Authors:
Carmen Pérez del Pulgar, UAB-ICTA; IMIM

Isabelle Anguelovski, UAB-ICREA, ICTA, IMIM

James Connolly, UAB-ICTA; IMIM

Title: Toward a green and playful city: Understanding the social and political production of
children’s relational wellbeing in Barcelona

Journal: Cities
Note: This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Elsevier in Cities in 2019 available for
full download online at:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264275119305414?dgcid=author

Year: 2019
Abstract
This paper examines recent urban green amenities directed toward children and families and develops
a novel understanding of the ways in which children’s socio-natures are made/unmade through such
interventions. We employ ethnographic and archival analysis in two new parks – Poble Nou and Nou
Barris – in Barcelona to examine how a particular type of children’s wellbeing, what we call “relational
wellbeing” is shaped through the production of green-playful-child-friendly amenities. We find that
planning processes and visions, urban development goals, and neighbourhood socio-material structure
moderate the effect of green-playful-child-friendly amenities on relational wellbeing by directing how
these spaces are used. This finding points toward the importance -- for equity concerns -- of accounting
for the social and political processes that generate relational wellbeing. These processes are often
reflective of broader economic agendas of urban transformation designed to extract value, control
space, and/or legitimize speculative urban development – while sometimes eroding local socio-
material conditions – to the point of producing green spaces of privilege, exclusion and control. The
connection between relational wellbeing and green-playful-child-friendly interventions highlights the
importance, within the urban environmental equity literature, of reconceptualising pathways of
wellbeing and health beyond questions of spatial distribution of natural areas and offers a new
perspective for the development of future guidelines on green-playful-child-friendly space policies.

Keywords
Barcelona, Children-Nature-Play, Urban Environmental Equity, Urban Political Ecology, Relational
Wellbeing, Environmental Justice, gentrification

Introduction
Municipalities are increasingly creating and restoring green amenities directed toward children and
families as an important part of efforts to shift toward more sustainable and healthy cities for all
(Woolley 2006; Ekawati 2015; Anguelovski, Connolly, et al. 2018; Kondo et al. 2018; Lang and
Rothenberg 2017). Yet, these amenities, which serve at once to promote greater contact with nature
and ‘free’ or ‘creative’ play in cities, are increasingly reduced to universal prescriptions for achieving
wellbeing within policy conversations guiding urban growth. However, there is a risk that such an

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approach reifies and commodifies problematically narrow concepts of the child, nature, and play
(Morgan 2017; Kraftl 2006) – potentially (re)producing uneven territorialisation at odds with equity
and wellbeing goals (Rigolon and Flohr 2014).

In this paper, we challenge widely-held assumptions that child-friendly green spaces of play produce
universal benefits (Douglas, Lennon, and Scott 2017; Flouri, Midouhas, and Joshi 2014; Ward et al.
2016) by focusing on the particularly relational aspects of wellbeing. Our original contribution flows
from this challenge; we parse out the socio-political mechanisms that produce differences in what we
call ‘relational wellbeing’ – the portion of overall wellbeing derived from social relations, connections,
and interactions. By focusing on how design, socio-spatial context, and planning and politics shape
relations in particular children’s spaces, we uncover an important part of the making/unmaking of
children’s urban socio-natures. Specifically, we highlight the impacts of power and capital (e.g.
Morgan, 2017; Shillington and Murnaghan, 2016) on the wellbeing outcomes of new green play spaces.
Studies in children’s geography (van Vliet and Karsten 2015; Christensen and O’Brien 2003; Bartlett et
al. 2016), urban environmental justice (Rigolon and Flohr 2014), and social determinants of health
(Dadvand et al. 2015; Ebbeling, Pawlak, and Ludwig 2002; J. Ward et al. 2016; Rydin et al. 2011) have
indeed overlooked the ways in which such social and political processes shape children’s wider socio-
natures and in turn relational wellbeing.

Using Barcelona as a critical case study where the green and playful agenda has permeated recent
urban development and municipal practice, we examine two new child-oriented park areas with
contrasting political visions and processes of space production. These two parks also have different
socio-economic characteristics: The Parc Central de Nou Barris is exemplary of a traditional working-
class neighbourhood while the Parc Central de Poble Nou exemplifies a recently gentrifying
neighbourhood. Using archival data and ethnographic observation methods, we qualitatively analyze
the ways in which socio-material and political foundations differentially co-produce relational
wellbeing for children. This is a process that is not specific to Barcelona. Rather, the underlying
dynamics we uncover apply across many cities turning toward the intersection of greening and child’s
play as a means of increasing livability.

Results show that neighbourhood socio-material conditions and political processes of space
production seem to undermine the relationship between green space and relational wellbeing in some
cases, while, in other cases support greater relational wellbeing. Such findings highlight the
importance, within the ample urban environmental health and environmental equity literature, of
reconceptualising drivers of and pathways for wellbeing and health benefits beyond questions of green
space access and distribution throughout the city. They also call for the critical examination of
internationally-praised urban planning practices that place social equity, wellbeing, and access to
green space for all at the center of municipal action but, might, in some cases, undermine the creation
of benefits for some social groups.

The production of (uneven) urban space in the green-playful-child-
friendly city

The changing status of children’s urban socio-natures
Urban space is ‘lived’ space (Raffestin 2012) composed of messy relations, ties, and representations
that people build within their material and social environment. The full human and environmental
composition of urban lived space has been described as “social space” (Lefebvre 1974), “territory”


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(Raffestin 2012) or “socio-nature” (Swyngedouw 1996). These human-human and human-environment
relations are the “hidden, dissimulated structure of the everyday” (Raffestin 2012) that co-produce
space, human experience, and wellbeing (Smith and Reid 2017). Thus, urban socio-nature is built on a
series of complex metabolic processes in which social and natural systems dialectically produce the
city (Swyngedouw 1996). Through socio-natures, people construct nature and themselves both
discursively and materially as a human-nature outcome and relation (Heynen, Kaika, and Swyngedouw
2006). And, in turn, these processes are deeply political in the sense that they are produced, circulated
and interpreted through (and for) power (Heynen 2006).

Children’s urban socio-natures are specifically those aspects of the metabolic processes producing
cities that shape the urban life of those individuals understood in a given time and place to be a child
– and shaping their construction of nature-human relations. The socio-natures of many Western cities
are premised on an historical disregard for children in urban planning. Urban development trends in
Europe and the US historically produced unsustainable, adult-centered environments that adversely
affected children’s healthy development and wellbeing (Christensen & O’Brien, 2003; Hart, 1979;
Karsten, 2002; Lynch, 1977; Tonucci, 1997; Valentine, 1997; Van den Berg, 2013; Ward, 1978). Such
adverse environments occurred through children’s institutionalization, enclosure and control (Zeiher
2001; De Visscher and Bouverne-de Bie 2008), and through poor free outdoor play and contact with
nature (Louv 2005).

Yet, today many city administrations are seeking to reverse these trends by investing ample resources
in green space and infrastructure projects (Anguelovski, Connolly, et al. 2018; Kondo et al. 2018; Lang
and Rothenberg 2017; Woolley 2006; Ekawati 2015). These investments are a targeted effort to
improve the social and environmental conditions that make up children’s socio-natures. They respond
to and further build on research highlighting the health and wellbeing benefits of quality urban outdoor
environments. In all, this research shows that green outdoor amenities improve local environmental
air and noise conditions and offer sites for restorative activities, with physical (Dadvand et al. 2015;
Gascon et al. 2016) and mental health benefits (Triguero-Mas et al. 2017).

