Planning for Neighborhood Mix in Barcelona, Istanbul, and Mexico City

By Cinthia De La Rosa, Crystal Eksi, Shreya Ghoshal, Taylor Nelson, J.R. Reed, Matthew Seybert

Housing cannot be delivered in a vacuum: the surrounding built environment must be planned thoughtfully to create vibrant neighborhoods for residents to live, work, and play. Neighborhoods should embody social cohesion, meaning they are diverse and safe, guarantee equitable access to basic necessities like food, education, and transportation, and promote socioeconomic advancement. Social infrastructure such as libraries, health centers, daycares, public restrooms, open spaces, and “third places” where people gather outside their homes are essential as neighborhoods grow.

Creating and sustaining socially cohesive neighborhoods while adding housing is critical to ensuring neighborhoods’ long-term viability, especially in densely populated urban areas. To do this effectively, we must consider how neighborhoods are developed to meet residents’ needs.

Examples from global cities demonstrate how New York City can advance effective planning, policy, and design practices to expand the city’s social infrastructure. This case study examines three cities — Barcelona, Istanbul, and Mexico City — and how they’ve integrated social infrastructure into their neighborhoods. We explore social cohesion through the lens of six guiding principles: land use diversity; vibrant, walkable areas; inclusive public realm and amenities; housing variety; thoughtful co-location of spaces, and social and economic integration. Each principle reﬂects a critical component of achieving social cohesion at the scale and diversity of New York City. Without them, neighborhoods cannot effectively build community, accommodate growth without displacing existing residents, or prioritize public-facing uses and public spaces.

Filling the Streets with Life in Barcelona

Barcelona and New York City share similar histories of municipal-led urban revitalization, starting in the 1970s, and are now experiencing rapid gentriﬁcation and displacement across neighborhoods. Both cities feature historic urban grids that were once vibrant mixed-use corridors for pedestrians, but, over time, prioritized cars. Since the 2010s, Barcelona has shifted its focus back to creating more, higher-quality public spaces across the city.

Barcelona’s ﬁrst phase of large-scale public space redevelopment was implemented in the 1970s by its municipal government’s Urban Projects team, known as the “Golden Pencils.” They were led by the Chief Architect under the purview of the Barcelona City Council.(1) This group worked closely with neighborhood organizations to ensure that public participation was incorporated into the development process. The Superblock is a prime example of effective public participation. The program, envisioned by urban planner Salvador Rueda, is known for reconﬁguring Barcelona’s street grid to provide more opportunities for people, not cars.

The Superblock’s appeal and tie to social cohesion are captured in its motto, “Omplim de vida els carrers,” which translates from Catalan as “Lets ﬁll the streets with life.”(2) This program is unique in that it does not rely on public-private partnership models that can result in fraught notions of ownership and access. Through this process, recaptured public space, put into productive use by the community, is delivered exclusively as public projects.

The Superblock is a reconﬁguration of the street grid to “recover space for the community, improve biodiversity, move towards sustainable mobility, and encourage social cohesion.”(3) The ﬁrst generation encompassed nine blocks and reclaimed four intersections, wherein vehicular trafﬁc was pushed to the periphery.

Initial community opposition almost cancelled the program. While much of the opposition was politically motivated around Barcelona’s ﬁrst female mayor, Ada Colau Ballano, and not speciﬁcally a criticism of the Superblocks, the Urban Projects team still used this as a learning opportunity. When the Sant Antoni neighborhood was identiﬁed in 2017 for the second implementation, the Urban Projects team introduced a robust participatory process that solicited multiple rounds of stakeholder feedback, in contrast to the first Superblock project in Poblenou which was a top-down approach. This process also included a community education component to articulate the importance of the investment and the constraints around budget and infrastructure.(4)

Sant Antoni regained 24,000 square meters (approximately six acres) for community use, and the process itself was inclusive by design.(5) The participatory process began on day one. The Urban Projects team consulted a variety of community stakeholders, including business owners, schools, and cultural organizations. The team also set up a ﬁeld ofﬁce during the planning, design, and implementation phases, which allowed Sant Antoni architects to be proximate and available to residents. This collaborative effort enabled residents to feel heard while addressing their varied community needs. The result was a mix of amenities grounded in community priorities, with the most successful elements being simple additions like picnic tables that allowed neighbors to share a meal or conversation.(6)

