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This paper studies the diverse actions, interventions and strategies initiated to address rising energy vulnerability among low-income households in the Barcelona region over the last decade. Drawing upon recent conceptual work around the politics of energy and in-depth fieldwork conducted over more than two years, we trace the different processes and sites through which the basic socio-material conditions of domestic access to energy have become politicised. We show how this involves a two-stage movement of deconfinement and reconfinement. In a context marked by austerity, an energy inefficient urban fabric and a centralised and oligopolistic energy system, energy vulnerability emerged from the domestic and private sphere to become framed as a public problem through parliamentary debate, social protest and local authority initiatives. Yet, energy access and vulnerability have also to some extent been recontained in the space of the household through the focus of recent local policy intervention on 'low cost' measurement, audit and equipment of domestic energy use. We argue that in reprivatizing what had become a public issue and thus redistributing responsibility for change to the household level, authorities and practitioners continue to ignore the systemic factors behind energy vulnerability situations and reproduce a status quo that benefits only energy utilities. The contribution of the paper is thus to show a politics of energy access that is increasingly constituted through entangled, fluid, blurred forms of relations between domestic and collective issues. This politics allows, for example, the need for systemic change to be framed as ostensibly a concern of households and to be met through fragmented, low-cost, metrological measures at that level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to understand how inland terminals are developed in relation both to ports and to other inland terminals within a national system. The paper builds on previous work developing inland terminal taxonomies and applies them to the Spanish case, with supplementary focus on the relations between the “dry port” and “extended gate” concepts. Theoretical contributions include both the importance of development direction (land-driven vs sea-driven) and the identification of an emerging spatial disparity in port development strategies between coastal and inland nodes. In Spain, ports retain an interest in inland terminals through minority shareholdings but they are not the primary investors. The principal ports using Spanish inland terminals are Barcelona and Valencia, both of which are also developing logistics zones within their ports. Furthermore, while the ports are developing closer IT links with these inland locations, this does not necessarily indicate greater than normal levels of cooperation. A study of the Spanish system thus raises questions about whether the increasing academic focus on “dry ports” actually signals any change in strategies of port development or intermodal terminal operation. Therefore the final aim of this paper is to question the use of the “dry port” terminology. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Over 350,000 families have been evicted from their homes since Spain's property market crashed in 2008. The response of Spanish civil society has been the emergence of a networked social movement, Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH; the Spanish Mortgage Victims Group), to stop the evictions and change applicable legislation. This paper uses social movement theory and the travel of ideas metaphor from organization theory to understand how the PAH movement and its practices and tactics, originally born in Barcelona in 2009, have successfully spread to over 160 cities and stopped over 1135 evictions throughout the country. We argue that the ability of networked social movements to quickly replicate has fuelled their power to resist, protest, and induce change. We contend that the fast growth of networked social movements in Global North and South cities, is fuelled by its ability to create a hybrid space between communication networks and occupied urban space in which face-to-face assemblies and protests take place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyse the origins of the hotel industry dedicated to tourism in the city of Barcelona, one of the most important tourist centres in the western Mediterranean. From the 1888 Universal Exposition to the 1929 International Exposition, and even later, we find several initiatives to set in motion an incipient tourist system which was truncated by the outbreak of the Civil War in 1936. In this system, we will here focus on the hotel industry based on the fact that at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the majority of hotel establishments were not focused on tourism. It was only with the tourist development experienced by Barcelona during these decades that one can also speak of the birth of one of the most important tourism hotel offerings, both in Spain and Western Europe. • Novel analysis of the hotel industry in Barcelona with sources which have been little used until now. • Creation of a tourism hotel industry in Barcelona at the beginning of the twentieth century. • The 1888 and 1929 universal Exhibitions contributed significantly to the development of tourism and Barcelona was a good example. • An incipient tourism system was formed in Barcelona during these years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increases in housing prices, property speculation and the inability of many residents to pay their mortgage or rent have made housing a key issue of concern for Spaniards. In view of this situation, several grassroots initiatives have emerged in the last decade demanding the right to decent housing. Among them is La Borda, the first Grant of Use housing cooperative built on public land for subsidized housing in Spain. Taking as a reference several successful cooperative experiences, a group of citizens self-organized in 2014 to generate a housing project that escaped the free market dynamics of Barcelona. Specifically, this paper provides a qualitative analysis of how La Borda's democratic organization has operated as a driver in the construction of a collective property building, which has enabled access to affordable and stable housing for around 60 people. This organization, based on the direct participation of cooperative members in decision making and management, has provided a series of benefits, foremost among them: 1) capability building, 2) the adoption of leadership roles, and 3) the emergence of a sense of belonging. • Grassroots initiatives have emerged in Spain demanding the right to decent housing. • La Borda offers an alternative to free market dynamics. • Its democratic organization has promoted the project's success. • Residents' involvement increased their capacities, leadership and bonds. • Introduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Optimal design approach for carbon-neural residential communities is outlined. • The design approach is applied to residential communities in Barcelona, Spain. • Energy efficiency measures combined with wind turbines are found to provide cost-effective options. This paper investigates the optimal retrofit solutions for residential communities to be carbon neutral in Barcelona, Spain. In particular, three different sizes for the residential communities are considered depending on the number of housing units: small, medium, and large. First, the best cost-effective energy efficiency measures (EEMs) have been determined and applied to all the buildings of the communities, in order to reduce their overall energy demand. The retrofit optimization results demonstrate that combinations of passive and active strategies would achieve source energy use saving and electrical peak demand savings up to 57% and 29%, respectively. Then, a variety of renewable energy generation systems has been explored to determine the optimal grid-connected technologies for meeting the electricity demands while achieving annual carbon neutral conditions for the residential buildings. The analysis shows that wind turbines can reduce the cost of electricity generation up to 21.5% compared to the current utility prices (LCOE value as 0.247 €/kWh) and electricity sell back policies. The results indicate that for PV systems to compete with wind turbines, their capital costs need to be lower by at least 40% compared to the current level costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]