The emerging reformulation of children’s socio-natures is premised on a universal notion of wellbeing
developed from measures in public health research of specific health outcomes. A universal notion of
wellbeing is defined here as the somatic and psychic state of a person that allows its proper functioning
(Zaror et al. 2019). This understanding of wellbeing is usually assumed to be induced by the exposition
to specific material conditions or necessary things to “live well”. Environmental epidemiologists, for
instance, argue that green areas can improve wellbeing outcomes by helping to address obesity
(Ebbeling et al., 2002), attentional functioning needs (Taylor et al., 2001), risk of ocular vision
impairment (Dadvand et al., 2017) and lower cognitive development (Dadvand et al., 2015; Ward,
Duncan, Jarden et.al 2016). This evidence has been used to make an argument of the universal benefits
for children’s wellbeing of an exposure to green socio-natures.

Consequently, this common narrative of universal wellbeing benefits reduces understanding of
children’s socio-natures to simple types of play equipment or physical access to amenities – an
approach that recent public health scholarship has started to question (Anguelovski, et al. 2018;
Anguelovski et al., forthcoming). In that approach, children are assumed to be homogeneous, pre-
existing, innocent, and pure subjects with inherent, direct, and universal connections to nature (Taylor,
2011). However, this understanding ignores other social categories, such as gender, race, ethnicity,
class, and physical and mental abilities (Kraftl 2006). It also abstracts away the differences in
understanding childhood across space, time and social position (Ariès 1962; Mintz and Kellogg 1988;
Thompson 1963). As such, common narratives around greening, play, and health impacts obscure the

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ways in which the everyday urbanism of children’s green spaces actually enables or prevents
construction of play and access to play.



Toward a focus on relational wellbeing in children’s urban socio-natures
The generalized approach to wellbeing does not often account for the specifically relational aspects
that structure a great deal of children’s experiences in cities. Green amenities are not just places to
receive environmental inputs; they are also places of interaction. They are sites of peer and
intergenerational exchange where children can explore both themselves and the material and social
surroundings (Stevens 2007), acquire a social network, and negotiate their cultural and social identities
(Christensen and O’Brien 2003; Formoso, Weber, and Atkins 2010). Green spaces are especially
important as centers of ‘free’ or ‘creative’ play (A. F. Taylor et al. 1998; Douglas, Lennon, and Scott
2017; Flouri, Midouhas, and Joshi 2014; J. Ward et al. 2016). Moreover, children’s greater access to
green spaces tends to foster environmental stewardship by increasing their knowledge of and
attachment to the natural environment (Kals, Schumacher, and Montada 1999; Chawla 2007; Derr,
Chawla, and van Vliet 2017; Broom 2017; Fisher, Svendsen, and Connolly 2015; Chawla 2015), which
also plays a role in wellbeing through regular social and environmental contacts.

In response, in this paper we aim to contribute to a research agenda that addresses an under-
theorization of the underlying ontologies and pathways for wellbeing (e.g. Smith and Reid 2017)
Specifically, we look at how relational wellbeing is differentially produced in two urban green play
spaces. We examine some of the complexities and nuances embedded in the production of children’s
urban socio-natures and develop an understanding of a particularized notion of wellbeing – relational
wellbeing, which is strongly mediated by political and socio-material relations. In all, we aim at refining
the ways we view equity and wellbeing within green-playful-child-friendly spaces beyond a
traditionally decontextualized analysis of access and distribution of amenities.

Furthermore, we employ relational wellbeing as a conceptual tool for understanding better how
children’s wellbeing in large cities embedded in global economic and financial flows (Moreno 2014)
can be subsumed into market logics of demand and supply, favoring the creation of spaces as
commodities designed primarily to increase real estate profits (van Vliet and Karsten 2015). The travel,
tourism, hospitality, and real estate industries are now selling green-playful-child-friendly-ness as a
consumable product to middle-class residents who have the capacity to move according to residential
preferences (van Vliet and Karsten 2015; Boterman and Bridge 2015; Van den Berg 2013). Some
families link access to these spaces with the ability to remain in the city after having children (Karsten
2002; Lilius 2018), and elevate them to essential aspects of a new urban middle class identity (Rutz and
Balkan 2009; Donner 2017; Boterman and Bridge 2015; Van den Berg 2013).

This entrepreneurial (Harvey 2006) market and neoliberal (Rossi 2017; Horton 2016) logic in the
process of green-playful-child-friendly space production also shapes questions of distribution and
inclusion (Goodling et al., 2015). As the ample urban environmental justice and equity literature has
demonstrated, children’s leisure spaces and playgrounds tend to be unevenly distributed, being
spatially concentrated in wealthier neighbourhoods or in the outskirts of the city, and in turn do not
offer equal access to marginalized or discriminated groups, including children within those groups
(Karsten 2002; Rigolon and Flohr 2014; Rigolon 2017). Child-friendly (Van den Berg 2013) and green
(Anguelovski et al., 2018; Hamilton & Curran, 2013; Heynen et al., 2006; Pearsall, 2010; Quastel, 2009;
Quastel et al., 2012; Wolch et al., 2014) amenities can even contribute – sometimes in combination
with other revitalization strategies – to increased rent and property value, leading to (green)


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gentrification trends (Dooling 2009; Gould and Lewis 2017; Checker 2011; Van den Berg 2013) and to
other socio-cultural exclusionary trends (Anguelovski et al., forthcoming). Similar trends of
gentrification have been established in relation to park-based playful urbanism and the
“disneyfication” of cities (Zukin 1995b; Bryman 2004).

Bringing back alternative voices in front of a historical disregard and a universal model
The universalized notion of children’s wellbeing that lies behind many green-playful-child-friendly
spaces turns the historical disregard for children in urban planning on its head, but also dismisses
alternative visions for what is desirable (Zukin 1995a; De Visscher and Bouverne-de Bie 2008; Van den
Berg 2013). Shaping the notion of wellbeing that drives the creation of such spaces around market
demand prevents historically disempowered groups (at the intersection of class, racial, ethnic, gender,
and sexual status) from transforming their needs into claims for urban territory because those needs
are often not compatible with the private accumulation of capital (Donner 2017). In addition, green-
playful-child-friendly amenities may be perceived as fundamentally problematic sites of power,
conflict, violence, oppression, racism and/or as devices of social control for minorities, immigrants
and/or working class residents (Brownlow 2006; Hamilton and Curran 2013; Byrne and Wolch 2009;
Wolch, Byrne, and Newell 2014). Finally – and importantly for our findings here – the universalizing
narrative around such spaces overlooks different class-based norms for free unstructured play
(Holloway and Pimlott-Wilson 2018; De Visscher and Bouverne-de Bie 2008; Van den Berg 2013). Any
view apart from a playful, pristine childhood becomes associated with an abject un-child-like other
(Aitken 2001; Van den Berg 2013; De Visscher and Bouverne-de Bie 2008) or “waste” (Katz 2008) – the
alternative experience is equated with a degraded urban environment and dismissed within the green-
playful-child-friendly urbanism narrative.

