Anatomy of the critical urban mixedness : the Barcelona Eixample grid during the lockdown 2020

Within the framework of a wide research on urban mixticity, this paper analyses the image of Barcelona during the 8-week lockdown in Spring 2020, in which only essential movements were allowed. As it happened in many other confined cities, in this dystopian scenario characterized by empty streets, the disposition of activities became as much or even more important than in the active city itself, because it turned the "additional value" that commerce represents into "essential value" in the exceptional context. From this perspective, it's worth understanding to what extend citizens were able to find minimum services in the immediate vicinity of their place of residence. The research focuses on comparing the differences in quantity, variety and proximity of essential services present in diverse urban fragments through GIS mapping tools. Series of maps provide overall views on: the intensity of use to which each service is subjected; latent logics of their physical proximity; and alterations in regular urban fabrics due to a combination of activities and population distribution. This investigation aims to contribute to the understanding of the necessity of the urban mixture giving clues about the distribution of services and activities, stressing the importance of urban proximity in the urban agenda for a more liveable city. The research points, on the one side, the uniqueness of the case of Barcelona for the compactness of the urban fabric and the contiguity of activities; and on the other side, the differences and similarities in the performance of three different fragments of twenty-four blocks in the Eixample grid during the lockdown, evaluating how the urban landscape changed during that time.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version