Estimating public space metrics from nineteenth-century urban cartography: Barcelona’s Cerdà Plan of urban expansion

Abstract

Urban cartography enables us to trace the historical and spatial evolution of human settlements, but it also furnishes us with the opportunity to obtain and analyse urban data from the perspective of the present day. Urban plans drafted for the reform and expansion of a city can provide us with valuable urban information about the planned use of new public space. In Western Europe, the historical cartography of Barcelona (Spain) maps the city’s mid-nineteenth century urban expansion project designed to fulfil egalitarian, social and hygienist goals. Here, using geographic information system tools, we digitize Barcelona’s cartography so as to create an urban dataset based on the city’s urban plans – the Cerdà Plans (1859 and 1863) – and to estimate its public space typology. Social centres, hospitals, green spaces, residential areas and communication infrastructures are identified and metrised, and urban public open spaces are analysed using various urban indicators. The urban data thus obtained represent a notable advance on attempts to quantify Cerdà’s original project. The importance attached to public space (>75%) and to both communication infrastructure and urban public open spaces is indicative of the desire to create a new city and to break with the values of old Barcelona. In short, the data obtained serve to undertake a detailed comparison with the present-day reality of Barcelona.

Keywords

Urban planning urban cartography geographic information systems public space metrics urban indicators

Introduction

Over the last few decades, Barcelona has become a major tourist destination, welcoming visitors that typically express their surprise at its ‘orthogonal’ grid-street plan. The man responsible for the city’s grid-street pattern, Ildefons Cerdà, drew up the so-called Plan Cerdà in 1859, which served as the blueprint for Barcelona’s Ensanche.

In recent years, however, Cerdà’s urban theory has acquired a certain centrality in analyses and debates of European urban planning (Epps, 2001; Faludi, 2010; Fraser, 2011; Frick, 2019; Hebbert, 2006) and Barcelona’s Ensanche grid is the inspiration for many new urban sustainability projects (Clos, 2009; Fan et al., 2017; Mueller et al., in press; Rueda, 2018). This urban expansion plan is considered a model by city planners and leaders alike (Aibar and Bijker, 1997; Epps, 2017; Magrinyà, 2009; Marshall, 2000; Neuman, 2011; Rueda, 2020; Urbano, 2016), and its orthogonal grid recognized as having been a creative solution to the city’s longstanding health and hygiene problems (Alonso-Fernández, 2008; Ross, 2018). In his plan, Cerdà sought to maximise exposure to sunlight, prioritising access to drinking water, the natural ventilation of its streets and a minimum living space for each citizen (Martín-Ramos, 2012; Wynn, 1979, 1989).

A number of the aforementioned studies have shown how urban public space (PS) was, for Cerdà, a critical element of his urban planning. The orthogonal plan, which connected old Barcelona with its municipalities in the periphery, constituted a systematic model for the distribution of public services (Magrinyà, 2002; Tarragó and Soria, 1976; Vela and Padrés, 1976). Social centres and schools, hospitals, municipal markets, state administrative buildings and green spaces (GSs) were distributed in an optimal fashion among Cerdà’s city blocks (Pallarès-Barberà, 1986; Pallarès-Barberà et al., 2011). A distribution that, in turn, fitted within the city’s administrative division into wards, districts and sectors (Magrinyà and Marzá, 2017).

This article proposes just such an analysis of the urban PS in Cerdà’s Plan by undertaking a quantification of its PS typology. From a theoretical perspective, the concept of urban PS was one that Cerdà very much sought to develop, so any study of his thinking in this regard should improve our conceptual understanding. From an empirical perspective, urban PS is clearly recognised today as being central to contemporary urban planning and this article seeks to make a contribution to this strand of the literature. In short, this article should be of interest for urban practitioners given that the urban data we can extract from the original Cerdà Plan should highlight the differences between what was planned and what was actually implemented, thus paving the way for a broader discussion about the role of PS (and, specifically, that of urban public open space) in the city.

