THE NORTH BARCELONÈS, AN EMERGING REALITY

The North Barcelonès is an area that spans two counties, comprising the municipalities of Badalona, Santa Coloma de Gramenet and Sant Adrià de Besòs in the Barcelonès county, and the municipalities of Montgat and Tiana in the Maresme county. It is located in an area defined by the River Besòs, the eastern coast and the Serralada de Marina hills, covering a total area of 43.85 km2.

This area has a population of 380,000 persons, and is one of the most densely populated in the metropolitan region, with 8,664 inhabitants per square kilometre.

Town	Area	Inhabitants	Pop. Density
Badalona	22,20	214.874	9.679
St. Adrià	3,87	32.921	8.507
Santa Coloma	7,05	116.503	16.525
Montgat	2,83	8.844	3.125
Tiana	7,90	6.789	859
Source: Web of the Barcelona Provincial Council http://www.diba.es/municipis/ajweb.asp

The Barcelonès Nord has always been an important area of economic production, with a significant presence of heavy industry. Though during the last 20 years the characteristics of this kind of industry, as well as in the rest of Europe, have evolved into less pollutant and smaller activities, this area has an important industrial diversity compared to the rest of the metropolitan region thanks to new or enlarged industrial estates. The decrease of industrial weight is being compensated by the growth of service sector which reveals the existence of an extensive and rich fabric of SMEs, microcompanies and self-employed workers.The recent regional development of the three municipalities of the northern part of the Barcelonès county—Badalona, Santa Coloma de Gramenet and Sant Adrià de Besòs— which led to the tripling of the population in less than three decades. No other zone of the metropolitan area has undergone such a sharp increase in population, nor such high densities.
These factors have been remedied in the last 25 years improving infrastructures and making education more available to more people. There has recently been a new inflow of immigrants to the area—in this case mainly from non-Community countries, as is also the general trend in Catalonia. The arrival of immigrants has compensated for the progressive and constant loss of inhabitants that has been taking place in the area since the 1980s.

Though the role of the region within the metropolitan area has been rather limited in terms of strategic activities and infrastructures, it is currently benefiting from the impact of actions based on the Besòs platform and actions taken on the initiative of the municipalities. The 2004 Forum, the 22@BCN district, the high-speed railway station of La Sagrera, Line 9 of the Metro, new metropolitan facilities such as the Can Ruti Biomedical Park and the Basketball City, and the neighbourhood recovery and conversion programmes are contributing to the integral development of the North Barcelonès, and helping it to move towards the average standards of Catalonia.