What exactly makes the density of a neighborhood desirable? I lived for many years in Barcelona's Eixample, and it wasn't until I moved away that I realized the exceptional volume of shops, offices, activities, institutions, hotels, restaurants, cars, pedestrians, and goods that circulate there. It is very difficult to reproduce this dynamism in a new neighborhood, so different from the residential neighborhoods of Europe or the streets of terraced houses in Maresme. There were few facilities and green areas, but I never missed them until I had daughters. I went to university libraries, to the municipal pools by the beach, and to the cinema in Gràcia and the Gothic Quarter. The city never stopped and there was always a well-lit shop window at night, as if to highlight the intricate details of the balcony cornices or the reliefs on the facades.In Còrsega, Lepant, Indústria and Padilla streets, there is a block of houses with homogeneous architecture on all plots: the same windows, the same heights, and the same proportions. If the entire Eixample had been built with the same architecture, I think it would be unbearable. It is the diversity of colors of the stucco, from earthy tones to reddish ones to greens, that makes us change our point of view at every corner. Cities are read involuntarily. As you walk, people notice the stands, the balconies, the rhythms of the vertical windows, and the textures, from the plinths to the unique crowning elements that top the facades. And then there are the flowers, the curtains, the shutters, the colors of the lamps at night, and so many other things that make us find a very familiar language in the Eixample, despite the incredible built density of a large part of the blocks.
Cerdà would not have tolerated that, 150 years after the demolition of the walls, most of the public gardens have disappeared. Today, a single block of Barcelona's Eixample can accommodate up to 800 homes and more than 1,400 people: the equivalent of the population of some of the 500 Catalan micro-villages, where about 800,000 people live distributed. The contrast is even more significant if we consider that only about 57,000 people in Catalonia work in the agricultural sector that feeds us all, and that the figure decreases every year. Or that all the residents of Girona's Barri Vell would fit into three blocks of Barcelona's Eixample. Density is an intrinsic component of urbanity.The debate on density generates rejection because the Modern Movement already experimented with large operations that, in the long run, have generated social problems that are difficult to digest. Mass housing estates have a bad reputation because there was no real social mix and many families have left them when they have prospered. Sometimes the "neighborhood effect" is attributed to density, but the paradox is that many estates have a lower density than the Eixample, because they have very tall but very separate buildings. In this case, urban quality vanishes due to the lack of green spaces and shops on the ground floors. It is not the heights that generate rejection, but an architecture so austere that, once a corner has been seen, half the neighborhood has already been read.The Catalan coast also offers dire examples of uncontrolled densification, with buildings too high on the beachfront that compromised the coastal landscape and made certain developers very rich. The enjoyment of some people's balconies has compromised the maritime landscape for generations. And they are dead neighborhoods when the holidays end.But dense neighborhoods are well-valued if they have well-used open spaces (sports fields and playgrounds help with this), if they have good services, and if they can be reached by frequent public transport. Several languages are spoken there, and cuisines from all over the world can be tasted, because density generates an economy linked to the needs of all kinds of residents. Being dense does not necessarily mean being neighborhoods of very tall blocks or being designed all from a single office. The excess of cars, especially from more affluent residents, can be a problem, but there are ways to optimize underground parking. There are young people and some professionals who precisely seek this density, and who would not know how to live in a villa in the middle of a dull neighborhood.To reverse public opinion preventively would require working on it with the College of Architects, because the economic viability of denser planning might not coincide with social viability. To accommodate the housing required by demographics, cities must be equipped with very dynamic green spaces and good architecture, and diversify the types of houses and, above all, their ownership schemes, because the type of business behind the development does matter. The Plan for urgent measures to boost the development of residential land approved by the Government provides for setting, during 2026, and for some sectors, a minimum density of 50 dwellings per hectare (the maximum figure is not indicated), with the aim of increasing the buildable area for new homes. It seems a good way to relaunch urban planning, but it would be prudent to share some good designs before burning the idea.