The rest of this article is organised as follows. In the next two sections, which serve as a spring board for the rest of the discussion, the historical background to the Cerdà Plan and the need for PS and social facilities in the city are debated. The materials and methods employed are then reported, with a particular emphasis on cartography, geographic information system techniques and PS typology analysis. Next, we present our results together with the cartography analysed and the dataset created. In the discussion section, we specifically seek to compare our results with the data presented by other authors. Finally, we report a series of conclusions that can be drawn from our study.

Historical context

Cerdà’s technical solutions to Barcelona’s urban problems originated in his hygienic vision, in which public, green and open spaces were deemed essential for the proper functioning of the city and for the health of its inhabitants. Hygienism was a socio-political movement that emerged during the first half of the nineteenth century in response to a very specific reality: the development of the industrial city with its associated problems of high density housing, unhealthy environment and the general inefficiency in satisfying its basic urban functions (Gandy, 2006a, 2006b; Hebbert, 1999). Large urban agglomerations were seen as a source of disease, yet, at the same time, also as an opportunity to implement new forms of urban planning based on ventilated spaces, the regenerative role of trees and nature within the city and wide streets capable of accommodating different forms of mobility.

Cerdà’s Plan was approved and published in 1859 and implemented between the second half of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth century. However, as many authors report (Guàrdia et al., 2009; Neuman, 2011; Pallarès-Barberà et al., 2011; Tarragó and Magrinyà, 1996), there was to be a notable implementation gap between the first versions of the Plan (1859 and 1863) and its final form. Indeed, the council ordinances permitted the gradual transformation of the plan and, although the basic urban structure was respected, some of its basic principles would be modified considerably. The open concept of the city’s blocks in Cerdà’s original plan ensured significant reserves of PS inside these blocks; however, from the outset, the Ensanche was built with closed blocks that occupied a much greater number of floors than projected, something that benefited investors greatly. Likewise, neither the number nor the network location of public facilities and green and leisure areas were respected in the implementation of Cerdà’s plan.

Despite not being implemented in its entirety, it is interesting to examine in detail the plan’s proposals for the organization of the urban space, especially if we want to understand one of the main problems faced by Barcelona today: namely, the scarcity of GS. Indeed, it is this that makes Barcelona one of the densest, most compact cities in Europe today (Langemeyer et al., 2020; Zang and Muñoz, 2019) and, in combination with severe problems of daily air pollution generated by its urban vehicles, responsible for the very serious ramifications for the health of its inhabitants (Nieuwenhuijsen et al., 2018; Pérez et al., 2009).

Facilities and services in urban public spaces: An overview

PS lies at the core of the conceptual framework of urban studies (Banerjee, 2001; Bodnar, 2015; Gaffikin et al., 2010; Goheen, 1998; Haas and Olsson, 2014). One of the main objectives of urban planning and urban design is forecasting the need for and constructing public facilities and services such as schools, health centres, sports fields, libraries and administrative buildings (Evans, 2009; Johnston, 1977; Kallus, 2010; Lea, 1979), all of which fulfil a very specific function: that is, meeting a community’s specific basic needs (Lee and Lee, 2014; Sanders, 1984). As such, the existence of an optimal number of public facilities in a city is related to a better quality of life and equity (Rusek et al., 2018; Sakashita, 1987; Taleai et al., 2014) and represents benefits for local governments in terms of efficiency and quality of urban design (Mehta, 2013; Zolnik et al., 2010).

Public facilities are shared by the citizens as a whole, regardless of their level of income or to which cultural group they belong. Citizens are the ‘users’ of public facilities and urban services, and this confirms their ‘right to use the city’. Public participation, moreover, in the collective debate about public facilities is a frequent democratic tool used by local governments (Amado et al., 2010; Jelenski, 2016; White, 2001). This means a lack of public facilities might be considered a sign of social injustice (Low and Iveson, 2016; Parkinson, 2013) or as an indicator of the privatization phenomena (Németh, 2012).