Despite – at least discursively – downplaying the poor wellbeing outcomes that may result for some
groups from existing profit-oriented urban interventions, removing alternative voices serves to
mobilize a consensus around urban policy goals that avoid challenging the socio-ecological
contradictions of unsustainable, unjust, and androcentric growth. By obscuring the political
construction of spaces and the contestation they might trigger, narratives around children’s access to
green space and wellbeing could paradoxically eventually aggravate urban socio-environmental
inequalities by generating green-playful-child-friendly cities with narrow wellbeing benefits for an
exclusive number and type of residents. In response, our paper also examines the set of environmental
inequities produced by dominant representations and idealizations of nature and children (e.g.
Shillington and Murnaghan 2016) and by the implementation processes of specific interventions. Our
central questions are thus: How does the political and social production of green-playful-child-friendly
amenities shape relational wellbeing in different contexts? And how do those processes of producing
relational wellbeing help refine our understanding of environmental inequities?

Transformation of urban socio-natures in Barcelona 1975-2016
We selected Barcelona as a site to examine the recent transformation of children’s urban socio-natures
because the city has been extensively engaged in the creation of new public and green spaces since
Spain’s transition to democracy in 1979, with a strong emphasis on improving neighbourhood quality
of life and children’s wellbeing. Since that time, the city has created roughly 300 new public green
spaces, many with children’s play areas as central aspects. Furthermore, Barcelona’s recent urban
transformation is characterized by different phases, with clear shifts in the role of economic, social,
and political interests; as well as scales of interventions and involved stakeholders across time and
space. Its practice of urban planning has received much international attention, with many praising its
emphasis on neighborhood urbanism and access to new physical infrastructure and calling for it to be
used in broader international applications (Marshall 2000; Monclús 2003), although others have raised

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criticisms (Anguelovski, 2014; Arbaci & Tapada-Berteli, 2012; Borja et al., 2004). This recent history
makes Barcelona a critical case to examine the complex and uneven effects of the production of green-
playful-child-friendly socio-natures.

Early 1980s livability interventions in Barcelona were mostly led by the municipal government in
conjunction with social movements and neighbourhood associations. They were geared towards
localized and small-scale interventions creating quality open and green spaces with children’s play
spaces often built in. This early approach especially targeted neighbourhoods with a historical deficit
of public space, such as degraded areas of the historic center (e.g. Jardín Emili Vendrell, 1984), working
class neighbourhoods (e.g. Parc de la Espanya Industrial, 1985), and more peripheral neighbourhoods
(e.g. Parc del Clot, 1986).

The preparations for the 1992 Olympic Games inaugurated a new period characterized by the presence
of large operators – mostly public-private partnerships and mixed capital companies – executing
extensive urban transformations (Montaner et al., 2011) without negotiating with small associations.
Most public spaces and parks built during that period covered a much greater scale of action and
featured public art installations authored by internationally acclaimed artists and architects (e.g. Joan
Miró, Fernando Botero, Santiago Calatrava, Norman Foster). Many of those new parks raised eyebrows
among some local planners and resident groups for being considered as tourist-oriented spaces of
consumption and design rather than spaces responding to the needs of neighbourhood residents
(Anguelovski et al., 2018).

The post-1992 Olympic games consolidated the leading role of private operators – mostly real estate
companies (Montaner, Álvarez, and Muxí 2011) in a context of economic crisis for public
administrations and increase of real estate values and tourism. Representative of this time (1997-2004)
the district of Sant Martí located just up the coast from the historic city center was radically
transformed through new public space and greening interventions anchored by the “Diagonal Mar”
luxury development and park; the establishment of the “22@ district” as a hub for tech and creative
firms with a new Central Park (Parc Central de Poble Nou); and the construction of the Parc del Forum
for the 2004 Forum of Cultures international fair along the last undeveloped sections of the Barcelona
waterfront. Green space production was embedded in a competitive urbanism logic to attract new
investors and visitors, with decision-making influenced by developers and real estate speculation
(Montaner, Álvarez, and Muxí 2011). Several observers lament the resulting direct social costs, such as
displacement, loss of industrial working-class cultural heritage (Borja, 2010) and streets with scant
urban life (Montaner, Álvarez, and Muxí 2011). Since 2004, the municipality has linked open space
policy with global sustainability agendas to emphasize green infrastructure, biodiversity, and re-
naturing projects through new green amenities including parks, forests, ecological corridors, streams,
community gardens, and urban farms (Anguelovski et al., 2018; Depietri et al., 2016).

Meanwhile, children’s wellbeing and access to green space has played a strong role in the Barcelona
green agenda in recent decades. Since 1990, the municipality has produced regulatory frameworks
(e.g. periodic Children and Adolescence Plans, Charter for Educating Cities) that direct public action.
The main objectives of children-focused interventions in Barcelona have generally been to guarantee
children’s universal access to urban resources and services and promote more and better facilities and
services for education, leisure and health. Most recently, several plans and objectivesi highlight the
importance of children’s right to free play and access to nature and two main strategies aim to
stimulate free outdoor play: the 2018 governmental measure “Barcelona dona Molt de Joc” (Barcelona
gives a lot of play)ii and the 2016 (and beyond) creation of pacified “superblocks”iii.



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Materials and Methods
In this study, we compare the creation and use of green play spaces in two neighbourhoods – Poble
Nou and Nou Barris. We describe their characteristics in Table 1 below.




To conduct our study, we used both archival and ethnographic observation methods. On the one hand,
we carried out 30 hours of observation in each park in May 2018, over two afternoons (from 17:00
until 21:00) between Monday and Thursday, one Friday afternoon (from 17:00 to 21:00), one day-long
observation on a Saturday and one day-long observation on a Sunday (in both cases from 11:00 until
20:00) for each park in order to get an in-depth sense of each park’s uses, users, and relationships
between them. The chosen time slots covered midweek after school play, Friday afternoon play and
weekend leisure times, in order to discriminate the effect of these different types of time and days on



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the uses, relations and duration of activities. This selection also helped us observe a variety of users
and interactions between them.

We systematized our observations in three ways in order to combine a structured observation of play
and recreation in the park (e.g. McKenzie et al. 2006, 2000) with an ethnographic non-structured
approach to observation (DeWalt and DeWalt 1989; Marshall and Rossman 1995). First, through a
checklist which included questions about physical access to the park, safety, urban density
characteristics, types, quality, usability, organization and distribution of equipment (including those
for children), green space and natural element characteristics and composition and maintenance
concerns. Second, we designed a diagramming tool (See Figure 1) to keep systematic track of the parks
user’s physical activity levels, activity modes/types, estimated age, gender and ethnic groupings, which
we classified alongside the intensity of the physical activity and the interacting elements/agents –
these were our proxy for type of play and socio-material interaction. Furthermore, we employed a field
notebook with detailed descriptions of the type, location and duration of activities,iv informal
conversations, observable aspects of participants’ ethnic and socio demographic characteristics, and
the relations and interactions developed in the space. We built, adjusted, and completed our diagram
and detailed descriptions continuously throughout field work, while moving around the park and
stopping for especially long intervals of observation in each park’s most crowded areas.




