On the Horizon: A New Social Model for the City Organized into Integrated Superblocks?
The innovative policies we have described move Barcelona towards a new social city model, based on a territorial and community approach. The idea of ‘superblocks’ means delimiting intervention to a small, more or less fixed, territorial scale, but which has to always be adaptable in order to respond to changes in population needs and densities. A superblock is a way of delimiting the management of services as well as the unity of people's surrounding area or neighbourhood; the nearest urban habitat, both physically and socially. This way of approaching the care of people is the basis of a new social city model, and given the COVID‐19 crisis, this seems to be an appropriate way of moving forward. Proximity and community are revealed as the two pillars involved in caring for people who live in Barcelona, starting with the care of senior citizens – as we have seen – but which should be followed by other issues.
In this sense, the micro‐areas programme in the city of Trieste is a source of inspiration and learning (Rotelli et al. 2018; Salvini 2016). The strategy was promoted in 2006, but it has its origins in the deinstitutionalisation of mental hospitals in the 1960s and 1970s, led by psychiatrist and neurologist Franco Basaglia. It is a territorial coordination strategy for social and healthcare services, social housing, and third‐sector organizations, in order to jointly respond to the needs of the residents in previously delimited fragile urban areas (micro‐areas). The micro‐areas are devices that ensure the comprehensive care of and with local residents. Dividing the City of Barcelona into integrated superblocks allows delimiting the two lines of action mentioned above (proximity and community) and specifying the conditions and opportunities needed to make this model effective. We list some of them here.
Firstly, the integrated attention of the systems associated with care seems to be essential. This means that, following the experience with proximity SAD units; it is necessary to have stable and efficient coordination channels between the healthcare and social systems. And also between these systems and the services that are connected with households on a daily basis, either in person (SAD, home meals service, etc.) or virtually (telecare service), whether they are provided by public operators or by third‐sector organizations. It is only possible to have a comprehensive vision of care if these systems work together, taking into account the body (healthy habits, personal hygiene, following medical prescriptions, etc.), the home (looking after the home) and socialization (cultivating social connections). This coordination, which in the future should result in the existence of a single monitoring plan for the person being cared for, is essential for gaining effectiveness and efficiency: early detection of risks (avoiding extreme responses), combining or modifying benefits (flexibility), etc. The COVID‐19 health crisis has shown the importance of coordination between healthcare and social services for home care and the importance of direct care.
Secondly, it is necessary to ensure that a neighbourhood ethics for care is practiced in superblocks, which is respectful and sensitive to differences and privacy, but which also permits the capacity for mutual care and better care for the most dependent people. This involves facilitating – eliminating barriers to – the dynamics of solidarity wherever they are activated autonomously (the bottom‐up strategy), and promoting them wherever they are not present (top‐down strategy), but always with sensitivity for the singular nature of the area and with the objective of the community becoming self‐sufficient in the end. Social design can be particularly useful here, especially when it is geared towards creating devices or activities that foster opportunities and motivation that lead to collaborative encounters (Manzini 2019). Meanwhile, social services must play a central role, due to their ability to identify various situations of vulnerability and their method of action based on the fostering of people's autonomy.
The COVID‐19 crisis has encouraged dynamics of solidarity, which often have an intergenerational characteristic. The City Council has promoted a campaign to facilitate collaboration in buildings, while neighbourhoods with a very active social fabric have informally created their own neighbourhood networks for mutual support through digital platforms. In order to be well coordinated, some of them have even created their own territorial divisions, following the basic idea of the superblocks. Technology turns into an essential tool, but measures are needed to facilitate digital connectivity and ensure its mass use. All of this citizen cooperation is only possible, and only makes sense, if it is place‐organized.
Community aid within superblocks may be an opportunity to ensure care for children, at a time when the city has a very low birth rate (Ajuntament de Barcelona 2019b), which is 8%, the lowest since 2003. This is firstly due to the rising cost of living in Barcelona. Young people are becoming emancipated and having children at a later age (the average age at which mothers have their first child is 33.6 and the number of children per woman of childbearing age is 1.16). The composition of households is getting smaller and smaller and parents have difficulties in terms of reconciling care for the elderly and the children (mainly those under two years of age); a ‘sandwich generation’ (Miller 1981), especially women that end up doubling or tripling their workday. Single‐parent households (3% of the city) are in a more difficult situation. The COVID‐19 crisis, which will probably make the birth‐rate crisis worse, has clearly shown that neighbourhood support schemes are needed to help parents to care for their children, so that they can do their jobs, their housework, and care for the elderly.
Thirdly, in the new social model we are proposing here, public space is conceived as an extension of housing and public facilities and services (e.g. the expanse of the old people's home garden or the school playground), the place for intergenerational meetings and social interaction, a place for relaxation and leisure, for contact with animals and plants. Public space is also a place for care and requires a type of urban planning and urban furniture that responds to the needs of the most dependent people. We are thinking mainly about elderly people, children, and people with some form of disability. A ‘people‐friendly city’ for the elderly and also for children, a ‘playable city’, as expounded by the pedagogue Federico Tonucci, where public space is a play space. For this reason, it is essential that the above‐mentioned ‘mobility superblocks’ urban planning strategy makes progress. However, situations like the COVID‐19 crisis may be a threat, because public areas are closed off, even if this is only temporary. But a territorial organization for care in superblocks could be a more optimal means of combating the propagation of illnesses if superblocks also function as semi‐autonomous units that reduce the need for essential journeys outside of those areas in order to cover most basic needs. In this sense, denying access to public areas would not have to be totally enforced throughout the city, but only in those areas under strict confinement measures (Oliu‐Barton et al. 2020).
Finally, the fourth point is that we cannot forget housing, which is a relevant asset in the social model designed with superblocks. It is necessary to consider adaptability of housing to care needs. In Barcelona, COVID‐19 has revealed living conditions that make sustained care difficult and which also show contradictions, such as families with children and/or elderly people being confined to small flats and elderly people that need help but are living alone in relatively big flats. In the case of caring for the elderly – in a scenario where people live out practically all of their old age in their own homes – it is necessary to ensure the adaptability of dwellings to the casuistry of ageing and study the introduction of robotics as a support tool for care (communication, risk prevention, etc.). However, in general, in order to adequately cover the care needs of everyone, it is necessary to find creative solutions to optimize the housing stock of superblocks as much as possible and tackle other complex situations such the following: single‐person flats belonging to elderly people that have a lot of under‐used square metres, unused ground floors, buildings that don't have lifts or have other accessibility problems, families living in flats that make it difficult to bring up children (either because flats are very small or because they live in sublet rooms – it is also found non‐related individuals living in sublet rooms without access to kitchen), a significant number of ground‐floor homes occupied by commercial activities, a lack of control of rental housing outside the public housing pool and the unequal distribution