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Events, Awards and Grants

Result of the research aid: "Llegat Pasqual Margall"

Studying presentation: "Urban structure and segregation: A century in Barcelona"



"Urban structure and segregation: A century in Barcelona" is the result of the third aid to the Pasqual Maragall Legacy Research. The book was presented on July 18 at the Palau Macaya, in an act where the elaboration process and the conclusions of the investigation were explained. The authors of the publication; Miguel Ángel García López, Doctor in Economics, Rosella Nicolini, PhD in Applied Economics and José Luis Roig Sabaté, Professor of Economics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, were in charge of presenting the different lines of the study. In addition, the event was attended by Oriol Nel·lo, Geographer and Professor of the UAB and Josep Maria Vegara, Doctor of Industrial Engineering, Professor Emeritus of the UAB and director of the Pasqual Maragall thesis.

The search of the authors, collected in four essays, aims to analyze the different territorial policies in Barcelona since the last century in order to see if the different territorial policies have been effective in dealing with the problems of urban segregation in the city. The vision of Barcelona in the politics of Pasqual Maragall plays a central role. It is the concern for this city that led him to present a series of initiatives to promote social cohesion and ensure a quality of life for all residents of the city. And in this sense, his experience in the United States forms a central pillar in the adoption of these new urban policies.

Oriol Nel·lo started the event by presenting the Pasqual Maragall Legacy Program, a research and reflection program around Maragall's action and political thought, with the aim of promoting, through this line of reflection and analysis, new ideas and proposals. It is precisely these ideas, proposals and people that make it possible to configure the backbone of Pasqual Maragall's political action. Thus, he stated that the study presented has an indirect relationship with the Catalan politician, since it deals with two issues that are specified in the book presented by the authors: on the one hand, land prices and, on the other, urban segregation. Both, important lines of thought of Pasqual Maragall.

Next, Josep Maria Vegara made a brief tour about the chronology of Pasqual Maragall, influencing, to a large extent, the thesis "The prices of public land (the case of Barcelona)" presented in 1979 and which covers the perspective of the urban land in the Ciudad Condal. The thesis, which was collected in five volumes, has a chronological journey of almost all economic history and concluded a political proposal for the soil of Barcelona, a proposal that is currently of special interest.

Next, the three authors made a brief presentation of their research. They presented the objectives and the main strategy that they sought to answer in this study: to determine the relationship between urban spatial structure and segregation throughout the 20th century. What effects has it had on the relationship of the different population groups in Barcelona closely linked to the political actions carried out by Pasqual Maragall. Thus, the main strategy of the investigation was the analysis of the urban spatial structure: the pattern of the price of land with respect to the distance of the CBD (Central Business District) -in the case of this study Plaza Catalunya-, to be able to determine the relationship between population groups and the urban spatial structure. The income in this research, acts as a synthetic measure of territorial socioeconomic characteristics (in neighborhoods and districts of the city of Barcelona). The conclusions obtained from this research have served to express that the urban spatial structure explains a part of the pattern of the distribution of the population in Barcelona (already anticipated by Pasqual Maragall) and how the decentralization policies allowed the urban structure to continue functioning as a main factor in the distribution of the city.

The event was closed with the intervention of some of the attendees, who made clear the need for more studies of this type and the importance of being able to establish answers for the main problems that Barcelona is experiencing. Finally, Oriol Nel·lo expressed his gratitude to the participants of the act and the authors for all the research work carried out.