depends by the fact that there were people that declared they are not aware of the implemented project, thus they cannot provide answers about that.

3. Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation). Retrieved from https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32016R0679

Additional information

Funding

Federico Camerin acknowledges funding support by the Spanish Ministry of Universities in the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan; by the European Union – NextGenerationEU; and by the Universidad de Valladolid, under the framework of the project “Urban Regeneration as a new version of Urban Renewal Programmes. Achievements and failures”.