El Carmel or simply Carmel, is a neighbourhood

Neighbourhood

A neighbourhood or neighborhood is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town or suburb. Neighbourhoods are often social communities with considerable face-to-face interaction among members. "Researchers have not agreed on an exact definition...

 in the district of Horta-Guinardó

Horta-Guinardó

Horta-Guinardó is the name of one of the districts of Barcelona, located in its North-Eastern corner. It is named after two very heterogeneous areas of the city, Horta and el Guinardó, which together cover a large area of 11.92 km², which sums up for the 11,9% of the total extension of the...

, in Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

, Catalonia

Catalonia

Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...

, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

.

Carmel is in the municipal district of Horta-Guinardó. The area was developed mainly in the 60s and 70s when immigrant workers, encouraged to move to Barcelona by the government of the dictator Francisco Franco

Francisco Franco

Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...

 built housing for themselves. The combination of houses, then isolated on the rural hillside of what is now El Parc Tres Turons, ad hoc buildings put up without building permits and more planned urban development has given the area its modern appearance of many buildings piled on the hillside. Many bars run by the original immigrants from other parts of Spain still serve delicacies from those regions.

Carmel became infamous in 2005 when there was a major tunnel construction accident. It brought to a halt the expansion works on line 5

Barcelona Metro line 5

— Line 5, currently known as Cornellà Centre - Vall d'Hebron, its termini, and often simply called "Línia Blava" is line belonging to the Barcelona Metro network operated by TMB, and part of the ATM fare-integrated transport network....

 of the Barcelona Metro

Barcelona Metro

The Barcelona Metro , part of the public transportation system of Barcelona, Catalonia, is an extensive network of electrified railways that run underground in central Barcelona and above ground into the city's suburbs. Since July 31, 2010, Barcelona Metro system consists of 11 lines with 165...

and led to the evacuation of dozens of buildings in the area. Local residents protested and most of those evacuated to other areas have finally been rehoused and a new school opened. The Barcelona City Council has pledged more investment in the area to improve transport, accessibility and services.

Further bad news came when bus crash on 20 September 2008 in the neighbourhood, resulted in the death of two people - a young girl and an elderly woman.

Barcelona City Council page for Horta-Guinardó http://w3.bcn.es/XMLServeis/XMLHomeLinkPl/0,4022,321150885_323795929_1,00.html