Visit to La Mina as a case study for urban renewal

By November 16, 2012Blog, Ciutat Meridiana, Featured

This week our students paid a visit to La Mina neighborhood in Barcelona, an example of urban renewal that serves as a case study for their current project to improve living conditions in Spain’s “Eviction City”, Ciutat Meridiana.

Located along the coast in the Sant Adrià de Besòs district, a municipality in the Barcelona metropolitan area, La Mina was built in the 1970s to provide new housing for predominantly gypsy populations living in various slum neighborhoods near the area. Physical, geographical and socio-economic disparities brought about the first urban intervention during the 80’s and 90’s, proving inefficient and leading to a Consortium-driven Transformation Plan in 2000 based on urban and social regeneration.

La Mina’s urban transformation was underpinned by identity, centrality, and exchange and took shape through the construction of a new, central zipper for the neighborhood—a rambla—along which new spaces, new facilities and new housing could grow.

Though Ciutat Meridiana’s steep topography is distinctly different from that of La Mina, the coastal neighborhood serves as an excellent example of urban transformation in which physical aspects of an outdated urban configuration and socio-economic strife posed major challenges.

In their research for solutions and strategies for urban renewal in Ciutat Meridiana, students will be studying the best practices put into effect in La Mina under the guidance of professors Sandra Bestraten and Emilio Hormias, who took part in one of the neighborhood’s rehabilitation projects.

photos by student Noel Sampson

5 Comments

  • somy says:

    hi i am searching on sustainable and urban renewal. my case study is la mina .would you help me ?

  • somy says:

    hi thanks for your email . i want iformation about the regeneration in la mina . and what kind of sustinable methods used in la mina ? and about social sustainability ?

  • Harry Maher says:

    Hello
    can you put me in touch with a football club who work with children from a deproved area, preferabblt La Mina. We do similar work and I am looking to make connections and apply for a possible joint funding opportunity.

    Thank you
    Harry

  • Yoav says:

    ​Dear Sir/Madam,

    As part of a research I was asked to do ​by the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipality and the ‘Hagar’ Institute in the Tel Aviv university (Israel), I am investigating the ways municipalities collaborate with local
    communities towards the issues of Urban Regeneration processes and affordable housing..

    The goal is to identify effective tools that enable municipalities reach and leverage local forces, but also get an inside understanding of how the municipal mechanisms work.

    With regard to the La Mina project (Sant Adrià de Besòs) My questions are:

    – Is there usually a designated department or departments within the municipality that is working with citizens ? Is there departments that responsible at creating and advancing them ? How do the municipality identify the ‘right’ actors from the community ?

    – What kind of approaches municipalities use to advance this kind of link ? Are they more proactive, and in what way ? Or perhaps they are more ‘passive’ and only supply the right services and assistance for
    urban renewal requests coming from the community ?

    – How can municipality help create local organizations in places they do not yet exist ?

    – How do municipalities involve the private sector (promoter/entrepreneur) in the regeneration efforts (Specifically housing projects), which many times lead to feeling of distrust and doubt among communities ? at what stage were they introduces to the community ?

    Thank You in advance,

    Yoav Zilberdik

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