The correct distribution of public facilities in a city is a key element in the configuration of the urban network, since their equitable presence facilitates accessibility to basic services to the entire population and ensures their health and well-being (Barton, 2009; Tari et al., 2015). However, as Erkip (1997) states, a homogeneous distribution based solely on the physical and geographical characteristics of a city is not synonymous with an equitable distribution, since different citizen groups are likely to have different needs and uses.

Furthermore, territories with a low-density sprawl can also represent a barrier to accessing urban services and public facilities (Talen, 2013). Yet, at the same time, public facilities are important points of social support in peripheral spaces where the private sector decides not to invest and so tends to neglect (Bowyer, 2005; Evans and Fraser, 1996). Thus, these can become anchor points for vulnerable groups in crisis scenarios characterised by marginalized, low-income neighbourhoods. Indeed, the presence of public facilities and urban services can represent one of the most important provisions for overcoming informal urban planning (Fernández-Maldonado, 2008).

Some public and community facilities, including parks and various types of urban green areas, playing fields and recreation areas, can be considered as urban public open spaces (UPOSs; Kiminami et al., 2006). Such spaces can be defined as both undeveloped and unbuilt areas, publicly owned and regulated, accessible to the public and which, in turn, allow intense social interaction (Francis, 2003; Thompson, 2002; Woolley, 2003).

The benefits of UPOSs in the city are multiple. On the one hand, these spaces commonly include small parcels of nature in the urban environment, something that contributes to the promotion of biodiversity and environmental awareness (Jim, 2004; Kong et al., 2010; Tajima, 2003). The vegetation present in UPOSs can also contribute to reducing air pollution and moderating urban temperatures (Greene and Millward, 2017; Lemus-Canovas et al., 2020), effects that have a positive impact on health (Carlin et al., 2016; Douglas et al., 2017). It is also important to take into account their aesthetic value, which may even have a positive impact on house prices (Brander and Koetse, 2011; Kong et al., 2007). In addition, UPOSs also provide multiple recreational uses for all citizens, who can participate in physical and sports activities that can also have a positive impact on health (Dempsey et al., 2018).

Materials and methods

Our research adhered to the following five steps (Figure 1): (i) the procurement of two original and scanned versions of the Cerdà Plan (1859 and 1863) from official public data sources; (ii) the preparation of georeferenced maps; (iii) the digitization of the two versions of the Cerdà Plan and the calculation of the surface areas dedicated to each urban use; (iv) the identification of PST in order to create an urban dataset; and (v) the application of urban indicators (UIs) to assess PS, GS and UPOS.

Figure 1.

Graphic scheme of the proposed methodology.

Cartographic records of Cerdà’s Plan

Working with early cartography entails a number of limitations, including the difficulty of (a) obtaining scanned versions of sufficient resolution for digitizing; (b) performing an accurate digitization when good resolution cartography is unavailable; and (c) associating, on the map, what is represented by the plan and what was eventually brought to fruition by the administration. Limitations (a) and (b) were resolved here thanks to the availability of scanned versions of sufficient resolution to carry out map digitization, while limitation (c) was overcome thanks to the availability of orthophotographs (scale 1:5000) of Catalonia taken in 2019 by the Institut Cartogràfic I Geològic de Catalunya (ICGC; released under CC BY 4.0 license) of the studied area that made it possible to distinguish between what was planned and what was actually built. The main official public cartographic sources, constituting the basis for the digitization and analysis reported here, were the Museu d’Història de Barcelona and the ICGC.

GIS methods and area covered

We used QGIS 3.4.8-Madeira (Open Source Geospatial Foundation) to complete the georeferencing tasks, produce maps and estimate areas dedicated to urban uses. The study area was first divided into three: (i) the total urban area (TUA), corresponding to the entire digitizable surface, which includes the old city of Barcelona, the hill of Montjuïc (considered an UPOS) and the entire area projected by Cerdà for expansion; (ii) the total projected area (TPA), thus excluding the old city and Montjuïc, since they do not constitute part of the new urban expansion area; and (iii) the total core area (TCA), corresponding to that part of the urban expansion which, to a greater or lesser extent, coincides with the present-day grid of the Ensanche. For this reason, extra-urban elements were not considered.

