THE FUTURE OF COMMERCE IN BARCELONA

A hypothetical map of its spatial distribution.
2020. Barcelona.

The project tries to reflect on the impact that the new commercial model will have in the future cities.
Focused on the goals 8 and 11 of the 2030 Agenda, we understand that the resilience of urban settlements involves understanding which areas of the city have a high concentration of businesses that will be affected due to the change in the tourism paradigm or the rise of online commerce, among other factors.

The work starts from the analysis the economic activities dataset and defines the areas of greater or lesser opportunity according to the type of commerce and/or its location. These limits have been determined using the Getis-Ord Gi* statistic focused on finding clusters of high and low values or, in our case, businesses with a tendency to decrease or increase in the future, considering the data from recent months.

Although this work is largely a hypothetical approximation, the delimitation of risk areas can give us information about the need to rethink trade in these areas. On the contrary, other areas of the city have a resilient commercial structure, betting on local businesses and daily use that will see less affected their immediate future.

Being a work of a clearly spatial nature, we have opted for the representation on a dynamic map. Likewise, the different zoom levels allow the reading of the results in an aggregated way as well as the specific query of each business considered.

Link to data viwer

Data source: Economic activities census on the ground floor of the city of Barcelona. 2019.
Authors: Aleix Arcarons Camps and Irene Rodríguez Vara
Organization the authors belongs: Observatori Metropolitá de l’Habitatge de Barcelona. | website here