An early subject of enquiry is the influx of increasing migrants living in Barcelona, across the Balearic sea coast and in the southern Spain/ Gibraltar demographics.
The multiplying population exerts a huge pressure onto existing services and urban infrastructures. This occurrence is not new to Barcelona as its urban history provides for remarkable thresholds of growth and decline.
In 1818 the population of Barcelona was 83,000 inhabitants
In 1850 it had 187,000 inhabitants, without increasing its urban footprint.
The walls surrounding the medieval city were in place for protection against attack. Barcelona lived in a paranoia of attack remaining within the confinds of the early established city limits. Quite remarkably, beyond the city walls were open, empty feilds with little to no inhabitants.
The city became rife with disease and poor living conditions as the only available space was made vertically.
It was only in 1842 that the council of Barcelona staged a competition with the objective to give reason/ propose the demolition of the walls.
A diagrammatic representation of population growth projected between 2005 and 2050 across the globe.
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