The evolution in design thinking and implementation was another key learning from Barcelona’s process. The Poblenou pilot program was composed almost entirely of tactical interventions, including painted sidewalks and intersections, street furniture and containerized planters, which created spaces that were temporary and reversible, but costly to maintain. Responding to post-implementation feedback, the spaces designed in Sant Antoni were a mix of structural changes, like dedicated planting beds, with larger investments based on public participation and buy-in. Designed by Leku Studio, Sant Antoni continued to utilize tactical components like furniture elements, a graphic style guide, and a deployment methodology to spatialize the desires of the community. The result, as described by the designers Leku Studio:

Where previously there was an urban highway, now there is a healthy street full of life and green, where there was a trafﬁc intersection now there is a livable plaza. Car noise has been replaced by children playing, cheerful conversations between neighbors or elderly people’s chess games… the transformation continues together with this ﬂexible landscape capable of integrating new changes derived from urban testing and social innovation.(7)

The Urban Projects team was proactive in considerations around potential gentrification, rising property values, and residential displacement. The architects and planners studied impacts to street-level residential and commercial property values prior to implementation.(8) The most signiﬁcant shift was to ground floor retail, where property values rose by as much as 30%. This surge was driven by increased pedestrian trafﬁc, which in turn attracted tourism-oriented businesses, such as restaurants and souvenir shops, displacing long-standing establishments that had served the community for years. To mitigate this issue, the City Council introduced land use controls to discourage tourism-related gentriﬁcation and displacement.(9)

Superblocks are redeﬁning neighborhoods by spatializing residents’ needs, working with communities rather than for them. As New York City confronts its housing emergency, it can draw key lessons from Barcelona’s participatory approach. If we can align citywide strategies with localized needs, derived from an inclusive participatory planning process, we can create new environments focused on people – demonstrating to communities that change can include them as decision-makers.

Designing a Playable City in Istanbul

First playhouse Kadıköy, Istanbul October 2022

Istanbul and New York City have similar histories as economic and cultural centers of urban growth. From the 1950s onward, both cities were impacted by geopolitical shifts, diverse population growth, rapid urban development, and reduced open space. These forces were driven by a range of factors – including national housing needs, roadway expansion, and the emergence of economic centers responding to rising global trade demand. These shifts led to deteriorating infrastructure and mass-produced housing that did not consider residents’ needs for integrated, mixed-use environments.

In the last two decades, tensions between Istanbul’s local and Turkey’s national governments have intensified, mirroring similar dynamics in New York City. Amid a decrease in national funding and support, local government agencies have assumed greater responsibility in planning and managing the city’s growth. Ekrem Imamoğlu, former Istanbul mayor from 2019-2025, advocated for more proactive planning processes that integrated design strategies and community participation, with an explicit focus on student and family needs.(10) In 2020, Istanbul’s government supported the creation of the Istanbul Planning Agency (IPA), consolidating academic and theory-based planning approaches with participatory planning processes that prioritized resident engagement.

One result was the Istanbul Oyun Master Planı, or the Play Master Plan, a collaborative effort part of the broader Play Istanbul initiative. Led by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM), the plan was prepared by its Parks, Garden, and Green Areas departments. It was coordinated through the IMM’s Play Coordination Ofﬁce and its newly appointed Play and Recreation Chief, whose primary role was to conceptualize and develop programs to promote early childhood development through play. The plan frames Istanbul as a playable city, deﬁning play as both a right and a necessity for children’s physical, mental, and social development. It positions play as a core element of sustainable, equitable urban planning, with a clear vision through 2030 to improve access, quality, and equity in play spaces across Istanbul. The plan’s holistic approach aims to connect socioeconomic factors to housing by integrating play and recreation systematically into public space, urban design, green and open-space planning, and social infrastructure.(11)

