Transition towards a Sustainable Mobility in a Suburbanising Urban Area: The Case of Barcelona

This article aims to address the apparent contradiction between the urban demographic and migratory trends and the transition towards a more sustainable mobility that local and metropolitan governments seek. To that end, it uses the case of Barcelona, and its metropolitan area during the first decades of the 21st century, characterized by suburbanisation and gentrification. Employing demographic, mobility and transport, and air quality statistics, we intend to analyse: (a) the spatial demographic trends in the metropolitan area of Barcelona (AMB), particularly regarding the core and periphery population growth or decline; (b) trends in daily mobility and how the public and private transport mix has changed; and (c) pollution data changes confirming the success or failure of the private vehicle reduction policy. Findings confirm our initial hypothesis: the slow but steady transition towards sustainable forms of mobility in the core city and the dense contiguous municipalities is counterbalanced by what occurs in the peripheral suburbs. There, the use of private vehicles is still preeminent and growing. Nevertheless, the air quality has improved in the most central municipalities of the AMB (for which data are available), even if not all parameters have seen a similar pollution reduction.