Public space typology dataset preparation

We based the PS typology of the Cerdà Plan on previous studies of the 1859 version, where the existence of public facilities and their optimal distribution were both highlighted (Magrinyà, 2002; Magrinyà and Marzá, 2017; Pallarès-Barberà, 1986; Tarragó and Soria, 1976; Vela and Padrés, 1976). Table 1 shows the distribution of social facilities by administrative division and city block. Based on this initial classification, we employed five categories – namely, social facilities, supply infrastructure, green and leisure areas, residential area and communication infrastructure – in conjunction with two new categories – namely, UPOS and total PS. Each category was then quantified.

Table 1.

Distribution of the social facilities proposed by Cerdà (1859 version) from the highest (sector) to the lowest (ward) administrative level.

Administrative division of Barcelona	Block set	Social facilities proposed by Cerdà (1859 version)
Sector	20 x 20 (400)	1 hospital 2 local parks
District	10 x 10 (100)	1 municipal market
Ward	5 x 5 (25)	1 social service centre (school, asylum, charity centre)

From the PST obtained through cartographic analysis, a collection of public and GS UIs was applied. The estimated population coinciding with the 1859 and 1863 Cerdà Plans was obtained by multiplying the TUA (excluding extra-urban elements such as the old city, cemeteries, the slaughterhouse, the port and railway areas) by the urban density (250 inhabitants per hectare or 40 m² per inhabitant) – a historical figure provided by Cerdà (Cerdà, 1859, 1867) and one confirmed by several authors (Magrinyà, 2008; Tarragó, 2013; Tarragó and Magrinyà, 1996; Tarragó and Soria, 1976).

Floor area per person (Commission on Human Settlements of United Nations (UNCHS), 1997) was also calculated, multiplying the living space (private residential area) by the number of constructed floors provided by the Plan (n + 2) and dividing by the expected population. Green area per inhabitant (World Health Organization (WHO), 2010) was obtained by dividing the green surface area obtained as a result of digitization by the expected population. Minimum standards for public and GSs (UN-Habitat, 2013) were based on the percentage data obtained from the TUA. UIs related to GSs were calculated in several scenarios (taking into account all categories, including all existing UPOS in the Plan).

Results

Performance of the public space typology dataset

From the digitization of the cartography of the Cerdà Plan (Figures S1 and S2), several types of PS could be identified (Table 2). While in the 1859 version of the Plan (Figure S1), up to five PSTs can be observed (A, B, C, D2 and E in Table 2), in the 1863 revision of the Plan (Figure S2) only four could be detected (B, C, D2 and E in Table 2). The first category (A in Table 2), referring to social facilities, was eliminated by Cerdà in the second version in compliance with the historical regulations proposed by the Barcelona City Council (García-Bellido, 2000; Neuman, 2011; Soria, 1999; Tarragó and Serratosa, 1994; Tarragó and Soria, 1976).

Table 2.

Dataset of public space typology identified and obtained from the 1859 and 1863 Cerdà Plans.

PST (A, B, C, D2, E)	1859				1863
PST (A, B, C, D2, E)	Ha	%TUA	%TPA	%TCA	Ha	%TUA	%TPA	%TCA
A. Social facilities	130.46	4.11	5.27	3.30
A1. Social service centres and schools	40.56	1.28	1.64	2.06
A2. Municipal markets	11.91	0.38	0.48	0.60
A3. Hospitals	13.33	0.42	0.54	–
A4. State and administrative buildings	12.58	0.40	0.51	0.64
A5. Cemeteries	43.97	1.39	1.78	–
A6. Slaughterhouse facilities	8.12	0.26	0.33	–
B. Supply infrastructure	190.52	6.00	7.70	–	144.33	4.38	5.56	–
B1. Rail station and associated land	101.30	3.19	4.10	–	55.11	1.67	2.12	–
B2. Port area and associated land	89.22	2.81	3.61	–	89.22	2.71	3.44	–
C. Green and leisure areas	820.88	25.86	13.24	4.05	837.46	25.39	13.23	3.82
C1. Local parks	79.77	2.51	3.23	4.05	83.74	2.54	3.22	3.82
C2. Gran Bosque park	247.50	7.80	10.01	–	260.01	7.88	10.01	–
C3. Montjuïc area	493.71	15.55	–	–	493.71	14.97	–	–
D. Residential area (interways or blocks)	1055.87	33.27	42.70	53.60	1298.02	39.36	49.97	59.19
D1. Private housing area	431.46	13.59	17.45	21.90	704.81	21.37	27.13	32.14
D2. Open space within the street block	624.41	19.67	25.25	31.70	593.21	17.99	22.84	27.05
E. Communication infrastructure (ways)	769.20	24.23	31.10	39.05	811.33	24.60	31.24	36.99
F. Old city (Ciutat Vella)	207.07	6.57	–	–	207.07	6.28	–	–
TUA	3174.00				3298.21
TPA	2473.22				2597.43
TCA	1969.78				2193.09
PUB	2535.47	85.5%			2386.33	77.2%
PRI	431.46	14.5%			704.81	22.8%

