When I was Superman correspondent covering all of Lleida from top to bottom, if I climbed the stairs towards heaven I would stop for breakfast at Cal Farré de Baró. Over time I was becoming integrated as just another being in the fauna of those Pallars feasting tables. There I related to one of the most mythical orcs of that land. J.C. showed me the future and told me what would happen. Everything was backwards: the return of the meatball to minced meat. One thing he got right before the internet: “Everyone will live in human farms.” Amen.

The conversion of the Three Chimneys of Sant Adrià de Besòs into an audiovisual hub will also entail a profound transformation of the surrounding area. This transformation is gradually taking shape, and on Thursday, the various institutions involved in the project provided more details. Among other things, they revealed that the redevelopment of the area will also involve reactivating a project that had been dormant for almost nine years: the extension of the tram line to the Port of Badalona. With the aim of providing better accessibility to the future Catalunya Media City, the project revives the plan to extend the Trambesòs beyond the Sant Adrià de Besòs station with two new stops: one opposite the Three Chimneys and another, which will be the terminus, opposite the Port of Badalona. The tram, which will run parallel to the existing railway line, will thus be extended by 1.4 kilometers and could directly connect the Badalona coastline with the center of Barcelona.

Today's Barcelona was born from a boom-boom. Hiroshima my loveThe demolition of the walls in the 19th century. Without a nuclear explosion, there is no love. As a Barcelonian said in 1854: Barcelona explodes and we fall in love… with a new Barcelona. Without the first great explosion, there wouldn't be the other two major upheavals: the War-Dictatorship, which is the transition from a free city to an occupied one. And the final explosion: the Olympic atomic dog, Cobi. A grand finale that leads us to the Barcelona of today, ripped open and with pieces damaged by the city's skin. And the umbilical cord?

Urban planning is a long and complex process. Agreed. However, it is still somewhat frustrating that it is taking so long to implement the new Metropolitan Urban Plan (PDUM), which was finally approved initially yesterday for the second time. The first approval, in 2023, received so many objections—5,180—that it took three years to present the new document. Let's put this in context. This plan is the necessary step to definitively retire the Metropolitan General Plan that was drawn up in 1976 under the direction of Joan Antoni Solans, a leading urban planner who, nevertheless, did so in a pre-democratic era and within a context of still-unprecedented urban expansion. developerOver a thousand modifications have been made, and the proof that it was a good plan is that it has lasted until today. However, things have changed a lot in these 50 years, and new rules of the game were needed. The process to create them began in 2013; it took ten years for them to be approved for the first time, and final approval is not expected until 2028. That is, from the time they were first conceived until work can begin on implementing them, 15 years will have passed. And that's if everything goes well.

One of the most brilliant things about Paris is that the city is too ambitious to be consumed by mere glitz and glamour. After several failures, and a disastrous 1980s in terms of supposedly modern facades and pretentious architecture, Paris now builds buildings that subordinate their appearance to the harmony and proportion of the streets they surround. What a relief. The new buildings bring back the tones of limestone (off-white), zinc roofs, and Haussmannian windows, which are wide and tall enough to fill a dining room wall like a painting, but never disrupt the balance between solid and void on the facade. All of this allows those who stroll, appreciating visual coherence, to enjoy streets where it's barely possible to discern where one building begins and another ends. There aren't enough hours of sunlight to wander through Paris and imagine what three or four solid principles would make for a good new street in a newly built neighborhood.

In these times of declining expectations, I would like to speak with some realism about how difficult it is to transform cities. Digitization allows us to have images available in just a few hours and renders of future projects with every detail. Never before have those in power and architects been able to accurately visualize what projects will look like "after construction." Now it's done with such precision that, sometimes, it's even difficult to distinguish between the real and the virtual. To illustrate: we know what the Vallcarca neighborhood will look like next to the viaduct, but it's much harder to manage the relocation of all the people living in apartments that will have to be demolished, obtain permits, approve budgets, contract construction work... Managing all these processes is increasingly complicated. And the reality is that we have many drawings that never end up being developed.

A few weeks ago, in this same newspaper, the architect Jordi Badia He declared himself decisively and unequivocally in favor of Barcelona's green corridors. He maintained that private transport is unsustainable, that other means of transport should be promoted, and ventured to say that few professionals oppose them. Finally, he described the green corridors as "an extraordinary idea."

Nearly half of Catalonia's population—some 3.4 million people—live concentrated in the Barcelona metropolitan area. This means that the housing market is under considerable strain across the 636 square kilometers of its 36 municipalities. In recent years, housing prices have risen far beyond what most households can afford. The result is clear: more and more families are struggling to access and maintain decent housing.

Along the Besòs river promenade, there is constant activity. People stroll, jog, and cycle. Years ago, the scene was quite different: the river was surrounded by a degraded and inaccessible area, turning its back on the community and making the zone one of the most vulnerable in the metropolitan area.

In 2000, the city of Girona had just over 73,000 inhabitants. Currently, there are more than 107,000 registered residents. In a quarter of a century, the population has grown by 43%. But this growth isn't limited to the city itself; the entire metropolitan area has seen an even more significant increase (48%). Vilablareix has doubled its population, but Fornells de la Selva, Sant Gregori, Sant Julià de Ramis, Campllong, and Quart are close behind. These towns, with inadequate public transportation, depend directly on Girona for their residents' daily lives: many commute to work in the city. Thinking of Girona no longer means thinking only of the city itself, but of the entire metropolitan area. But which municipalities should be included?