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         Figure 1 Diagram of activities based on the intensity of the physical activity, of the interactions, and the interacting
elements/agents. Two examples of a weekend day in May in Parc Central de Poble Nou and Parc Central de Nou Barris

Field data was analysed using grounded theory techniques, (Strauss and Corbin 1990) following an
iterative process of data collection and analysisv and using the insights of the analysis carried out after
each session of observation to inform the following iteration of data collection. The final most relevant
codes related to relational wellbeing from the analysis are: “self-management of risk”, “exploration of
oneself”, “bodily and communicative control over rules and codes of conduct”, “shared meanings and
affordances”, “management of material and social boundaries”, “negotiation of social identity”, “social
network” , “exploration of social and material environment”, “attachment to environment and sense
of place”, “routines”, “regimes of care” “regimes of space”, “regimes of time”.
In addition, we supplemented field observations with archival analysis of roughly 150 pages of
documents related to the process of planning/transformation that generated these parks and the
design attributes of each park, including the modifications of the General Municipal Plan of 1976 for
the creation of the Central Park of Poble Nouvi, the modification for the Central Park of Nou Barrisvii
and the different proposals that competed for the design of each park. The archival data contextualized
the political processes of production of these socio-natures and situated the observed socio-material
relations in the neighbourhood’s historical social and political context. These archival data were


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thematically coded according to the discourses, normative visions (e.g. of the “good” city or
neighbourhood), identified social concerns or problems, definition of beneficiaries, coalitions of
power, material design of the built environment and role of “nature” suggested in the analysed
processes of urban transformations.
Our approach does not assume that green amenities have a specific, deterministic effect on children’s
relational wellbeing per se. Rather, we understand green-playful-child-friendly socio-natures as
produced by a set of political and social processes that generate a medium in which relations of
wellbeing arise or not (e.g. Smith & Reid, 2017). Thus, we are looking for evidence of processes at work
below the surface-level and traditional target indicators of wellbeing that may shape the effects on
relational wellbeing. We specifically focus on the following socio-material relations as indicators of
relational wellbeing within the context of children’s play activities: personal (exploration of oneself,
self-management of risk); social (negotiation of social identity); and socio-environmental (exploration
of material environment, environmental knowledge, attachment to nature). We also hypothesise that
the social composition of the neighbourhood will shape the creation of socio-material relations. A
visualisation of the conceptual framework for data collection and analysis is presented in Figure 2.




Figure 2 Conceptual framework for data collection and analysis


Results: A ground-level view of children’s socio-natures in Barcelona
In this section we analyse the production of children’s socio-natures and how those shape relational
wellbeing based on our different data sources.

Assemblage of wellbeing in a structured urban socio-nature: the Parc Central de Nou Barris
Green space remediation for a historically underserved community
Nou Barris is the district in Barcelona with the lowest index of family economic capacity, a low
proportion of college-educated residents in 2016 (11.11% vs. 29.14% city wide average; Barcelona
Statistics Department), the second highest proportion of residents from the Global South in Barcelona
(7.31% in 2016), and above average percentage of children aged 0-14 (14.11 % vs 12.99% city wide
average in 2016).

According to archival documents, the creation of the Parc Central de Nou Barris in 1992 was
underpinned by a municipal commitment to remediate environmental inequities indicated by a

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historical lack of quality public spaces, community facilities, and affordable housing in this traditionally
working-class district. It responded to longstanding resident demands articulated through a historically
active network of neighbourhood associations, which still persists today.viii The Park is located on the
site of an old Psychiatric Hospital that the 1976 General Metropolitan Plan (PGM) and a 1992 Special
Planix decided to dedicate to a large green space, to community facilities (e.g. the Nou Barris district
headquarter, local police offices, student housing, and a library) and to social housing. The planning of
the park represented an important milestone in the interruption of the speculative and developmental
urbanization of the area of the previous decade and its substitution for a period of suture urbanism,
"reliving what had been separated, of intervening in the regeneration and dignifying of spaces
marginalized by Francoist speculation"x.

According to the 1992 Special Plan9, the amount of land for housing was reduced to a strip located
along the Park, but with a strong ambition to devote these to quality public housing. The land reserved
for community facilities largely re-used the remaining structure of the old Psychiatric hospital and its
environs. Finally, the ground where the park was planned – that was previously privately owned and
ready to be developed – was obtained by expropriation legitimated by the 1992 Plan.xi As a result,
public space was regained, community facilities were built, and more social housing was provided for
vis a vis the previous state of the metropolitan plan. The Parc Central de Nou Barris and its surrounding
transformations had a strong impact on discourse about the local community, as revealed by the
narrative used to explain the origin of and visions behind the park in official documents8 and
informative signs throughout the community amenity areas.




Figure 3 Parc Central de Nou Barris. The design reflects the integration of different spaces and diversity of uses

Source: Pla Especial d’ordenació de l’ambit de l’antic institut mental-Forum Nord de la Tecnologia-1992, Municipal Archive of
Poble Nou. Scale 1:5.000m




Material coherence and continuity of the park-design
The park has a rather urban aesthetic, reflected in the predominance of paved triangular terraces
connected by brick-ramps used as contention slopes (see Figure 4.b,c) and the same vertical wooden
structures providing daytime shade and night lights that are present across the neighbourhood (see
Figure 4.a). This design, together with the absence of a clear perimeter, contributes to a sense of

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continuity and visual coherence, integration, and flow between the neighbourhood physical elements
– houses, streets, equipment – and its natural features. Children’s play equipment is mostly composed
of fenced playgrounds – three out of four playgrounds are fenced (see Figure 4.d,e,f) – and contain
objects that seem likely to shape and even dictate children’s play. Benches are spread throughout the
park, many of them around the fenced playgrounds, supporting children’s supervision, and the
abundant communal areas and picnic tables.




Figure 4 Parc Central de Nou Barris. Material design of built environment. Design and elements allow for integration of diverse
infrastructure, natural and non-natural elements, users, and uses


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Socio-material relations in the Parc de Nou Barris
At first sight, abundant socio-environmental interactions take place in the park amongst people of a
diversity of ages and spoken languages (Catalan, Spanish-Castellano, Spanish-Argentinian; Spanish-
Dominican; Portuguese/Brasilian, Russian, Slavic languages or Moroccan) who seem to be involved in
regular daily routine activities in and around the park throughout most of the time of observation.
During working weekdays, teenagers carrying their backpacks enter the library or sit in the lawn to do
homework and chat. Elderly – mostly white and Spanish residents – take walks in the park or sit in
groups and engage in informal talk about their upcoming summer holidays or some health issues.
Middle-age adults walk by and casually meet acquaintances and chat. Homeless people (many of them
black) gather around the “Centre de Atención Integral,”xiicomplaining about the difficulty of getting
accepted in a music audition if you’re not “Spanish-Spanish” or the discriminations faced when begging
on the streets. Parents from diverse backgrounds (in general, either Spanish or from the Global South)
wait at a school entrance in front of the park, either gathering for a while chatting over their latest tax
declaration, scheduling appointments for dinner, breastfeeding, asking for someone to take care of
the kids for a night, or using that time to quickly enter the local market and buy some groceries. During
weekends, the park is an active and dynamic meeting point with a myriad of children playing, families
and groups of friends – with and without children – organizing picnics or birthday celebrations, elderly
people taking a walk and sunbathing on the benches, and teenagers gathering to sing rap, skate, smoke
and/or play cards.