Ha: hectares; PRI: total private space = D1; PST: public space typology (A, B, C, D2, E); PUB: total public space = A + B+C+D2+E; TCA: total core area = TPA-A3,5,6-B-C2; TPA: total projected area = TUA-C3-F; TUA: total urban area = A + B+C + D+E + F; 1859: 1859 Cerdà’s Plan version; 1863: 1863 Cerdà’s Plan version.

In both versions (Figures S1 and S2), the old city of Barcelona (F in Table 2) represents only a small part (F < 7%) of the TUA (Table 2). Thus, the new urban expansion area conceived by Cerdà represents, in both cases, about 15 times more space than the old city (14.22 in Figure S1 and 14.92 in Figure S2). This outcome contrasts with the present-day urban expansion of the city of Barcelona (102.2 km²) and its metropolitan region (3150.7 km²), which is 30 times greater.

Interestingly, a large proportional difference exists between public and private space (PUB > 75% in both versions, as can be seen in Table 2). However, the 1859 version (Figure S1) has a larger reserve of PS (PUB = 85.5%). Thus, private space (PRI in Table 2) corresponds, in both versions, to the housing area (D1 in Table 2), but this figure is higher in the 1863 Plan (Figure S2). With the disappearance of social facilities (A in Table 2), private residential space increases, which results in a densification of the city.

The TUA percentages in the 1859 and 1863 Cerdà Plans (Table 2) reveal the importance of new projected residential space (D in Table 2) and of green areas (C in Table 2), both projected (C1 and C2 in Table 2) and not projected (C3 in Table 2). Furthermore, UPOS (A5, C and D2 in Table 2) can be considered as the main land-use in both versions (46.92% in Figure S1 and 43.38% in Figure S2). Therefore, almost half the TUA of Barcelona is conceived as an undeveloped or non-built space and as being accessible to the public. The prominence afforded to UPOS is maintained if we only take into account the TPA, with this use remaining as the main one (40.27% in Figure S1 and 36.07% in Figure S2). If we only consider the TCA of the urban expansion, the prominence afforded UPOS is also upheld. In the first version of the Cerdà Plan (Figure S1), UPOS occupy more space (35.75%) than private housing (D1 in Table 2), surpassed only by communication infrastructure (E in Table 2). In contrast, in the second version UPOS are relegated to third position (30.87%), after E and D1 (Table 2), as a result of the densification measures instigated by Cerdà. However, the percentage is still high, stressing the value of UPOS in the new plan for Barcelona.

The TUA, TPA and TCA also show the preponderant land-use of both supply and communication infrastructure (B and E in Table 2). In the TUA, the area dedicated to this infrastructure system is less than that dedicated to UPOS (A5, C and D2 in Table 2) in both versions of the Plan. In contrast, if we focus on the TPA, while the infrastructure system remains in second position in Figure S1 (38.80%), the area dedicated to it exceeds that of UPOS in Figure S2. As stated, the main land-use in the TCA is that of communication infrastructure (39.05% in Figure S1 and 36.99% in Figure S2), even without taking into account the city’s port and rail facilities. In turn, the area dedicated to social facilities (A in Table 2) is the PST with the lowest level of representation in the TUA, TPA and TCA of Figure S1 (and, as discussed, it is non-existent in Figure S2).