A total investment of over sixty million euros and a hundred projects spread over the next seven years in the historic center of Lleida. This is the main headline that Mayor Fèlix Larrosa (PSC) announced on October 13th during the presentation of the new comprehensive plan for the neighborhood"The transformation of the historic center will be the largest undertaken by the city in the democratic era," declared Larrosa, citing "the restoration of livability, the increase in green spaces, the enhancement of public spaces and heritage, and the economic and social revitalization of the neighborhood" as the central pillars of this initiative, which aims to incorporate the Generalitat's Pla de Bar (Bar Plan). Despite the announcement, both some neighborhood leaders in the historic center and the main opposition political groups in the Lleida City Council have expressed skepticism. On paper, the new comprehensive plan, to be implemented between now and 2032, appears appealing. With projects to restore facilities such as the former Santa Teresa convent, the Mercat del Pla market, the Roman baths of Cardenal Remolins, and the Cervantes school, the Paeria (Lleida City Council) also plans the construction of 387 homes and up to 400 renovations, in addition to an urban forest of approximately 2,000 square meters. "We want to replace the current stock of aging and uninhabitable housing with new or renovated buildings that are accessible, efficient, and attract new residents, especially young people and families who want to live in a vibrant neighborhood," explains the mayor.

Every year, Barcelona becomes a showcase of the urban future. Robots that clean streets, smart grids, sensors that monitor air quality and mobility... While technology advances at a breakneck pace, one question arises forcefully: can a city truly be "smart" if it doesn't improve the emotional, relational, and community lives of its inhabitants? After more than a decade of smart citiesIt seems clear that technical intelligence is not enough. The great task ahead is to evolve towards a new paradigm: the "City 5.0," where technology serves human well-being, not the other way around.

There is a commodity scarcer than water and more precious than gold: the time that eludes us. Everyone talks about it, everyone pursues it, but not everyone possesses it equally. In societies that advance and generate new rights, the right to time emerges with force. But who can truly exercise it?

Llançà is one of the hottest spots for real estate speculation on the Costa Brava. Much of the area is built on, and of what remains undeveloped, most It is developable land with the possibility of building, as mandated by the municipal urban planning plan (POUM), approved more than twenty years ago. One problematic area where regulations permit buildings is the pine forest on La Farella beach: one and a half hectares of trees, right in front of the sand, surrounded on both sides by villas and residential developments. This is the last green area right on the seafront along the municipal boundary, between Cap Ras, which is a protected area, and Punta d'en Feliu, towards Port de la Selva. In this pine forest, last July, the Llançà City Council approved the Urban Improvement Plan (PMU) granting permission to the private owner of the plot to build 62 apartments for hotel use.

I'm traveling on the medium-distance train from Barcelona to Girona. I'm content with the delay; we're used to it by now. Before I start reading, I look out the window and am mesmerized by the sight. Desolate.

Carles Llop, PhD in architecture (Lleida, 1958), is the human embodiment of the long-awaited fusion of city and countryside. He is a member of the Department of Urban Planning at the Polytechnic University of Barcelona (which he directed for seven years) and, together with the architects Sebastià Jornet and Joan Enric Pastor, has received multiple awards for numerous urban transformation plans (such as that of the Mina neighborhood in Sant Adrià de Besòs). At the same time, he has also been responsible for territorial planning projects and a large number of landscape intervention projects. His latest project has been the publication of a collective book by the Horitzons 2050 Private Foundation entitled Let's mobilize! Rural world! New ruralities for historic territories (Fonoll Publishing).

Urban planning (at least what we have now) has its limitations, and urbanity can only go so far if we let cities cook like pre-made hamburgers, drawing cities like someone preparing fast food to be devoured in a few minutes. That's why it's good to stop and take a mental step back. Two weeks with my little nephews have forced me to have no plans other than walking slowly, playing ball in the sand, and caring for all kinds of animals (and then drawing them). I've slowed down drastically and now I don't know how I can do so many things in winter, or if it makes much sense, frankly.

When we think of an architect, we imagine someone who designs buildings, large or small, public or private, residential or office. But the reality is that architects do more than design houses. They also design cities: the spaces we walk through, where we exercise, where we sit and rest, have been designed by someone. And that someone is an architect.

In yesterday's article, and you'll excuse the self-quote, this sentence appeared: "In the Balearic Islands, the PP and Vox have approved the construction of housing on rural land, a measure that could disfigure Mallorca in a short time. The destruction caused by the nationalist right, in language, in education, and in urban and territorial planning, could be irreversible."

It's a grey day in London, we've landed under a thick layer of clouds, but at least it's not raining. I have to go to the Prospect Magazine headquarters, where Alan Rusbridgerand the Joseph Rowntree Foundation have invited us to explain housing policies from different countries, and I've landed at Gatwick. Passport control; what a step backwards the United Kingdom has taken. Once I've passed the passport scan, the machine opens the doors to the kingdom. Gatwick is 40 km from London, and the train track runs through a completely urbanized landscape. It's as if Barcelona had houses and neighborhoods all the way to Sitges; as if the metropolis had swallowed up the Llobregat delta and the Garraf massif to turn it into a megacity. Later in the talk, we'll analyze why large cities haven't resolved housing inequalities either, but let's take it step by step.