Selva Gürdoğan, principal of local design studio Superpool, led the development of one of the plan’s initiatives: Hayalgücü Oyun Parkları (HOP, or Imagination Playgrounds), a pop-up adventure playgrounds program that transforms public spaces into temporary playscapes with cost-effective, versatile material.(12)

Superpool developed this program for Istanbul with the support of the Van Leer Foundation under the Urban95 Initiative and adapted Pop-up Adventure Play (a U.S.- and U.K.-based NGO)’s model to Istanbul and the Turkish context. Through a four-year long effort, the program was piloted, scaled, and a training program created where over 50 playworkers were trained for implementation.”(13) The result was a hyper-localized effort in underprivileged areas to facilitate spatial transformation, increase access to child-led play, and transform how common spaces can serve and support communities. Today the program continues to operate through a neighborhood rotation program, appearing across Istanbul’s ‘play-houses’, neighborhood parks, streets, and commons.(14)

The Play Master Plan and HOP Pop-up Adventure Playgrounds reconsider who is responsible for integrating playspaces into the city’s ecosystem and how these spaces can evolve over time. They also illustrate how cities like New York City can collaborate with neighborhoods and cross-sector partners to bolster its social infrastructure through coordinated creative, often low-cost measures. In doing so, they can address community needs and provide equitable access to vital resources that improve resident wellbeing and foster social cohesion.

Meeting Community Needs with a Utopian Vision in Mexico City

Aerial view of Barco Utopia in the borough of Iztapalapa in Mexico City. Utopias place a strong emphasis on bright colors to contrast with the grey palette that dominates much of the infrastructure throughout the rest of Iztapalapa.

Mexico City and New York City are both home to dense, walkable, multilingual neighborhoods and vibrant public spaces shaped by active street life. They also face similar challenges: rising housing costs, displacement pressures, inequitable development, and growing social fragmentation. In recent decades, municipal government priorities in Mexico City have shifted away from developing public spaces and social infrastructure. Investments have instead increasingly concentrated in more central, wealthier areas – exacerbating housing insecurity,deepening spatial inequities, and increasing income inequality across the city.(15)

In response, Mexico City has turned to place-based initiatives that treat the public realm as essential infrastructure, critical to stabilizing communities and countering displacement. A ﬂagship example is the PILARES (Puntos de Innovación, Libertad, Arte, Educación y Saberes) centers, which translates to Points of Innovation, Freedom, Art, Education and Knowledge.

These government-led, neighborhood-embedded public facilities are intentionally located in low-income areas historically underserved by both housing investment and community resources.(16) Designed as open, ﬂexible, and multifunctional spaces, PILARES centers provide free education, arts, and community programming while also offering safe, digniﬁed, and sustainable places for community members to gather. As of 2024, 287 community centers have opened across Mexico City’s 16 boroughs.(17)

Building off the PILARES centers’ success providing targeted community beneﬁts, Mexico City’s government recently spearheaded UTOPIAS (Unidades de Transformación y Organización Para la Inclusión y la Armonía Social). UTOPIAS, which translates to Units for Transformation and Organization for Inclusion and Social Harmony, is a larger and more ambitious initiative to more comprehensively address disparities in access to quality public infrastructure. Launched in 2018, under the leadership of then Iztapalapa Borough Head and current Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada, the ﬁrst 16 UTOPIAS were built in Iztapalapa, the city’s most populous borough. Iztapalapa, home to the city’s main landﬁll, has historically suffered from poverty, violence, and limited access to high-quality public space and facilities.

Aerial view of the UTOPIA Teotongo in the borough of Iztapalapa in Mexico City, 2023. UTOPIAs place a strong emphasis on bright colors to contrast with the grey palette that dominates much of the infrastructure throughout the rest of Iztapalapa. Credit: ProtoplasmaKid

UTOPIAS seek to ﬂip Iztapalapa’s existing narrative – combining sports, culture, health, collective care, and low-cost or free government services through highly visible, digniﬁed buildings meant to foster social cohesion.(18) UTOPIAS’ programming empowers residents, particularly women and children, to form stronger cultural identities and new avenues to lead decisionmaking in their communities, both formally and informally. For instance, UTOPIA Cihuacóatl in Iztapalapa has training centers speciﬁcally aimed at helping women build careers in ﬁelds traditionally dominated by men, like plumbing, electrical, and carpentry trades. Most UTOPIAS also have centers connecting domestic violence victims with legal and mental health professionals like attorneys and psychologists.