UPOS and the application of urban indicators

Table 3 shows the results of the estimated population calculations (UI1 in Table 3), as well as the application of the four UIs of private space (UI2 in Table 3), PS (UI4 in Table 3) and, specifically, green areas (UI3 and UI5 in Table 3). In general, a common pattern seems to emerge: the standard values proposed by Cerdà match or exceed those values considered to be average, sustainable or currently recommended.

Table 3.

Urban indicators (UI) applied to the 1859 and 1863 Cerdà Plan datasets.

Urban indicators (UI) for public and green spaces	1859	1863	Indicative data (A, M)
UI1. Expected population (n)	681,080	736,703	–
UI2. Floor area per person (UNCHS, 1997; m² per inhabitant)	19.01	28.70	A ≥20 m² per inhabitant^a
UI3. Green area per inhabitant (WHO, 2010; m² per inhabitant)			M = 9 m² per capita
UI3a. C1	1.17	1.14
UI3b. C1 + C2	4.81	4.67
UI3c. C1 + C2 + C3	12.05	11.37
UI3d. C1 + C2 + C3 + D2 (UPOS without A5)	21.22	19.42
UI3e. C1 + C2 + C3 + D2 + A5 (UPOS)	21.87	19.42
UI4. Minimum standard for public space (PS) in urban areas (UN-Habitat, 2013; %)^b	85.50	77.20	M = 45%
UI5. Minimum standard for green spaces (GS) in urban areas (UN-Habitat, 2013; %)^b			M = 15%
UI5a. C1	2.51	2.54
UI5b. C1 + C2	10.31	10.42
UI5c. C1 + C2 + C3	25.86	25.39
UI5d. C1 + C2 + C3 + D2 (UPOS without A5)	45.53	43.38
UI5e. C1 + C2 + C3 + D2 + A5 (UPOS)	46.92	43.38

A: average; M: recommended minimum; 1859: 1859 Cerdà’s Plan version; 1863: 1863 Cerdà’s Plan version.Bold indicates UI5 values greater than 15%.

^aAverage in developed regions.

^bUsed only in urban areas with >150 hab/Ha. Based on TUA data.

Floor area per person results (UI2 in Table 3) are near the average for developed countries. But while the 1859 version does not reach 20 m² of floor area per person (UI2 = 19.01 m² per inhabitant), the 1863 version exceeds them (UI2 = 28.70 m² per inhabitant). This result can be explained by the fact that the surface area allocated to private housing uses was greater in the second than in the first version of the Plan. It also shows that the provision of residential space proposed by Cerdà (in both versions) corresponds to the present-day average recorded for developed countries.

The minimum standard recommended for PS (UI4 in Table 3) highlights the importance attached to this land-use in the two versions of the Plan. While official data for urban areas (>150 inhabitants per hectare) recommend a minimum of 45% of PS, Cerdà’s provision for Barcelona exceeded 75% in both versions. The same applies to the 15% minimum standard recommended for GS (UI5 in Table 3), but only when we combine the city’s local parks, the Gran Bosque park and the Montjuïc area (UI5c = 25.86% in 1859, and 25.39% in 1863). These percentages are even higher if we take into account all the UPOS (>40% in both versions, Figure S3).

The official recommendation of green area per inhabitant (UI3 in Table 3) – that is, 9 m² per capita – is also surpassed if we take into account the three types of GS above (UI3c = 12.05 m² per inhabitant in 1859, and 11.37 m² per inhabitant in 1863). Correspondingly, if all UPOS are taken into account, this value increases considerably (19–21 m² per inhabitant depending on the version). The earlier version of the Plan has a higher percentage of public and GS than the second, as well as a larger green area per capita, but that does not prevent the two versions from exceeding the minimum recommended by official organizations.

