Most of the participants at the 2023 UCLG Retreat are residents of the Poblenou neighborhood this week. As was the case of the Palo Alto, other spaces in the area remind of the industrial past of the city.
In the year 2000, the Barcelona City Council decided to fully intervene in the almost 200 hectares of industrial land in Poblenou to preserve the productive nature of the area and transform it into an innovative district.
The aim was to favor knowledge activities; promote the installation of knowledge creation hubs such as universities and research centers; to follow a model of a compact and complex city, with a mix of uses that included housing, services for citizens and companies, green areas and facilities; implement an infrastructure plan with service networks, district heating, pneumatic waste collection and advanced mobility solutions; to preserve the architectural heritage of the industrial past of the district; and to create the conditions for the formation of an open innovation ecosystem.
The urban regeneration project was named 22@ district, connecting it to the identification for lots of industrial use, 22a, and adding the technological future of the area with the @.
Today, the district hosts more than 1.500 companies related to media, IT, energy, design and scientific research, sharing the space with an important number of citizens that were already living in the neighborhood or that moved to the new and modern area.