There are abundant instances of children’s free play and exploration of the environment. Children
frequently decide the type, location, and rules of their play – either individually or in peer-groups, but
without the guidance of an adult, which is also illustrated in the frequent instances of child-child
interactions in our diagram (See example of one observation session in Figure 1 where child-child
interactions are represented in orange). Children also exhibit a considerable degree of exploration and
shared knowledge of their surrounding social and material environment. Free play is apparent in the
seemingly improvised art of children’s activities. Children’s use of the equipment often challenges the
standard usage of the equipment. There were regular observations such as, “children slide down the
contention slopes as if they were slides”, “children hang themselves from bike racks as if these were
monkey bars” (Fieldwork Notes, several days). Also, children play throughout the entire park and their
range of movement seems to be only limited by the adjacent traffic streets and not by the fenced
playgrounds. Children enter and exit fenced playgrounds whenever they want, flowing from one to
another as if moving between rooms in a house, in a safe, familiar, and comfortable manner. Fenced
playgrounds also seem to support toddlers’ independent exploration of themselves and the
environment given that some parents/caregivers seem to take advantage of the safety and visibility of
the fenced playgrounds to leave toddlers alone for a while inside while playing with older children or
chatting with other adults.

There are also numerous unexpected transitions in the type of play (e.g. from quiet to active play), the
composition of the group playing – including interactions with strangers – (e.g. from individual to group
play), and the objects of interaction (e.g. from interacting with a ball to interacting with a wooden stick
to interacting with an ant). The high degree of fluctuation between spaces and types of activities was
also observable through the very frequent lines representing transitions between activities and places
in our diagrams (See example of one observation session in Figure 1).

This relates to one of the main patterns observed in Parc de Nou Barris. Although the interactions with
the surrounding environment mostly start out involving non-green/non-natural elements such as the
playing equipment, the contention walls, the light and shade structures or objects brought from home



                                                                                                        13
(e.g. a ball), these interactions frequently stimulate and evolve into interactions with the natural
environment, such as water, wooden sticks, trees and animals.

Furthermore, another main pattern in Nou Barris was that children’s socio-material relations were
characterized by a high degree of control over their surrounding material environment, which allowed
for an individual or peer-based management of risk, rules and resources. We recorded recurrent
instances of children’s awareness of their own aptitudes and limits (e.g. “I can’t do this”, says a girl to
her dad; Fieldwork Notes Tuesday 8.05, 18:00) or warnings to other kids about the risks involved in
certain activities (e.g. “take care when sliding, in this way you will fall on your head”; “if you go into the
water and get wet your mum will be very angry with you”, “if you get on this (big wheel) you will feel
very dizzy”; Fieldwork Notes, several days). There were also hints of understanding of rules (e.g. “I like
the water area, but bathing is not permitted, and anyway, I would not like it because the water is very
dirty”; Fieldwork notes, Wednesday 16.05, 19:00) and peer-organization of norms (e.g. we observed
that children tend to queue for using the Tyrolean, except when it’s their first time of the day, when it
seems to be accepted to skip the queue). Additionally, the children had a good geographic orientation
vis-à-vis the surrounding environment (e.g. “let’s go to the water area”; “I live there”; Fieldwork notes,
Wednesday 16.05, 18:00), showing attachment to the space (e.g. “I like the spider/climbing areas.
There is one here and one over there”; Fieldwork notes, Tuesday 8.05, 18:00), and held considerable
knowledge of the available resources (e.g. we repeatedly observed carton boxes being collected from
nearby stores to be shared and used to better slip down the contention walls).

The set of socio-material relations at work and the high degree of communicative and bodily
exploration, knowledge, control, attachment and familiarity that children seemed to have with the
social and material environment was at odds with the expected affordances and opportunities offered
by a non-“natural”, structured and fenced socio-nature. Nevertheless, unstructured and spontaneous
relations among kids and their environment seem to emerge because of the way this socio-nature was
inhabited and owned by the apparently working-class and/or minority residents in the park. The
frequency with which mostly children but also teenagers, adults and elderly went to the park and the
long time they spent in the park revealed a socio-nature comprised of proximate, ordinary, and
comfortable public space for residents’ fulfilment of their social and material needs, inhabited and
cared for as an extension of the domestic sphere.

A shared regime of care towards children, the integration of adults in the space, and a sense of
community precipitate the production of these spaces of play as a familiar, supportive and nurturing
arena characterized by safety and informal care that facilitates the creation of relational wellbeing for
children and adults. Child care activities were often shared among adult acquaintances who gathered
together (e.g. “one or two adult members of the group at a time seem to care for children, bringing
them a snack, playing with them or keeping an eye”; Fieldwork Saturday 26.05, 15:00). During
weekends, as large group picnics allowed children to play with one another and/or with adults, adult
participants did not seem to be in the park only in a supervisory/childcare mode but also in order to
socialize with peers and enjoy their free time. This was also perceptible through the diagram, in which
we recorded consistently frequent adult-adult interactions (See example of one observation session in
Figure 1 where adult-adult interactions are represented in striped blue). Their presence reinforced a
social network for them and for the children.

Last, a sense of community was perceptible, especially when new children and adults joined the park
and upon arrival greeted each other - sometimes with an energetic “hola familia”/ “hi, family.” During
working days, we also encountered a general sense of co-responsibility – also stemming from strangers
– towards children’s safety (e.g. “a young man training in the bars calls the attention of a girl who is
climbing too high and keeps an eye on the girl until she finishes climbing”’ Fieldwork Notes Tuesday

                                                                                                           14
8.05, 18:00) and amusement (e.g. parents play and interact with their offspring, but also with other
children in the playground; and the observation of “teenagers training in bars and listening to music
(trap) briefly interacting with two nearby girls”; Fieldwork notes Wednesday 16.05, 19:00).



Scheduled structured play in a spectacular and “wild” socio-nature: the Parc Central de Poble
Nou
Radical transformation of a neighbourhood for a city-wide redevelopment strategy
According to archival documents, in the late 1990s, Poble Nou was a low-income, working-class post-
industrial neighbourhood that “had not participated in the dynamic of urban improvement of the
surrounding renewed areas.”xiii During the early 2000s, the regeneration of Poble Nou and the creation
of the Parc Central del Poble Nou were tightly linked with a large-scale city-wide redevelopment
strategy. In Poble Nou, this strategy called for a new creative, technology-centered, and sustainable
hub known as the “22@ district” that would “boost Barcelona’s competitive advantage”13 and bring
the city into line with the global transition from a “capitalist industrial society into a digital and
knowledge driven society” of the 21st century13. This general strategy holds up to today.

This strong entrepreneurial framework used by the city Administration at the time was explicit that
“the increase of the housing stock should be minimal, and … dedicated to the residence of the workers
of the companies”13, and not the existing majority of low-educated residents that lived in Poblenou at
the end of the 1990s.13 Furthermore, as stated in the archival documents, there was an initial capital
prerequisite required for a developer to benefit from 22@ support (the minimum intervention unit
was the block and main actors/partners had to “own 60% of the land”13), which resulted in high private
investment and in the creation of a new public-private capital company – 22@bcn S.A. – to facilitate
the transformation. The radical top-down intervention in Poble Nou socially, physically, productively,
and functionally transformed the neighbourhood and swept away a large percentage of residents
through concomitant gentrification and displacement dynamics, transformation of the material
environment that had been associated with an industrial heritage, and alteration of the existing sense
of community (Montaner, Álvarez, and Muxí 2011; Anguelovski, Connolly, et al. 2018). Today this
heavily gentrifying neighbourhood has an index of economic capacity similar to Barcelona’s average
(92.63 in 2016xiv), a below-average percentage of residents from the Global South (4.67% in 2016),
increasing presence of college educated residents (23.21% vs. 29.14% city wide averagexv), above
average percentage of children aged 0-14 (14.08 % vs 12.99% city wide average in 2016), loss of public
space and a growing building stock of high-end housing and contemporary unique-architecture. Its
current demographic and social composition thus varies quite dramatically from that of Nou Barris.