Discussion

As discussed, this article has aimed to highlight the role given to PS in Cerdà’s Plan for Barcelona by classifying and quantifying a typology for these spaces. Previous studies of Cerdà’s work have stressed the importance attached to the network of social facilities (Magrinyà, 2002; Tarragó and Soria, 1976) and have examined in-depth its optimal location model for schools, hospitals and markets (Pallarès-Barberà, 1986; Pallarès-Barberà et al., 2011). In short, the plan’s priority can be identified as maximising accessibility for the population of this new Barcelona to a range of facilities and services. However, in real terms, social facilities (A in Table 2) represent no more than 4% of the land-use projected by the 1859 version of the Plan Cerdà, which seems to indicate that the importance of social facilities lies more in their distribution and optimal location than in their quantity.

Having said that, however, the optimal location of social facilities is only apparent in the first version (Figure S1) and, as noted earlier, these facilities had to be suppressed in the second (Figure S2). Indeed, all social facilities disappear from the second version, albeit that the hierarchy of land uses is maintained. In both versions, though, UPOS and communication infrastructure are the two PS typologies that account for the highest percentage of land-uses. Thus, among what might be considered as community or public facilities, UPOSs (i.e. essentially, green and leisure areas and open space within the street block) are the most important in absolute terms and represent a much greater proportion of social facilities than previous authors believed. Accessible open PSs, intended for the use and enjoyment of citizens, constitute the most important type of public or community facility, and in this regard there is no change between the two versions of the plan. As such, our findings highlight the somewhat ambivalent role of open spaces and the communication system in the Cerdà Plan, where public access and connectivity are deemed as being the priority functions of the new Barcelona.

The data reported by other authors in relation to the present-day Ensanche shed additional light on the matter. Serratosa (1994) stresses the value of Ensanche’s communication network, which today represents 34% of urban area. This contrasts with the results obtained in our study for the strictly delimited area of the Ensanche (equivalent to the TCA in Table 2). The proportion of land-use represented by communication infrastructure in the Cerdà Plan – that is, 39.05% in 1859 and 36.99% in 1863 (Table 2) – shows that, in quantitative terms, the area reserved for the network of streets and roads was respected in its subsequent implementation – albeit that the present-day land-uses in this area differ notably from those proposed by Cerdà, in an era when road vehicles did not exist.

It is also interesting to contrast present-day data regarding the city’s open and GSs with the objectives identified in Cerdà’s original plan. According to the Ajuntament de Barcelona (2013), the city of Barcelona as demarcated by its municipal boundaries – that is, not including its metropolitan area – comprises 1,102 hectares of open and GSs. This area includes the GSs in the city’s different neighbourhoods – those which in Cerdà’s day were peripheral municipalities – as well as the beach area (note that neither the GSs in the old municipalities nor the recreational beach area were included in the Cerdà Plan). Our study finds that UPOSs in Cerdà’s Plan represented 300 hectares more than are actually present in Barcelona today (UPOSs = 1,445.29 in 1859 and 1,430.67 in 1863 in Table 2).

The Ajuntament de Barcelona (2013) provides a further statistic that is relevant to our discussion here: today, Barcelona has 6.82 m² of open and GSs per inhabitant – a figure that increases to 17.33 m² if we include the open spaces of the Collserola Park. Once again, the area of UPOSs per inhabitant proposed by Cerdà exceeded by approximately three times that currently available in Barcelona (UPOSs = 21.22 m² per inhabitant in 1859 and 19.42 m² per inhabitant in 1863 in Table 3), and this without including Collserola. Indeed, while present-day Barcelona fails to reach the minimum of 9 m² of UPOSs per inhabitant as recommended by the WHO, Cerdà’s original proposal was designed to double this figure.

Conclusions and lines of further research

Cerdà’s nineteenth-century Plan for Barcelona constitutes the basis of the city’s present-day urban grid, while the analysis he provides as an urban planner represents an opportunity both to understand the city’s evolution in the intervening years and to examine his particular urban theory. Indeed, Barcelona today and the urban sustainability projects being implemented in the city could not be understood without an appreciation of the footprint left by Ildefonso Cerdà. In short, Cerdà’s work and ideas serve as the foundations of what has become known as the Barcelona model, an inspiration for urban planning around the globe.

