Nadia Fava

Barcelona food retailing and public markets, 1876–1936

This article is a contribution to comparative research between specific urban markets trajectories in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and it aims to juxtapose southern European food market experiences, particularly the Barcelona case, with west European ones. Like other big cities in southern and central Europe, Barcelona consolidated a sturdy polycentric system of district markets between 1876 and 1936, just when such markets were beginning to decline in ‘first comers’ cities of Britain and France. In the inter-war period, the market halls of southern European cities played a prominent role in the everyday food trade and as functional and socializing centres in neighbourhoods. They were poles of dense residential and kinship relations for stall vendors, especially women vendors, and foci of a large part of the food retailing business in many neighbourhoods. Barcelonas particular historical circumstances made the public covered market system a fundamental element of neighbourhood commerce and a long-term urban asset.

Public versus private : Barcelona's market system, 1868-1975

The more economically advanced countries of post‐World War II Europe experienced a progressive erosion of the public market system as a result of the adoption of more modern commercial formulas. In Spain, however, the public market system not only continued but expanded significantly. Barcelona was an outstanding example of this. The city had built an important public system of markets by the end of the nineteenth century. Later on, in the Francoist era, after a second construction wave of markets, there were even plans to use the markets as an urban planning tool. This essay examines the process in which the city had to choose between public and private initiatives and makes an assessment of the impact of the public market system on the city.

From Barcelona: The Pearl of the Mediterranean to Bye Bye Barcelona

Nowadays large cities, by modifying their internal functioning and capacity for external projection, are becoming powerful nodes of tourist attraction. Barcelona is undergoing just such a process both intensively and paradigmatically as it has experienced continued growth in tourism supply and demand over the past 20 years. Since the mid-nineties, Barcelona has become a renowned international destination and indisputable reference point for urban tourism which, in turn, has generated a significant transformation of its economy, society and urban development; none of which are exempt from criticism or contradictions. In a venture to create a tourist model for the city, the Barcelona City Council introduced the City of Barcelona Strategic Tourism Plan in 2008. At the heart of this strategic plan was an attempt at dialogue between the administration itself and all the other players involved, including the city’s residents, about how tourism development could be regulated, the measures required and what the image of the city to be presented internationally should be.

Consumers’ Preferences for Local Fish Products in Catalonia, Calabria and Sicily

Research on public markets in small provincial towns is scarce, particularly on the role they play in maintaining a relationship with the local culture, environment and production. This paper examines consumers’ habits and preferences for food shopping in three European regions with respect to the purchase of fish products. The goal is to investigate consumers’ preferences for local fish to highlight the motivations that lead to different choices. A multiple correspondence analysis explores the motivations behind purchasing preferences, showing the complex process that drives individual consumer choices. Based on 504 interviews conducted in cities and areas adjacent to the cities of Girona, Reggio Calabria, and Lipari, we found no evidence of converging habits and homogenization on preferences. It supports the perspective in which the interplay between local culture and consumption of local products is strictly associated.

Meat consumption and nutrition transition in Barcelona, 1709–1935

Meat consumption increase since the nineteenth century is a good indicator of the key stage of the so-called nutrition transition. This article is based on primary sources, predominantly municipal slaughterhouse bookkeeping data, and examines the changing patterns of supply, distribution and consumption of different types of meat, in order to avoid the risk of an over-simplified historical view. Long-term analysis shows that between 1740 and 1840, a period of economic and demographic growth, meat consumption levels dropped dramatically. After that time, the liberalization of agriculture and the new rail network boosted the supply of meat. Other sources and spatial analysis help us examine the ways that the city was supplied with meat, the meat retail distribution within it and the changing diet of the different urban social strata.

Traditional retailing versus modern retailing in a port city: Barcelona, 1859–1936

ABSTRACT Spain trailed behind more advanced European countries when it came to the emergence of modern retailing and its subsequent effect on urban life and consumer behaviour. In Barcelona, public food market halls and private department stores both appeared in the second half of the nineteenth century, but they had differing location strategies based on their different promoters and consumers. In 1859, Ildefons Cerdà’s Barcelona Expansion Project was approved and the new modern city began to expand into the surrounding territory. This article assesses to what extent the city spreading out across the plains around Barcelona strengthened, rather than compromised, the role of the city’s original nucleus as a commercial centre. The 1850s through to the mid-1930s was a period during which traditional urban retailers and the newcomers – passages and department stores – were both located mostly in the centre of the city; they consolidated their coexistence and reinforced the role of the old part of Barcelona as the city’s commercial heart. However, the construction of a sizable system of public markets in the same period provides some insight into the fundamental aim of Cerdà’s project: a more even distribution of public and private services throughout the city.