Spectacular and isolated design
In the late 1990s, the construction of the Parc Central del Poble Nou was contemplated as part of this
broader economic development agenda and as a central element of the area’s “playful and festive
offer of activities.”xvi A review of historical documents reveals the extent to which the final selected
project, led by French architect Jean Nouvel, reflected the same lack of consideration for Poble Nou’s
material and social heritage as other 22@ projects. The park design aligns with the layout of the more
modern portion of the central city (Avenida Diagonal and Eixample neighbourhood). It is structured
around the historically central highway to France called Pere IV Street which erodes the older urban
layout of Poble Nou (see Figure 5). Poble Nou’s material and social heritage was further transformed
by the choice of an isolated park design – the space is concealed by bougainvillea ivy vegetated walls
and only has a few entrances – that closes the new public space off from its surroundings (Figure 5).



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Figure 5 Parc Central del Poble Nou. Design reflects segregation of infrastructure and users and lack of continuity between
different park spaces

Source: Proyecto de Ordenación del Parque de Pueblo Nuevo 2000, Municipal Archive of Sant Martí. Scale 1:5.000m

On the interior, the park is silent, and the noise and urban form of the exterior are almost not
perceptible (e.g. Figure 6). With much of the park mimicking wild nature, in sharp contrast with Nou
Barris, the Parc Central is divided into three main areas separated by city streets. Each of these areas
presents a “natural” aesthetic, mainly achieved through the presence of abundant willow-trees. None
of the children’s equipment is fenced and many of the amenities are built out of biomass, such as
wooden huts (Figure 6.a), a water area, one sand area, and a spiral-shaped area full of bushes forming
a labyrinth. There are also monkey bars, climbing spider nets (Figure 6.c), ping pong tables, basketball
courts, and a large open playground surrounded by individual chairs and willows (Figure 6.d, e). The
playground integrates many possible play options and presents a diverse orography, with ramps,
ropes, slides, a wheel, hanging bars, a sand zone, and a rubber-surface area painted different colours
and shapes (e.g. lines and circles).




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     Figure 6 Parc Central de Poble Nou. Material design of built environment. Design reflects segregation of infrastructure and
     users and lack of continuity between different park spaces

 1

 2   Socio- material relations in the Parc Central de Poble Nou
 3   During weekdays, the park is usually very quiet in the early afternoon, one can hear birds and bikes
 4   passing through the bike lane on the old Pere IV street. Some of the few adult visitors lie on the grass
 5   while others walk their dogs. Teenagers seem to rarely use the park, and when they do, they practice
 6   dance moves, play basketball, or take pictures of themselves with their smartphones. Elderly visitors
 7   are also almost absent. In general, children and their parents/caregivers tend to gather around the
 8   main rubber playground (Figure 6.d, e) and at intervals in the central plaza or around some of the
 9   hanging bars. They are mostly white and Spanish or from the Global North, as can be inferred from the
10   main spoken languages – Catalan, Spanish, French, Italian, American-English and Greek. For the few

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11   instances of ethnic diversity we observed, visitors seemed to be divided along class lines around the
12   playground, which we could infer by observing/identifying the dress style and relation with children of
13   the visitors (e.g. parent or professional carer). In field notes (Monday 7.05), we recorded, “the 3
14   ethnically diverse persons in the park – one Asian and two Andean women – sit in the benches that are
15   further away from the central playground, whereas Spanish-Global North white parents are sitting in
16   the first line of the playground. The Asian woman is in the playground accompanying her child, whereas
17   the Andean-South American women are professional caregivers.” This hierarchical spatial disposition
18   did not apply to middle-class non-white parents – only observed in seldom birthday celebrations – who
19   were mostly spatially integrated.

20   Children were almost constantly accompanied by an adult and, as a result, play areas had comparable
21   numbers of parents and children mixed together. This observation is perceptible in our diagrams by
22   the high presence of adult-child interactions (See example of one observation session in Figure 1, with
23   adult-child interactions represented in black stripes). Children’s interactions with the play equipment
24   were mainly guided and stimulated by parents (e.g. parents saying, “look at that rope!”, “do you want
25   to go to the slide?” Fieldwork Notes, various days). When not guided by parents, interactions with the
26   environment followed a strict obedience to the existing physical cues (e.g. the spider and monkey bars
27   were exclusively used to climb, the sand area to play with sand, the basketball courts to play
28   basketball). Furthermore, children’s activities seemed to be guided by the uses demarcated by the
29   colours and shapes painted on the rubber soil (i.e. circles to walk in circles or jump, straight lines to
30   walk or run, etc.). Parents contributed to the reproduction of these norms by explaining to children
31   how to navigate the playground. In Poble Nou, in contrast with Nou Barris, none of the diagrams of
32   the observation sessions contained fluid transitions across space or between activities (see example in
33   Figure 1).

34   Despite the numerous opportunities to have contact with nature (the park was designed to mimic
35   natural landscapes), none of the children exited the playground area delimited by the rubber soil and
36   children did not interact with the material environment other than the play equipment or games
37   brought from home (e.g. balls, buckets, etc.). Consequently, the contrast between the neighbourhood
38   and playground physical elements, on the one hand, and the “wild-resembling” aesthetic of some of
39   the natural elements, on the other, reinforced a socio-natural dichotomy, leaving “natural” elements
40   as an untouched aesthetic background landscape. The size and shape of the trees (Figure 6) and their
41   more manicured look might furthermore lead parents and children to perceive that those trees are
42   not meant for play but have been placed there for aesthetic reasons.

43   Interactions with the social environment at all times were also scarce in comparison with Nou Barris.
44   Children did not seem to interact much with other unknown children or adults. When interactions with
45   strangers took place, these were mostly reduced to polite and kind gestures mediated by adults (e.g.
46   “a dad explains to his daughter that if she wants to play with a ball, she needs to ask the owner for
47   permission and thank her”; Fieldwork Notes, Friday 11.05; 19:00). The management of risk was also
48   mostly taken over by adults (e.g. parents/caregivers commanding “do not jump here”, “watch out when
49   climbing the ramp”; “don’t run so fast or you might bump into other children”; Fieldwork Notes, various
50   days).

51   The set of socio-material relations at work, especially the reduced exploration and management of
52   oneself and the material and social environment was at odds with the expected opportunities offered
53   by a “nature-like” play space with unstructured and creative play amenities designed into it.
54   Nevertheless, these socio-material relations seemed to, partly, be shaped by parents shadowing
55   children and by a lack of independent child integration into the park. The adults’ main reason to be in
56   the park was to accompany their children, play with children or supervise them. This was also

                                                                                                           18
 57   perceptible through the diagram, in which we found few adult-adult interactions (See example of one
 58   observation session in Figure 1 where adult-adult interactions are represented in a blue stripe).

 59   Park occupation and activity increased after 5pm during school days. However, in contrast with Nou
 60   Barris, the short-time and the little regularity of children’s and parents’/caregivers’ visits to the park
 61   during these working evenings (i.e. there were few identified recurrent users and children usually
 62   stayed maximum 40-50 minutes in the park) also seemed to hinder children’s development of a sense
 63   of control over the processes that shape their socio-nature and ability to contribute to the scant social
 64   network children and parents seemed to have within the park.

