The origin of Barcelona’s food system can be determined at the time when open-air markets were moved to covered spaces. Since then, market halls have adapted to many different scenarios: they have been the built form of public support for food sanitary control, a guarantee of quality and variety of edibles or a tool for the regeneration of urban fabrics. While in the second half of the twentieth-century comparable market systems in other European cities began to decline, half of the thirty-eight active markets at the end of the 2010s were built out of time in the city as a result of a public policy that accompanied urban expansion through the consolidation of small neighborhood centers. With the development of the so-called “Barcelona model” of regeneration of public space in the 1990s, markets became key pieces for urban transformation through food supply systems, a strategy still in force today.

This work approaches the phenomenon of the outdoor terraces of bars and restaurants, analysing the role of these privately owned collective elements whose layout has shaped the urban landscape at the pavement level for more than a century, and whose presence has become essential in the streets of many cities after a pandemic. The research highlights the interest of terraces as dynamic elements of urbanity: private domains in the public space where people eat collectively; they are apparently simple units that synthesise complex conflicts between individual behaviours and property boundary conditions. The investigation shows the increasing expansion that outdoor terraces have experienced since 2020, using the cities of Barcelona and Milan as case studies. A series of GIS maps show the image of both cities before and after the pandemic, allowing us to evaluate the amount of public space allocated to terraces, measure their increase in number and surface, establish the proportions of occupation of the street and find the patterns of concentration in the public space. Finally, the article offers some policy and planning recommendations based on the research findings.

The research analyzes the image of Barcelona and compares differences in quantity, variety and proximity of some essential services in diverse urban fragments. Focusing on food and health premises as critical universal services, series of maps provide overviews on the intensity of use to which each service is subjected, latent logics of their physical proximity and performance in regular urban fabrics due to the combination of activities and population distribution. The research uses a methodological approach and parameterization of the minimum daily urban mixture to highlight the uniqueness of the case of Barcelona, distinguished by the compactness of the urban fabric and the contiguity of activities, and to describe an extensive characterization of areas that from this perspective can be considered hyper-served or under-served. This investigation aims to contribute to the understanding of the necessity of the urban mixture and to provide clues about the distribution of services and activities.

The concept of mixed-use urban planning is gaining recognition as a crucial element in the development of sustainable and vibrant urban environments. In contrast, many 20th-century cities were designed with segregated land uses and monofunctional zones, following the principles set out in the 1933 Athens Charter. Over time, this approach has been widely criticized, and in the present era, mixed-use environments are praised for fostering social interaction, generating economic synergies, and reducing environmental impacts. This article explores the complex relationship between urban activities, morphology, and planning, with a particular focus on the Barcelona metropolitan area. Utilizing GIS mapping and morphological drawings, this research offers innovative perspectives by analyzing a series of selected urban fragments, highlighting the differences and similarities among various urban fabrics. After a review of the evolution of mixed-use planning regulations and plans since the mid-20th century, a threefold analysis was conducted: examining planning standards and codes, assessing the ground floor activities in promoting urban mixticity, and defining the characteristics of urban patterns’ vitality. Through mapping and indexes, the research offers both qualitative and quantitative evaluations, uncovering new tools to better understand functional mix as a critical element in addressing the challenges of contemporary urbanization.

This article explores empirical and objective approaches to combinations of non-residential activities in contemporary urban settings. The research measures the mix of uses in compact cities through the analysis of an urban fragment of Barcelona with high population density that is strolled around daily by thousands of tourists and intensified by a unique combination of daily services, commercial uses and productive activities. The resulting cartography offers a parametric interpretation at the scale of plots, blocks and streets, and establishes some tools to better understand the spatial relations of urban functional mix and proximity.

This article presents an approach to food procurement systems employing the concepts of closeness and betweenness. The objective is to define tools for measuring proximity related to food supply within dense urban contexts, where procurement is guaranteed but is still an essentiality that affects the quality of life of residents. This is due to the structured network that supports everyday movements, where food providers function as catalysts for the establishment of proximity routes. The research focuses on Barcelona’s metropolitan area, employing a quantitative methodology associated with mapping systems to study the spatial distribution of publicly managed halls and weekly open‐air markets, as well as the proximity service they offer in terms of relative distances and times. The results obtained demonstrate a novel approach to analyzing a territory based on its public food supply, transferable to other geographies. In contrast, a precise diagnosis of the metropolitan fabric studied is provided, highlighting vulnerabilities in the system and establishing a foundation for proposing new urban planning and design actions to address food supply.