Is Barcelona, together with its Metropolitan Area, reallya global city,understood as the space to respond to future challenges from a political, economic, climatic, demographic, technological and social point of view?
Currently, the metropolitan area of Barcelona encompasses 36 municipalities in a territory of 636 square kilometers with 3.2 million inhabitants and accounts for 65% of the GDP of Catalonia and 13% of the Spanish GDP. It is undoubtedly one of the great economic regions of the European Union (EU), and Barcelona is one of the capitals around the world chosen to hold conferences, such as the Mobile World Congress, and is the headquarters of the Union for the Mediterranean.
Regarding innovation, it has become ahubin southern Europe and is a commercial and tourist reference city, which has some of the most important ports and airports on a European scale.
In the institutional field, the metropolitan entity has gone through different structural and competency situations until reaching the current situation. Thus, the first metropolitan management body was created in 1974 with the grouping of 26 municipalities under the name ofCorporationBarcelona Metropolitan (CMB).In 1987, the majority of CiU in the Parliament of Catalonia, during the presidency of Jordi Pujol, approved the Law7/1987, by which planning powers were attributed directly to the Generalitat of Catalonia. Finally, in 2010, it was approvedLaw 31/2010that restored theBarcelona Metropolitan Area(AMB) that we know today and is in force.
If we take a look at the competency level of the Metropolitan Area according to Law 31/2010, it may seem that its competencies are sufficient to respond to the future challenges of any global city. Thus, we see that there are powers in territorial planning, urban planning and housing; mobility and transportation; water cycle; waste management; environment; actions in infrastructures of metropolitan interest; promotion of economic and business activity; tourism and promotion of social cohesion.
The globalization of the economy has generated a process of concentration of economic and technological power in metropolitan areas from where control of the world economy is exercised. It is in these global cities where the decision-making power is located, both from a financial, business and technological point of view.
A global city is also a phenomenon of great dimension at a demographic, social and cultural level.According to UN data, in 1950 30% of the world's population lived in cities; In 2016 this figure was 55%. Currently, more than 500 cities have more than one million inhabitants and 50 have more than five million.
In the metropolitan area of Barcelona there are different entities that share government functions with interests that do not always coincide. In addition to the central State and the Generalitat, we also find the Barcelona Provincial Council, the regions of Baix Llobregat, Vallès Occidental and Maresme, the Barcelona City Council and the AMB.
From Barcelona Distrito Federal we believe that the first thing to focus on isthe government of the Metropolitan Barcelonawhich will have to be configured based on cooperative federalism with municipal roots. The existence of second-order local administrations such as the Provincial Council and the regions operating at the same time on the same metropolitan territory is not admissible. We consider that these administrations would have to pass their powers to the AMB, as has been done with the Barcelonès Regional Council.
From the point of view of the governance of Metropolitan Barcelona, we believe that it has to be close to the citizen and without duplication. Thus, an approach of direct election of its governing bodies would have to be made, and the mayors of the AMB municipalities would have to be ex officio members of the Metropolitan Council.
The Barcelona of the future will be metropolitan or it will not be, and only with the generosity and involvement of civil society and its rulers will it be possible to achieve it.
We have to get to work, because the world does not stand still and the future of the 21st century will be that of global cities.
https://www.eltriangle.eu/es/author/autor-127/
Florence Campos