Abstract
Time use and management highly depend on personal and social factors such as the way each individual relates to labour activities, the type of family in which they live, the person’s age, gender and their socioeconomic status, etc. All of these factors determine important differences. However, another basic element to be added to this list of factors differentiating people’s time use and management is the city’s spatial configuration. Offering possibilities while setting limits, this element determines people’s life space and can therefore lead to social inequalities. Analysing time-space relationships has subsequently become a crucial element in exploring a city’s possibilities, detecting problems and offering guidance in relation to town planning. This chapter analyses the relation between urban morphology and its interactions with people’s life space, time use and management by focusing on dispersed urbanism and its impact on the metropolitan region of Barcelona. More specifically, the chapter focuses on the recently consolidated dispersed city morphology by comparing it with that of the compact city so that differences between their specific time and space uses can be determined. Challenges possibly set by the former to the development of a public, accessible city, that is to say, to the construction of a socially sustainable city, are also evaluated.
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Notes
- 1.
We use the expression ‘housing estate’ as a translation of the Spanish word urbanización. This type of urban morphology is now quite common in MRB and is characterised by low-density housing and high specialisation. There is no specific English word to translate the Spanish word, but ‘housing estate’ and ‘residential suburb’ should be a good enough approximation.
- 2.
This paper intends to take the results of three research projects further. The references of the projects are Mobility, Family Solidarity and Citizenship in the Metropolitan Regions (2003–2006) with reference SEC2003-09565; Social Sustainability According to Urban Forms: Residential Mobility, Life Spaces and Use of Time in Metropolitan Regions (2007–2010) with reference SEJ2007-67948 and Residential Strategies and Urban Models in Metropolitan Region of Barcelona with reference CSO2010-22117-C02-02.
- 3.
The Athens Charter (La Charte d’Athénes) written within the framework of the 1933 IV Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne or CIAM was set as the new urbanism manifesto. Based on rationalising the city, it proclaimed spatial zoning on the basis of the four basic urban functions: dwelling, work, recreation and transport.
- 4.
Examples are Frank Lloyd Wright’s theories and the Broadacre City model more specifically.
- 5.
While some were large high-quality dwellings, others had been built in illegal housing estates and were self-built. The former eventually became high-standing, good basic facility access housing estates but the latter ended as under-serviced and lacking all kinds of urban facilities. The less affluent classes went to live in these.
- 6.
Some data will be given so that a general picture can be obtained. In Barcelona, from 1998 to 2002, newly built flat prices nearly doubled. Between 2000 and 2007, when the boom reached its height, these prices increased by 173 % (Source: Secretaria d’Habitatge, Generalitat de Catalunya).
- 7.
These changes of residence significantly transformed MRB urban dynamics: residential mobility highly increased, as did small municipalities, absorbing most of MRB’s growth (Pujadas 2009). A significant part of this boom was basically due to the development of low-density housing estates.
- 8.
This process and the stages it underwent are analysed in greater depth in the reference provided, also in Vilà, G. (2010).
- 9.
The case of Madrid analysed by R. López de Lucio has been cited here as a basis from which to study the new city’s characteristics. Most of the features mentioned by this author are also directly applicable to the MRB (López de Lucio 1998).
- 10.
- 11.
Data come from two different sources. On the one hand, from the research projects referenced. On the other hand, from the Enquesta de condicions de vida i hàbits de la població de Catalunya 2006 (IERMB 2007) that has been used to analyse the compact city model (Barcelona).
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Vilà, G. (2013). Time and Urban Morphology: Dispersed and Compact City Time Use in the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona. In: Henckel, D., Thomaier, S., Könecke, B., Zedda, R., Stabilini, S. (eds) Space–Time Design of the Public City. Urban and Landscape Perspectives, vol 15. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6425-5_6
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