Tourism, nightlife and planning: challenges and opportunities for community liveability in Barceloneta

International audienceIn Barceloneta, one of the beachfront quarters of the city of Barcelona, the rapid expansion of illegal short-term rental apartments for tourists and noise problems related to both alcohol-fuelled nightlife consumption, are challenging community liveability and peaceful urban coexistence between different social groups. Similarly to other worldwide cases, the rapid expansion of touristification on the urban and socio-economic fabric of the city has increasingly become a source of dispute and residents' contestation. By taking a diachronical critical review, the first part of the text examines the role of urban planning developed in Barceloneta during the period 1950-2016 in transforming the quarter into a leisure-oriented, tourist-oriented quarter. The second part of the paper is based on a a 2-year ethnographic fieldwork that was conducted to capture the range of different voices, stories and discourses produced and reproduced by different actors affected and/or involved in the recent touristification of Barceloneta. Findings obtained confirm that current urban policy and planning are clearly insufficient to tackle and address negative community-based impacts aforementioned. Hence the final section highligts the urgent need for the development and implementation of a new community-based urban planning with the aim of ensuring community liveability and peaceful urban coexistence between different social groups in Barceloneta