 65   Furthermore, the park only seemed to serve as a brief and exceptional stop in children’s and parents’
 66   life rather than a long daily routine (e.g. a dad says to a little girl: “let’s make a stop here and continue”;
 67   Fieldwork Notes, Thursday 17.05, 18:00), unlike what we observed in Nou Barris. The individual/family-
 68   based management of care we observed (e.g. parents only interacted with their offspring, not with the
 69   other children) with independent nuclear family units sharing a material space might reflect a desire
 70   of parents and/or children to spend some quality minutes together in an exceptional moment within
 71   a broader, perhaps overscheduled, middle-class life (Katz 2008; Donner 2017; De Visscher and
 72   Bouverne-de Bie 2008). This schedule is illustrated by parents’ frequent conversations about their own
 73   and children’s time management (e.g. “can we go on Saturday?...No, I have an appointment to do my
 74   nails”; Fieldwork Notes, Friday 11.05, 17:00). In turn, the lack of a routine and social network in the
 75   park tend to create a barrier against a greater sense of familiarity, safety, and informal environmental
 76   control that could prompt children to wander around comfortably and parents to feel more carefree.

 77   During weekends, the time spent in the park and the sense of familiarity and safety seemed to increase,
 78   especially in the late mornings and late afternoons, when the space was usually more crowded, mostly
 79   owing to children’s birthday celebrations (Figure 5.f). These celebrations were organized by residents
 80   who did not seem to use the park every day (e.g. organizing or participating parents acknowledged
 81   how this park is “actually a nice place to do this kind of celebration”; Fieldwork Notes, Sunday 27.05).
 82   During those events, parents socialized with other parents, talked about school options for children,
 83   language management (in the cases of multilingual families), work, etc. Although gathering for
 84   children’s celebrations, adults seemed to be fulfilling independent socialization activities while
 85   children engaged in more exploratory play (e.g. running in-between trees), appropriated the material
 86   environment, and challenged the designed use of the equipment (e.g. “some girls are using the monkey
 87   bars as a puppet house”; Fieldwork Notes, Sunday 27.05, 13:00). Free play attempts were, however,
 88   on several occasions interrupted by the arrival of a hired professional entertainer who, even if
 89   encouraging children’s interaction with the environment, mostly directed children’s play, mediated
 90   children’s care, and contributed to a shared – although commodified – regime of care while adults kept
 91   socializing. We rarely observed such directed play in Nou Barris.

 92   In Poble Nou, the lack of a routine, a sense of community or social network and the disaffection of
 93   adults in the socio-nature precipitate an individual/family-based management of care and the co-
 94   production of these spaces of play as a foreign, exceptional space, “used” as a material amenity in
 95   certain occasions but not “lived” as a community space in a way that enables practices associated with
 96   personal, social and environmental benefits to arise.

 97   Interpretation and discussion
 98   Our research in Barcelona reveals that different conditions of access, utilisation, and material design
 99   of the two parks in terms of green biomass and unstructured play equipment proved not to be a
100   sufficient condition for explaining the production of children’s relational wellbeing, free play and
101   observed contact with nature. In the seemingly more un-natural and structured socio-nature of the

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102   working-class Nou Barris park, we observed a greater relational wellbeing. This was reflected through
103   an assemblage of designs and interactions promoting children’s free play, self-exploration, self-
104   management of risks, diverse social interactions, freedom of movement and environmental
105   exploration, knowledge and control, thus creating a positive green-playful-child-friendly park/amenity
106   towards relational wellbeing. In contrast, in the creative, unstructured and greener socio-nature of the
107   gentrifying Poble Nou park, we found high rates of supervised play, few movements across space, a
108   strict arrangement of the types of play, and scarce interactions with the social and material
109   environment at most times of the day and week – conditions that point toward a lower level of
110   relational wellbeing built over time. Thus, we argue that the most important aspect in determining the
111   production of relational wellbeing is the inseparably intersected socio-material structure of the
112   neighbourhood and residents’ uses of the socio-nature (i.e. local socio-material conditions, Figure 7).
113   In turn, the differentiated planning processes, visions and urban development goals for each park
114   determine how and for what these green-playful-child-friendly places are being produced and affect
115   the socio-material conditions of the neighbourhood – and eventually use of space and relational
116   wellbeing (Figure 7). While we have developed such findings for Barcelona, our analysis of the relation
117   between urban greening, implementation of play and child-friendly agendas could readily be applied
118   to analogous contexts in other cities such as Vienna, Amsterdam, Portland, or Austin, which have
119   ostensibly exhibited similar agendas and neighbourhood greening.

120   In Nou Barris, our archival analysis shows that urban transformations entailed a municipal effort to
121   support the existing social and material capital while improving the community’s access to equipment,
122   social housing and public spaces. The production of a green-playful-child-friendly space was the
123   catalyst for a holistic, resident-centered and co-driven process of regeneration that was able to address
124   long standing demands stemming from existing neighbourhood associations and diverse social groups.
125   Up to today, the socio-material conditions of Nou Barris’ residents (e.g. small apartments and no
126   second residences; migrants with no direct family in the city; absence of professional domestic help)
127   do influence residents’ management of time (e.g. full time-working parents and few children’s extra-
128   curricular activities) and aspirations.

129   Here, the long-standing social capital of Nou Barris, which hasn’t been eroded by radical
130   neighbourhood socio-material changes, is connected to what we observed in terms of risk perception,
131   sense of community, and shared responsibility towards children. These conditions in turn co-produce
132   the Parc Central de Nou Barris as a daily community park that resonates with the community’s pride,
133   identity and life that permeated the original planning process. While the intensive use of the park
134   allows for residents’ social reproduction, it simultaneously promotes children’s sense of safety,
135   control, familiarity, knowledge and attachment to the material environment and, in turn, their contact
136   with “nature”, freedom of movement, improvisation, fluidity of interactions, and a supportive
137   surrounding social network – all reflecting strong relational wellbeing. This history has deep
138   ramifications for how other cities engaging in similar agendas should include neighbourhood history
139   and actors into a co-design process.

140   In contrast, in Poble Nou, our archival analysis shows an urban transformation aimed at attracting
141   private investment through public spending in fixed capital and infrastructure in the area and securing
142   private capital accumulation and growth through the destruction of old economic, material and social
143   structures (Harvey 1978). In turn, this process opened up a growing role for private capital in the design
144   of public spaces and eroded the original social and material structure of the neighbourhood. In many
145   aspects, unlike in Nou Barris, the Parc Central de Poble Nou was produced as a commodity for the
146   reproduction of power and capital in the restoration and new value creation of the geography of Poble
147   Nou and the 22@ district. A spectacular object-image – where capital itself becomes image (Katz 2008)

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148   – that relies on commodified experiences and representations of the “desired” child and nature- was
149   imposed on the space designed by Jean Nouvel producing a commodified space that reifies the
150   formalisation of the relational categories of children, nature and play – one at odds with the claimed
151   universal benefits of a green, playful and child-friendly city.

