Introducció
Barcelona is a city that is struggling to be at the forefront and be a referent city in terms of being a Smart City. This spirit is being achieved by the struggle of public institutions such as the Generalitat or the City Council in the development of the city through the help of neighborhoods through virtual proposals and private companies such as consultancies or Fira de Barcelona with the empowerment from technology to the city.
In addition, the number of neighborhood associations and non-profit cooperatives is increasing to create a more sustainable city where it is increasingly enjoyable to live.
Only a few centuries ago, almost all of the population was rural; the cities were few and concentrated small populations that rarely reached the 100,000 inhabitants.
Since the nineteenth century, with industrialization, cities began to grow and there were created new ones. However, in 1900 there were only 135 cities in the world with more than 100,000 inhabitants, and the percentage of the urban population only scarcely exceeded 10% of the urban population on the planet.
It was in the twentieth century that urban growth accelerated in such a way that currently the population that lives in urban centers exceeds 50%.
Cities are places where the population and its activities are concentrated. Often, the location of cities conditions the shape and the environmental and cultural characteristics. The study of the evolution of the city is what allows us to reconstruct the past, understand the current structure and plan the future.
Today, cities tend to have boundaries difficult to establish, because buildings and street layout can form extensive urbanized areas.