Today, more than 4 billion of the world’s population live in urban areas and it is projected that by 2050, that number will reach close to 7 billion (Ritchie and Roser 2019). This trend puts pressure on city planners as they envision how to design cities that are vibrant, sustainable, and inclusive. Well-designed urban outdoor spaces such as open streets, squares, parks, beaches and waterways invite the residents to partake in urban life and, as such, are at the heart of a democratic, open and inclusive vision of a modern city. In this project, I investigated how public spaces designed in Barcelona, in the aftermath of the transformation from a dictatorship to democracy in Spain, and in Berlin, after the reunification of East and West Germany function today. I chose these two cities because they provide a unique historic and geographical context for urban planning due to their fascinating transformations in the 20^th century. Coming out of decades of neglect and oppression under Francisco Franco’s dictatorship, Barcelona developed what became known as the “Barcelona model” for urban development, where the city planners recognized that “public spaces (pavements, streets, squares, parks, beaches and waterways) should be at the heart of a democratic vision of the contemporary city” (Burdett 2021). Berlin was a city divided between two states and two different political and economic systems, and when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the city planners were tasked with reuniting the two halves of Berlin and developing the inner city space where the wall once stood. Together, these two cities present a fascinating context in which to examine the success of urban planning when it comes to design of public spaces.

The goal of this project is to do a comparative analysis of the two cities’ approaches to urban planning by focusing on two specific public spaces, the Olympic Village in Barcelona and Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. More specifically, the project aims to highlight the importance of incorporating intentional and well-designed public outdoor spaces (such as Parc del Port Olímpic and Park Tilla-Durieux in Barcelona and Berlin, respectively) to increase social inclusivity and socio-economic activity. To do so, I first discuss the broader geo-historical context of each location in order to demonstrate the immensity of transformation that occurred following the redesign. Then, using maps, field notes, and my own photo-documentation during field work, I analyze the public use of these shared outdoor spaces.