Experts in the technological district open the debate cycle of ‘El Periódico’ reflecting on its importance and on the challenges that arise after the new urban policies for the area
Conceived in the year 2000, at a time when Barcelona lived a continuous tourist growth and an enormous international projection as a result of the Olympic Games of 92, the project of the district 22@ in Poblenou proposed the transformation of an industrial area into economic epicenter of innovation, knowledge and creativity. The pirouette has allowed that in two decades this sector has gone from representing 4% to reaching 16% of local GDP. This model, converted for years into a world reference, was analyzed on Monday in the first debate of the series ‘The Barcelona that works’, promoted by EL PERIÓDICO. The area, where they have settled or gestated 15,000 companies representing 150,000 jobs, is now facing important challenges and some risks of loss of leadership and urban imbalances, according to the experts gathered.
The purpose of the new cycle of conferences and presentations is to discuss and discover projects on different strategic issues of the city who have been a model of international success. debut, moderated by Anna Gener, CEO of Savills Barcelona and under the title ’22@Barcelona. Transformative urbanism’took place in the auditorium of the Poblenou campus of the Pompeu Fabra University. There, the reasons for the worldwide recognition of this ecosystem of companies, offices, research and knowledge articulated according to the needs of new technologies and the economy of the 21st century, as well as its future objectives, were reviewed.
Miquel Barceló, industrial engineer and former executive president of 22@; Paco Hugas, co-founder of Conren Tramway; Isabel Sabadí, director of 22@ Network, and the video intervention by Ramon Gras, urban planner and researcher at Harvard University fueled an analysis that is especially important after the recent modification of the General Metropolitan Plan (PGM) of 22@. It should be remembered that at the level of investment markets, the area concentrates half of the total invested in offices in the Catalan capital.
“Genetic code” under review
Barceló, who lived through the founding stage of the technological district, recognized the “merit” of the then mayor Joan Clos, that being able to have transformed the factories into housing blocks, dared to “maintain the economic character” of the area baptized as 22@. “Its genetic code defended the compact city, with a mixture of uses and the interaction that allows creativity,” he maintained. Among the keys to a globally recognized success was the mix of 10% residential, plus the same, in the form of 20 hectares, for knowledge, represented on the UPF campus. “There was integration in urban planning and economic strategy”, underlined this expert, who glosses among his keys the public-private collaboration, to start transforming those four million square meters.
Two decades later, Barceló believes that the world has adopted the 22@ as the standard for economic activity in cities, emulated so many times. To the point of having “lost” some pieces along the way, while others continued “forward”. A hundred cities –some with his advice– plan districts of this nature. “Leadership has been taken by others, we have to update that original genetic code,” she said.
Also fully acknowledging the success, Sabadi recalled that the association he leads was created in 2004 to “see what was missing in the district” and work hand in hand with the institutions. With more than 200 affiliated companies and after accompanying the implantation of many, he explained that in the coming years the movements will be concentrated in the northern part, with the difficult challenge of integrating that innovative instinct, free and social housing, and a “adequate mobility for many people who need to come to Barcelona to work”. “We must continue to attract talent and we must retain it.” The expert also pointed out that there is a lack of international schools in the area and a better integration network for that talent in the city.
Promotion and recession
Another vertex of development in the area is made up of the real estate developers who opted to create the most modern offices in the metropolis. Paco Hugas, from the management of the fund that acts as promoter and investor of different projects in Poblenou, warned that the new phase that 22@ is facing is threatened by some urban limitationsa possible recession economical and an important cost increase. Although “the sun always rises in Barcelona” -he said in reference to establishments such as Amazon’s, at a time of difficulties for the “offices in the center without change of use”–, “we promoters have assumed many risks in recent five years in the city
In allusion to the modification of the PGM, believed that “a historic opportunity has been lost” to solve the housing problem. “If a recession arrives, offices will not be built, and therefore that promoter will not build social flats.” He complained about the lack of free housing to attract new talent to the area, or the communications to connect it with other areas of residential interest Along the coast, it coincided with Sabadi. “There has been partisanship” in the new regulations, he settled, missing a real accompaniment of the administration, “as in other countries”, instead of leaving the evolution of the district “depending on the economic cycles”.
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From Boston (USA), Gras highlighted the importance of “align urbanism and knowledge economy”. When these types of innovation neighborhoods are developed, some 15 years later, “four times more projects, 15 times more jobs, and 25 times more income” are produced, among other “multiplier” effects and also verified in Seattle, Austin, Manchester, London, Amsterdam and other examples cited.
Isabel Sabadí added that they will work so that local regulations “are not a limitation” and to further show the potentiality From the axis. Barceló lamented that in the face of the 22@ planning reform “many voices from the front line have not been collected.” “It is a city project and it goes beyond urban planning”, he insisted, advocating bringing future reflections to the metropolitan area – “in other municipalities there will be no restrictions” – and warning of the risk of “prosecution” which opens.