Speaker
Description
This study investigates whether the implementation of superblocks in Barcelona—a high-profile urban intervention aimed at improving environmental and social quality—has triggered an electoral backlash against the ruling party responsible for the intervention. Superblocks were progressively implemented between 2015 and 2019, with additional expansions in subsequent years, allowing us to test both the immediate and longer-term electoral impacts of this policy. Using data from municipal elections in 2015, 2019, and 2023, we employ a fixed-effects spatial panel regression modelto estimate electoral outcomes across neighborhoods, explicitly accounting for time effects and spatial autocorrelation. This approach enables us to disentangle localized impacts of superblocks from broader temporal and spatial trends.
Our analysis focuses on whether residents directly living within superblock areas exhibited changes in their electoral support for the ruling party. Additionally, we examine potential spatial spillover effects—how neighboring areas, not directly treated with superblocks, may have been influenced by their proximity to these interventions. Preliminary results suggest that the direct effect of superblocks on electoral support is positive but moderate, indicating a slight increase in votes for the ruling party within superblock areas. The indirect effect, reflecting the influence on neighboring areas, appears larger in magnitude, pointing to a broader spatial diffusion of electoral support. While these effects suggest a localized and positive electoral benefit from superblocks, it is important to note that the ruling party’s overall vote share has been declining since 2015, culminating in its loss in the 2023 election. This analysis attempts to disentangle whether superblocks contributed to increasing support in specific areas while other factors—likely more significant—reduced overall popularity citywide.
Interestingly, while the ruling party benefited from superblocks, other parties in the governing coalition did not experience significant changes in electoral support, suggesting that the observed effects are closely tied to the party most visibly associated with the policy. Furthermore, no significant impact was detected on the electoral outcomes of opposition parties, indicating that superblocks have not provoked widespread political polarization in these areas.
Barcelona’s municipal elections operate under a proportional representation system, where votes are aggregated across the city to allocate council seats. This system provides a unique opportunity to analyze neighborhood-level variations while understanding their city-wide implications. By focusing on localized voting behavior, this study captures nuances in how urban policy interventions, like superblocks, shape political outcomes.
These findings highlight the complex interplay between urban policy interventions and electoral behavior. While superblocks appear to generate localized and spatially distributed electoral support for the ruling party, their overall influence remains modest relative to broader trends. Moreover, our analysis reveals that spatial spillovers may amplify the effects of such interventions beyond their immediate boundaries. However, these results should be interpreted with caution, as the direct and indirect effects observed in the model do not account for all potential determinants of voting behavior. In the short term, we aim to refine the model specification further, incorporate additional variables such as socioeconomic characteristics and accessibility measures, and conduct robustness checks to better understand these dynamics and present a more comprehensive analysis at the conference.
This study contributes to the broader literature on the political consequences of urban interventions and the role of spatial dynamics in shaping voter behavior. By leveraging a spatial panel regression approach over a multi-election timeframe, it offers a robust framework for assessing how ambitious urban policies like superblocks influence electoral outcomes across both space and time.
| Keywords | Electoral backlash; active mobility;superblocks |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