UTOPIAS’ success, especially in Iztapalapa, has depended on strong political alignment, deep community co-creation, and sustainable, high-quality design.(19) As one example, UTOPIA Estrella in Iztapalapa utilizes recycled materials from the site’s debris, as it sits on a former industrial dumping ground.(20)

From the outset, residents were heavily involved in the UTOPIAS’ planning process. This included participating in workshops led by Mexico City’s Public Works department that shaped location, programming, and operations. This participatory process fostered a strong sense of ownership, stewardship, and territorial identity among residents – especially in areas with indigenous people. Pilar Huidobro, a Mexico City-based architect and UTOPIAS designer, said residents of Iztapalapa have become guardians of these public buildings as a result of the afﬁrmative engagement and thoughtful co-design embedded in the process. Expansion efforts in other boroughs like Cuajimalpa on the western edge of Mexico City have faced resistance when community engagement or political alignment was limited, underscoring the importance of trust and meaningful community participation.

Fully publicly funded to date(21) (at approximately $5 million per site, plus ongoing maintenance according to the Mexico City Mayor’s Ofﬁce), UTOPIAS have already been associated with a reduction in violent crime, better access to government services, a reduction in the gap in access to cultural services, and positive shifts in how residents relate to government and public space.(22) This program offers a compelling model for cities like New York City: one that invests in community-driven, strategically-placed public infrastructure where it’s needed most to reduce neighborhood-level inequities and broader spatial inequality throughout the city.

Students work on computers in an airplane adaptively reused into a library in the Utopia Teotongo in the borough of Iztapalapa in Mexico City. credit: Wotancito

PILARES centers and UTOPIAS illustrate Mexico City’s commitment to boosting social cohesion through innovative, thoughtful neighborhood-serving spaces. They also demonstrate the importance of participatory design processes that elevate authentic neighborhood voices instead of legitimizing predetermined outcomes(23) – an approach that New York City can more deliberately integrate into its neighborhood planning efforts.

Big Swings for New York City

Planning for Social Cohesion

As each of these case studies highlights, cities that delivered housing without planning for

the neighborhoods around them did not meet residents’ and communities’ needs. Each of the precedent programs represents a community-driven initiative that could be implemented in New York City. By implementing any one of these types of programs, neighborhoods could preserve their sense of identity and promote social cohesion amid an inﬂux of new housing. Unfortunately, New York City currently lacks the systems, structure, and coordination to effectively deliver these types of bold social infrastructure projects.

To address this critical gap in the current system, New York City could create the Social Development Corporation (SDC). The SDC, whose mission would be to foster social cohesion by delivering public spaces that reflect community needs, would operate as a multi-functional agency leading an array of community-centered and -curated projects. This organization would offset city agencies’ responsibility to deliver public realm and social infrastructure around housing, enabling them to focus on their core missions, service delivery, and programming.

What does the SDC do?

Streamline community engagement and participatory planning and design processes. Many city agencies are under-resourced and not able to invest in true participatory design.
Create training, education, and technical assistance teams to support community organizations and CBs on comprehensive planning.
Identify issues and barriers in current systems to allow City agencies to design, build capital projects faster.
Collaborate on public-private partnerships to deliver more campus-style projects with multiple social infrastructure elements co-located with housing.
Consolidate design and construction expertise from existing Capital agencies.
Create a land trust to make it easier to activate City property for social infrastructure projects.

The SDC would work directly with community boards to facilitate the planning, design, and construction of social infrastructure projects. It would be responsible for delivering publicly-accessible spaces, including Superblocks, libraries, health centers, and arts and culture venues.

Community engagement, training, and education would be one of the integral roles of the SDC. The organization which would be visibly accountable to residents and stakeholders — fostering vibrant, resilient, and socially cohesive communities across New York City that support neighborhood viability, sustainability, and inclusive growth.

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