The Diagonal-Poble Nou Special Plan: from the importance of public leadership in the management and production of urban space to the emergence of liberal urbanism (I)

Abstract A walk through the last section of Diagonal Avenue in Barcelona, reviewing some of the major projects developed for it in recent years, allows us to evaluate the city's urban policies as a history of lights and shadows, of remarkable interventions, but also important social debts. One of such projects, the Diagonal Poble Nou Special Plan, led to the completion of the city's main avenue, which runs through the old tissue of Poble Nou, a downtown district with a rich and significant industrial heritage. The opening of Diagonal Avenue, respecting the historical plan of Cerdà, allowed a new configuration of the urban fabric and brought a new order in all its surroundings. The aim of this paper is to analyse how the elaboration of the Diagonal Poble Nou Special Plan is faced, as a representative of the urban planning practised in Barcelona in the 1980s. At the same time, it shows how the changes introduced at the Plan’s approval; imply a paradigm’s change and a turn towards a more liberal urbanism, reducing public responsibility in the management and production of urban space. The methodology involved a literature review and in-depth analysis of the planning documents at their historical context.