152   In the Parc Central de Poble Nou an eroded social and material capital strongly imprints socio-material
153   relations in the socio-nature. Children’s use of space is ordered and structured, while free interactions
154   with the “natural” environment are scarce. Structures of shared care and a sense of familiarity and
155   safety are absent. A rather individual or family-based organization of care and play prevails, further
156   confining the park to an exception in children’s routines. This sense of shared individuality and lack of
157   socio-material relations outside the designed play amenities and/or the family unit are in line, although
158   at a different scale, with the 22@ insular urban design of high-end constructions with little connectivity
159   between them. The elimination of Poble Nou’s urban layout and industrial building stock together with
160   the role of the park as an exception in children’s routines seems to further obstruct the creation of
161   social networks and prevent the attainment of the necessary attachment and knowledge of the socio-
162   nature to provide a sense of community and control over the environment – and thus relational
163   wellbeing. The hectic and interrupted use of Poble Nou’s socio-nature is in turn linked to these new
164   middle-class families’ socio-material structural circumstances (e.g. perhaps a second residence where
165   children can interact with nature; domestic-help at home and more time to spend with their offspring
166   in the park), routines, structures, times, habits (e.g. plenty of other activities are scheduled in their
167   day, in addition to occasionally playing in the park), aspirations (e.g. desire to excel) and perceptions
168   of high, external risks.

169   More specifically, in terms of relational wellbeing, our analysis reveals that planning processes, visions
170   and urban neighbourhood development goals also moderate the effect of green-playful-child-friendly
171   amenities by (re)-directing the socio-material structure of the neighbourhood in a way that either
172   promotes or undermines socio-natures – that is how these spaces are used and perceived – and,
173   eventually, relational wellbeing (Figure 7). These findings thus ask us to rethink how we interpret and
174   analyse children’s relational wellbeing and urban environmental equity, with a much greater emphasis
175   on procedural and cultural processes that lie below the surface of the built and natural environment
176   and what nature/natural spaces are created and available there.




177


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178
179   Figure 7 Children’s urban socio natures and the pathways for relational wellbeing

180   Figure 7 provides a model for understanding why the widespread construction of green and playful
181   spaces in cities (and the density of “green” or “nature” features in particular) is not as important for
182   children’s wellbeing as neighbourhoods’ socio-material structures and residents’ social construction of
183   the space. In turn, both are inextricability linked to the political and planning processes driving green
184   and playful urban agendas. Relational wellbeing is co-produced by specific interactions between
185   humans and the material environment at place in these socio-natures that are themselves embedded
186   within socio-material structures as both a product and an enabler/constraint of specific actions,
187   routines and uses constitutive of relational wellbeing. The political planning processes driving green
188   and playful urban agendas and especially the balance of power between equity and growth interests,
189   the definition of the beneficiaries, and the recognition of (or lack of) the social and material heritage
190   of the neighbourhood also all have a strong impact on the neighbourhood local conditions, and
191   eventually relational wellbeing.

192   Concluding remarks
193   Our study asked how the political and social production of green-playful-child-friendly amenities
194   shapes relational wellbeing. This paper contributes to the vast urban environmental equity and urban
195   political ecology literatures (Agyeman, Bullard, and Evans 2002; Agyeman and Evans 2004; Campbell
196   1996; Gould and Lewis 2017; Mohai, Pellow, and Roberts 2009; Pellow 2000; Wolch, Byrne, and Newell
197   2014; Heynen 2006) as well as wellbeing research (Smith and Reid 2017) through a novel examination
198   of the differential relationship between the creation of new green-playful-child-friendly socio-natures
199   and the types of relational activities that result in two contrasting spaces.

200   It directs our focus toward the ways in which social hierarchies are differentially reproduced through
201   the socio-material interactions generated in these spaces and how those, in turn, produce what we
202   call ‘relational wellbeing’ for children. It specifically contributes new theory on the role of politics,
203   power and capital in shaping how urban socio-natures promote or constrain relations of wellbeing. In
204   other words, this study moves us beyond traditional analysis of green or/and play space “access” and
205   its impacts on health/wellbeing outcomes. It also reveals how historic environmental inequities might
206   be remediated through green spaces that produce socio-natures and relational wellbeing in ways that
207   address broader neighbourhood needs and characteristics as well as traditional local social relations
208   and ties.

209   From a methodological standpoint, this paper also offers a novel methodology to analyse relational
210   wellbeing. Our developed methodology allows researchers to systematically observe relations in space
211   in such a way that they can be related to the underlying socio-material context and connected with
212   overall wellbeing. While we have specifically focused on indicators of relational wellbeing within the
213   context of children’s play activities, this methodology can be applied to broader socio-natures and to
214   other international cases of neighbourhood redevelopment and implementation of child-friendly
215   green space and play agendas.

216   In sum, we call here for researchers to examine the underlying processes that shape children’s socio-
217   natures in order to understand relational wellbeing, as part of overall wellbeing. In Nou Barris, the park
218   was planned to integrate with the existing urban fabric with few designed elements for children to
219   interact with nature. Yet, such interactions were common because of existing social and material
220   contexts apart from the planned and designed elements that made them possible. In Poble Nou, where
221   interaction with a “purer” vision of nature was planned and designed with little integration to the

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222   existing surrounding urbanism, such interactions were rare. Rather, the social and material context
223   militated a confined and rule-bound playscape. Even when access to nature was, in theory, greater and
224   environmental inequities “better” addressed on paper, the differentiated benefits of greenness were
225   determined almost entirely by the processes that shaped children’s socio-natures.

226   References
227   Agyeman, Julian, Robert D Bullard, and Bob Evans. 2002. “Exploring the Nexus : Bringing Together Sustainability ,
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445

446   Footnotes:
      i
           Plan Municipal De Infancia y Adolescencia 2005-2010; Plan Municipal De Infancia y Adolescencia 2013-2016, Foco Infancia y Ciudadanía 2017-2020
      ii
        https://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/ecologiaurbana/ca/que-fem-i-per-que/espai-public-de-qualitat/barcelona-dona-molt-de-joc establishes the goal of
      creating a playful Barcelona by 2030
      iii
            http://ajuntament.barcelona.cat/ecologiaurbana/ca/que-fem-i-per-que/espai-public-de-qualitat/superilles
      iv
       e.g. informal/unplanned vs. formal/planned; verbal vs. non-verbal, joyful vs. conflictive, inclusive vs. exclusive, intragenerational vs. intergenerational,
      monitored/surveyed vs. non-monitored, etc
      v
        Each phase of analysis involved line-by-line thematic note coding; thick descriptions of interactions; and elaboration of hypotheses about the relation
      between the most salient and repeated codes.
      vi Proyecto de Ordenación del Parque de Pueblo Nuevo, 2000. Municipal archive of Sant Martí
      vii
             Plan Especial de Ordenación del ámbito del antiguo Instituto Mental, Fórum Nord de la Tecnología, 1992. Municipal archive of Poble Nou
      viii
             Nou Barris, Centre de Estudis I Documentació de Nou Barris, Municipal Archive Nou Barris.
      ix
        Plan Especial d’Ordenació de l’ambit de l’Antic Instituto Mental of 1992, Municipal Archive Nou Barris.
      x Nou Barris, Centre de Estudis I Documentació de Nou Barris
      xi Plan Especial d’Ordenació de l’ambit de l’Antic Instituto Mental” of 1992, Municipal Archive Nou Barris


                                                                                                                                                                      27
xii
       Municipal centre that offers night-time accommodation, hygiene, dinner, breakfast, rest and social-health care.
xiii
       Proyecto de Ordenación del Parque de Pueblo Nuevo 2000, Municipal Archive of Sant Martí
xiv
       City of Barcelona Statistics Department
xv
       City of Barcelona Statistics Department
xvi
       Proyecto de Ordenación del Parque de Pueblo Nuevo 2000, Municipal Archive of Sant Martí




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