In the mid-twentieth century, Nou Barris was a natural area for growth in Barcelona. An area of scattered farmhouses and farming properties that turned into a reception district for new city inhabitants, mainly immigrants from the rest of Spain.

The low cost of the land meant that often substandard housing developments proliferated, while some people built their own homes.

Shortcomings on an urban planning level – in terms of facilities and services – provided fertile ground for the extraordinary growth in residents’ demands. Residents’ associations organised life in the neighbourhoods and voiced popular demands with the local authority. This relationship – at times harmonious, at others conflictive – has been maintained throughout the terms of office of successive democratic councils.