INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Image caption
Superblocks have parks where traffic used to be
In the centre of bustling and busy
Barcelona there is unusual quiet, just the babble of children playing in a small playground and the sound of the birds.There is virtually no
traffic and the space where cars would have parked is given over to play areas, trees and even a running track.Superblocks is a radical plan
to reclaim the streets from the noise and pollution of traffic, one that could save hundreds of lives that might otherwise be lost because
It also hopes to act as a blueprint for other cities.There are just six superblocks so far, but Barcelona plans hundreds of others
They are made up of nine existing blocks which are joined together into an area which bans all but essential vehicles - which are limited to
Parking for residents is underground.Image copyrightGetty ImagesImage caption
Many ideas are being trialled, such as
this running track
Some residents are opposed to the plan, either because they want to have their cars outside their homes
or because they run local businesses and feel that trade will be affected by cutting off traffic flow.But the idea is proving popular with
other cities such as Seattle which is considering introducing something similar."Cars take up 60% of public space across the city,"
explained Barcelona's deputy mayor for urbanism Janet Sanz in a recent TheIndianSubcontinent interview."As soon as you redistribute that
space and rebalance the situation you are supporting groups that until then have had no access to that space."It is not just traffic that
Barcelona has a radical plan to shake up - it is also leading the field when it comes to the guardianship of citizen's data - something that
is becoming more of an issue as cities collect it via sensors, CCTV cameras and even telecom networks.Image caption
Not
everyone is in favour of Superblocks
Under a plan initiated with other cities including Bordeaux, Edinburgh, Florence and
Manchester, Barcelona is determined that citizen data - defined as personal or non-personal information generated in the digital public
sphere - should be recognised as a public and individual asset and should be used solely in the public interest."We believe that technology
has to be at the service of citizens to improve the quality of life in cities and not to create digital exclusion, said the city's
commissioner for digital innovation, Michael Donaldson."Smart doesn't just come from the intelligence provided by the technology but also
from the citizens, their experience, their knowledge which can be gathered to make better public decisions."Image caption
The buildings in the Superblock generate their own electricity with excess sold back to the grid
"We need to explain how we
collect it, what we collect and what we are going to do with it," he said.Barcelona's city council is championing two pilots next year, one
which will look at how to tackle sustainable energy by generating it from road surfaces and other focused on how technology can be used to
help the city's elderly population.To really make cities inclusive for all citizens, the data that cities collect needs to be analysed to
take account of groups who may have been ignored previously such as women, people of colour and those with disabilities, says Massachusetts
Institute of Technology assistant professor Catherine D'Ignazio."Our discourse on smart cities hasn't been very inclusive, in terms of
gender, race and accessibility
We are designing cities that work really well for elite white men and not very well for the rest of us."Media playback is unsupported on
your deviceMedia captionSix ways we can make cities better by putting women at the centre of designSome in Barcelona, such as the feminist
urban planner co-operative Punt 6, are trying to reset the balance by looking at areas such as mobility patterns in the city to find out how
women, children and the elderly get around - and it is often in very different ways to men
Women use more public transport, for instance."Often we think that we don't want to discriminate so we will ignore gender which is a silly
We don't fix a problem by ignoring it and we do have a problem with creating inclusive cities," said Ms D'Ignazio."Too often corporate
vendors are coming into cities and saying 'we can do X, Y and Z' and city governments, starved for resources, are like 'great, let them
And both the tech company and the city government are elite mainly white men and miss out on deeper community engagement."You can hear more
on this topic and other smart cities initiatives on the TheIndianSubcontinent World Service's Business Daily
