Picture a normal weekday afternoon. A room (now a virtual room) in your neighbourhood’s District headquarters. A number of people - between 50 and 150 - arrive. The Councillor, the Vice-President and the municipal technical experts will also be there. You are at a Neighbourhood Council meeting, and its goal is to deal with matters together in order to improve residents’ lives.
“I have seen many proposals made at Neighbourhood Councils that have then been applied to citizens’ daily lives. Examples include the creation of school walking routes in Sants; the transformation of streets with inverted priorities, or the fight against bollards”, explains Joan Manuel Parisi, a leading proponent of citizen participation in the Sants-Badal district.
Joan Manuel is 64 years old, has lived in Sants his whole life and has been involved in the world of community associations since he was 16 years old. He has been going to Neighbourhood Council meetings since 2007, when he remembers the first one being held. “I go out of personal commitment to the governance of the city and, in this case, of the neighbourhood,” he explains.
Ariadna Ros Mas, neighbourhood coordinator for the Sants-Montjuïc district’s central area, highlights this link between the matters dealt with at council meetings and residents’ daily lives: “The closure of the Sants-Badal Primary Care Centre, the opening of the La Marina Citizen Help and Information Office (OAC) in August, or the announcement of the withdrawal of bus line 91 from the neighbourhood of La Bordeta are some of the issues that residents were very unhappy about, and they have been discussed at length at council meetings. The calls to keep bus line 91 were heard, and the bus line did not disappear”, notes the coordinator.
Challenges and proposals for improvement
Just like everyone else, the Covid-19 crisis has forced the Councils to move to the online world: meetings are now held online on Decidim.Barcelona, a platform that allows you to make comments or questions or attend council meetings online.
Neighbourhood Councils are composed mainly of individuals acting in their own name. Ariadna acknowledges that one of the challenges is attracting interest from local organisations: “Residents’ associations get involved, but organisations relating to social or cultural movements or to annual festivals only turn up every now and then.” This is probably because the matters dealt with at these meetings tend to focus on public space, urban planning and infrastructure.
Ros believes that one way to increase involvement in councils would be to make the call more open and not always include “building” matters on the agenda, but people hardly ever care about anything other than building matters. And it’s hard to change the dynamics,” she admits.
“I think the matters discussed are fine,” says Parisi, who thinks there are other aspects that need to be improved. “Sometimes, people’s interventions are about systematic opposition. People are stuck in a culture of criticism,” he says with a certain degree of sadness.
Incorporation of a gender perspective
Ariadna brings to the table gender equality at neighbourhood council meetings: “There is a much greater male presence. Vice-presidents are mostly male”, she says, although this is already changing, as in the case of the Poble-Sec district.
On Wednesday, 18 November, there was a change of vice-president, with Susana Crespo Abad taking the baton. This 54-year-old local resident manages the Poble-Sec Entity Coordination Body and is heavily involved in youth programmes in the neighbourhood. She has been involved in community associations since she was 12, when she started out as a girl scout. “I’ve always liked the community association movement.”
Susana is very excited about her new position. “Many people come to Council meetings, mostly to complain about things that affect them personally, and sometimes even to take part in discussions. I like to see people caring about the common good.”