What exactly makes a neighborhood's density desirable? I lived for many years in Barcelona's Eixample, and it wasn't until I left that I realized the exceptional volume of shops, offices, activities, institutions, hotels, restaurants, cars, pedestrians, and goods that circulate. It is very difficult to reproduce this dynamism in a new construction neighborhood, so different from the residential neighborhoods of Europe or the streets of houses between party walls 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 swimming pools by the beach, and to the cinema in Gràcia and the Gothic Quarter. The city never stopped and there was always some shop window well lit at night, as if to highlight the delicate details of the cornices of the balconies or the reliefs of the facades.On Còrsega, Lepant, Industria, and Padilla streets, there is an island of houses with homogeneous architecture on all plots: the same windows, the same heights, and the same proportions. If the entire Ensanche had been built with the same architecture, I think it would be unbearable. It is the diversity of colors of the stucco, from earthy to reddish to green, that makes us change our point of view at every corner. Cities are read involuntarily. While walking, people notice the balconies, the rhythms of the vertical windows, and the textures, from the plinths to the unique finishes that crown 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 in Barcelona's Eixample can concentrate up to 800 homes and more than 1,400 people: the equivalent of the population of some of the 500 Catalan micro-towns, 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 is decreasing 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 left when they 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 separated 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 one corner has been seen, half the neighborhood has already been read.The Catalan coast also offers nefarious examples of uncontrolled densification, with buildings too tall on the seafront 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 are over.But dense neighborhoods are well-regarded if they have well-used open spaces (sports courts and playgrounds help), if they have good services, and if they can be reached by frequent public transport. Diverse languages are spoken and cuisines from all over the world can be tried, because density generates an economy linked to the needs of all types of residents. Being dense does not necessarily mean being neighborhoods of very tall blocks or being projected all from a single office. The excess of cars, especially from the most affluent residents, can be a problem, but there are ways to optimize underground parking. There are young people and some professionals who specifically seek this density, and would not know how to live in a villa in the middle of a dull neighborhood.Changing preemptive public opinion would require working with the College of Architects, because the economic viability of denser planning may not coincide with social viability. To accommodate the housing that demographics require, cities must provide very dynamic green spaces and good architecture, and diversify the types of houses and especially their tenure regimes, because it does matter what type of business is behind the development. The Plan of urgent measures to promote the development of residential land approved by the Governmentforesees setting, during 2026, and for some sectors, a minimum density of 50 homes per hectare (the maximum figure is not indicated), with the aim of increasing the buildable area for new homes. It seems like a good way to relaunch urbanism, but it would be prudent to share good designs before burning the idea.
