The data tells us that 55% of the world's population currently lives in urban areas. Cities thus represent a success story; they are clusters of human activity: people go to live, work, learn, shop and consume, develop our life projects, in short, to cities.
Following UN forecasts, the exodus from the countryside to the city seems irreversible despite improvements in telecommunications and the possibilities of remote work. Urban concentration continues to offer advantages such as more employability, more services, more innovation, more commercial, social, and knowledge exchange, more opportunities, and more economic growth.
The Global Power City Index 2024, carried out by the Mori Foundation, positions cities based on their ability to attract people, capital, and businesses from around the world according to six vectors: economy, research and development, cultural interaction, livability, environment, and accessibility.
London continues to lead the ranking even after Brexit, followed by New York, Tokyo, Paris, Singapore, and Amsterdam, while Berlin and Copenhagen occupy positions 10 and 11 on the list, and Madrid is in position 13. These are called Alpha cities, megacities that have been able to generate magnetism for international talent through these six vectors.
But not all that glitters in Alpha cities is gold. Megalopolises face serious problems of depersonalization, access to housing, congestion and pollution, security, and inequality.
Barcelona is not a megalopolis, although it suffers from some of the common problems of megalopolises. The difficulty of access to housing, pollution, or congestion, among others, cannot be addressed solely from the individuality of the municipal area.
To move towards a more competitive and sustainable Barcelona, it is urgent and indispensable to reinforce metropolitan decisions.The Mediterranean Sea on one side, and the Llobregat and Besós rivers and Collserola on the other, prevent uncontrolled urban growth. This orography, in my opinion, is an opportunity: the opportunity to build a more human urban and metropolitan dimension from a multilateral and coordinated perspective, placing the great green lung of Collserola at the epicenter.
To move towards a more competitive and sustainable Barcelona, it is urgent and indispensable to reinforce metropolitan decisions. Urban challenges are urgent, and individual decisions lose strength and impact in the same way that one person alone cannot decide for everyone.
Draghi has presented the document for a competitive and sustainable Europe, and calls for fewer individual decisions by states and to act at a European scale. Let us apply the formula to ourselves at the city scale. Acting as one, we have more strength and more impact.