Here, by examining the city’s historical cartography, we have been able to shed light on the values, proportions and standards of PS provided for under Cerdà’s Plan for Barcelona. By developing and quantifying a typology of PSs, we have been able to derive land-use data for the two original versions of the Cerdà Plan (1859 and 1863). Moreover, based on the dataset created, we have succeeded in applying UIs in order to contextualise and analyse Cerdà’s proposal from the present-day perspective of urban planning.

The data we report highlight a number of differences between the two versions of the Plan. In the 1863 version, the network of social facilities disappears, and there is a densification of the city resulting from the increase in private residential space and the reduction in open space within the street block. However, otherwise, the land-use provided for under the Plan remains largely unchanged between its first and second versions. The area dedicated to UPOSs and communication infrastructure predominates in both cases, which is indicative of the priority set by the Cerdà Plan: that is, the presence, accessibility and connection of open and green PSs throughout the city. In short, the Cerdà Plan is an example of an urban expansion project based on an orthogonal grid-street pattern, where the emphasis is placed on open and green areas and communication infrastructure, making PS the backbone of the city’s land-use.

Despite the historical distance, the UIs employed in conjunction with the data obtained from the original Cerdà Plan are similar to present-day averages for developed countries (≅20 m² of floor area per person in both versions) and the minimum values recommended by the official organizations (>19 m² of green area per inhabitant, >75% of PS and >40% of GS in urban areas in both versions, exceeding the minima established for each case: that is, 9 m², 45% and 15%, respectively). As such, a comparison of these data with the present-day land-use of Barcelona highlights marked differences between what was projected and what was finally implemented in its urban evolution, and our study serves to verify that the open and GSs projected in the original Cerdà Plan were considerably greater in area than in the city’s current land-use, characterised as it is by a significant deficit of spaces of this type.

One issue that merits future research is an in-depth examination of the gap between what the original Plan intended and the characteristics of the present-day Ensanche. Identifying, generating and analysing data for Barcelona today that can be compared with those obtained in the framework of the study reported is an obvious line of research that should be developed further. It should be possible to apply other UIs to obtain greater details about UPOSs and their social, ecological, health, aesthetic and recreational benefits, on the one hand, and about communication infrastructure and mobility, on the other. Moreover, obtaining data on present-day social facilities such as schools, hospitals and marketplaces, as well as on residential and private uses compared to public land-uses, should help shed light on the needs of the citizens of Barcelona between 1859 and 2019.

Supplemental Material

sj-pdf-1-epb-10.1177_2399808320987562 - Supplemental material for Estimating public space metrics from nineteenth-century urban cartography: Barcelona’s Cerdà Plan of urban expansion

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-epb-10.1177_2399808320987562 for Estimating public space metrics from nineteenth-century urban cartography: Barcelona’s Cerdà Plan of urban expansion by Albert Santasusagna Riu, Joan Tort Donada, Maria Teresa Vadrí Fortuny and Valerià Paül Carril in EPB: Urban Analytics and City Science

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Iain Robinson (SL-UB) for revising the English manuscript and Elisenda Santasusagna for his advice on undertaking the cartography.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by a post-doctoral scientific project jointly organised by the University of Barcelona and Societat General d’Aigües de Barcelona (Agbar). The authors also wish to acknowledge funding from Program 2017SGR1344 (Grup de Recerca Ambiental Mediterrània) supported by the Generalitat de Catalunya and CSO2015-6787-C6-4-P from the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of the Government of Spain.

Albert Santasusagna Riu is a Postdoctoral Researcher and Associate Lecturer in Geography at University of Barcelona.

Joan Tort Donada is a Professor of Regional Geography at University of Barcelona).

Maria Teresa Vadrí Fortuny is a Senior Lecturer in Administrative Law at University of Barcelona.

Valerià Paül Carril is a Lecturer in Geography at University of Santiago de Compostela.

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