Policy Dialogues: "Superblocks, Health and Equity in Barcelona"

ICTA-UAB researchers Isabelle Anguelovski, Helen Cole and Oriol Marquet will participate in the  next Policy Dialogues sessions organised by the Johns Hopkins University - Universitat Pompeu Fabra Public Policy Center. The event will reflect on and debate the health and equity impacts of the Superblocks project in Barcelona.

 

Policy Dialogues: "Superblocks, Health and Equity in Barcelona"


Speakers: Isabelle Anguelovski, Helen Cole and Oriol Marquet, ICTA-UAB researchers

Date: Tuesday, April 18  2023
Time: 9:30 - 11am CEST
Location:  Universitat Pompeu Fabra - Campus de la Ciudadela Edifici Mercè Rodoreda, Auditorio 25 (Calle Ramón Trias Fargas 08005 Barcelona)
 

“Urbanisation, urban renewal, segregation, and gentrification, and the uninterrupted advance of climate change pose evolving challenges to population health, health equity, and environmental sustainability in cities.”(1)

In response to these and other complex challenges, cities around the world are implementing transformational urban planning initiatives that aim to create more equitable, healthy and sustainable urban environments.

The Superblocks project in Barcelona, Spain, is one of these initiatives: it is centred on the creation of “pedestrian-oriented streetscapes with the aim of catalyzing change that can reverberate throughout the city…focusing on traffic management that prioritizes pedestrians over vehicle traffic with the aim of improving environmental quality and livability for neighborhood units.”(2) The project has received international acclaim, and has contributed to Barcelona's recognition as a pioneering city in terms of creating sustainable and liveable urban environments that respond to the needs of current and future inhabitants.

However, cities are complex ecosystems, and deep transformational changes such as the Superblocks can cause unintended consequences in society. Therefore, deep and constant analysis of these policy interventions is necessary to monitor their impacts in terms of social justice, equity, health and quality of life.

For this reason, the JHU-UPF Public Policy Center has organised the next Policy Dialogues session on “Superblocks, Health and Equity in Barcelona”. We are delighted to welcome three experts in the fields of social and environmental justice in urban environments – Isabelle Anguelovski, Helen Cole and Oriol Marquet – to present their research on the Superblocks and stimulate an exchange of knowledge and ideas with participants on the issues surrounding this transformational urban policy initiative.

 

1. Franco et al. (2022) Challenges and opportunities for urban health research in our complex and unequal cities, Cities & Health, 6:4, pp. 651-656.
2. Anguelovski et al (in press).Equity Concerns in Transformative Planning: Barcelona’s Superblocks Under Scrutiny.

Speakers:

Isabelle Anguelovski is the Director of Barcelona Lab for Urban Environmental Justice and Sustainability (BCNUEJ), an ICREA Research Professor, a Senior Researcher and Principal Investigator at ICTA-UAB and former coordinator of the research group Healthy Cities and Environmental Justice at IMIM. Her research examines the extent to which urban plans and policy decisions contribute to more just, resilient, healthy, and sustainable cities, and how community groups in distressed neighbourhoods contest the existence, creation, or exacerbation of environmental inequities as a result of urban (re)development processes and policies. Since 2016, she is the PI of a five-year ERC-funded project called GreenLULUs which examines green inequalities in 40 cities in Europe, the US, and Canada.

Helen Cole is Senior Researcher (Banco Santander-TALENT fellow) at ICTA-UAB. She is also Deputy Director and co-leader of two research lines: “urban environment, health, and equity” and “financialization, housing justice and climate change” at the BCNUEJ. She holds a Doctorate in Public Health from the City University of New York Graduate Center specialised in community, society and health and an MPH in Health Behavior and Health Education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her current work explores whether, and how, healthier cities may also be made equitable, placing urban health interventions in the context of the broader urban social and political environments.

Oriol Marquet is a Ramon y Cajal fellow at UAB Geography Department and ICTA-UAB. As the leader of the Urban Mobility research group at ICTA-UAB, Dr. Marquet is dedicated to improving transport equity by creating more walkable environments and promoting active transportation. With a focus on social accessibility inequalities and gendered travel behaviour, he has conducted extensive research on the links between urban design and travel behaviour among different demographics, including marginalised communities. Prior to joining ICTA-UAB, Dr. Marquet served as a postdoctoral fellow at ISGlobal and the Center for Geospatial Analytics, North Carolina State University, where he conducted research on park access equity and physical activity.