La Percepció d'optimalitat en el Pla Cerdà. El model p-median en el disseny ortogonal L de l'Eixample de Barcelona

Abstract

Many of the present days modern cities were transformed from their medieval past based on blueprints laid out by visionary city planners. These city planners resorted to methods of calculation prevailing in their day and age. This was probably combined with an uncarry instinct and intuition that identified the talented city planner from the rest. Ildefonso Cerdà was one of such planner and the advent of the city structure of modern Barcelona must be attributed to his plan. Although Barcelona today is not entirely as Cerdà had visualized it, it is important to note that it is the result of changes imposed subsequently on the original Cerdà Plan. In order to chart out a course for future city planning in Barcelona it is essential to understand the original plan in the context of the objectives and analytical tools currently in vogue. Several programming techniques have been developed to resolve problems posed by various constraints to desirable objectives. Hence, various programming models have been applied to the problem of suitable locating facilities, like schools, subject to criteria that define the users convenience. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate how the p-Median Model can be used to test the optimality of the distribution of schools in Barcelona as proposed by Cerdà. The purpose here is to show different methodologies for making such comparisons. A meaningful optimality check would ordinarily require using the whole plan. However, a small sample of nodes has been considered for the limited purpose of showing the application of techniques.