Métropoles (Apr 2018)
Existe-t-il un modèle barcelonais ? Retour sur quarante années de politiques urbaines à Barcelone (1976-2016)
Abstract
At a time when metropolitan policies seem to follow a course more and more convergent, we analyse forty years of urban policy in the city that has long been considered a specific model : Barcelona. To examine these policies over time is to test this notion of model. Our analysis of the development of the city is based on two parallel studies : that of the evolution of relations between public policy, political system and private interests, on the one hand, and a focus on a particular sector, real estate, on the other hand. Each of them gives an image of the evolution of the public-private relations which founds the "model". The influence of the urban government on the economy, although it has lost its substance, remains, in different ways depending on the issues, a key to development. In the real estate sector itself, as the alternation of 2015 confirms, some sub-sectors reflect a change. But others, first for reasons related to previous contracts with the previous majority, and then according to the balance of power of a coalition that governs with a simple relative majority, have largely managed to resist any aggiornamento of housing policies. Our conclusion is that, in view of the permanences but also the breaks in these urban policies, the notion of Barcelona model must be overcome. However, it remains a relative singularity that the notion of urban political regime can identify and put into perspective.
