A project for the Metropolitan Area of ​​Barcelona

INDEX

I.-The era of the global city

1. Reality
2. What is a global city?
3. Problems and hopes
4. The path of success

II.-Barcelona Global City

1. The objective conditions
2. Alarm and deficiencies signs
3. The ideal space for the provision of services.

III.-A little history

1. The theoretical framework
2. Metropolitan facts in Spain
3. The specificity of Barcelona
4. Institutional rethinking
5. The current and future situation

IV.-The global city within the framework of the State Territorial Organization

1. The different legislative levels
2. Territorial administration in our system
3. Present and future of the Metropolitan Area of ​​Barcelona

V.-The social dimension of the global city

1. Conditions of sustainable growth
2. Magnitude of the problem
3. A social policy in the metropolitan field
4. Specific reference to housing
5. Rejuvenate the population
6. Specific management of public spaces

VI.-Public transport, waters and waste

1. Permanently metropolitan services
2. Rethink public transport based on technological advances
3. Towards a metropolitan authority of public transport
4. Water and waste
5. Environmental protection and sustainability.

VII.-Metropolitan Infrastructure: A space for cooperation

1. Important capabilities and great challenges.
2. The Barcelona Airport Hub
3. The port of Barcelona
4. The Mediterranean corridor.

VIII.-Rethink the global Barcelona

1. The future is not written.
2. What future do we want to build?
3. The economy of talent, the way to success
4. A hopeful conclusion

I.- The era of the global city

1. Reality

According to UN data in 1950, 30%of the world's population lived in cities, in 2016 the total percentage is 55%, but in Europe 75%has been reached. The process we are attending is not, however, simply a displacement of the population of the countryside to the city, is also a parallel growth process in the size of the cities.

More than 500 cities currently have more than one million inhabitants and more than 50 of them have more than 5 million inhabitants. 3% of the world's population lives in the 15 most populated cities and only one of them, Istanbul, is in Europe.

The process of concentration of the population in large cities seems, today, unstoppable and parallel to an even more accelerated and more entity: the speed and intensity of concentration of wealth is even greater.

If we take the US as a reference, we find that 7 metropolitan regions account for 25% of total GDP. This is New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, Dallas, Houston and Philadelphia. It cannot be surprised, therefore, that in a study that takes into consideration, both factors simultaneously, the result is the finding that in cities that gather 20% of the world's population, 50% of world economic production is concentrated.

Globalization has produced a new reality and a new concept: the global city.

1. What is a global city?

Global City is a term coined for the first time in 1991 by sociologist Saskia Sassen and later widely developed from a central thesis:“The transformations produced by globalization and digitalization require a new conceptual architecture for study and interpretation. The global city represents such a conceptual architecture. ”

We have seen how the globalization of the economy has caused an intense process of concentration of economic power in a few metropolitan areas from which the control and direction of the world economy is exercised. In these "global cities" the nodes of the main telecommunications networks converge, in them are the headquarters of the main financial institutions; And in them are the main centers of world power, places where privileged information is generated that is vital for decision making.

Although globalization is characterized by a powerful decentralizing tendency, it appears in tune with acute trends that point in the opposite direction. Two factors must be taken into account: 1) that the decentralization of economic activity has not been accompanied by a parallel deconcentration in the property of capital, and that 2) the territorial dispersion that characterizes the “global assembly chain” (the production of goods in dispersed factories throughout the world) has generated a need for highly centralized control and direction.

From the functional point of view, the global city is a post -industrial city. Their reason for being is the services and the third high -level sector. With three basic pillars:

1. The activities that allow controlling the world economic organization and that are executed from the central headquarters of the transnational corporations and banks.

1. Advanced services to production: legal and financial advice, innovation, development, design, administration, staff, production technology, maintenance, transport, communications, security, advertising, marketing, market studies, mergers, management tasks etc.

1. The establishments that satisfy the new consumption habits of contemporary society, which make special emphasis on fashion and style, as well as cultural, sports and artistic activities.

3.-Challenges of the global city

The global city is the space where future challenges will respond, crystallized with special intensity in five areas:

• Demographic change challenges:1) Adaptation to population aging in developed nations, 2) rapid growth of the population in developing nations, which will not necessarily correspond to economic development, 3) the gap between these two types of countries and the demographic difference will be accompanied by an exponential growth of migrations.

• Challenges of technological change:1) Change in the perception of our role regarding work: flexible and more productive work, for projects, in the short term and disap Threat of cybercrime and the "fake news", 7) Permanent learning will probably become the norm.

• Climate change challenges:1) destructive climatic phenomena, such as exposure of coastal cities to the risks of flooding due to the increase in sea level, 2) the desertification and reduction of biodiversity will also affect agricultural production and fishing: the lack of resources, lack and hydraulic stress may generate humanitarian conflicts and crises in wide parts of the world.

• Challenges of identity change:This combination of trends will almost affect our perception of identity with all certainty: people may feel less connected to their country of origin, identifying more strongly with the communities of their online interest. This is what is called "digital identity" linked to "digital nationality." Companies and NGOs could grow in power, providing services that used to be the responsibility of the State.

4.-Problems and hopes

We also face important challenges derived from the change in governance: communities with new links replace or overlap to religion and political ideology forging intense ties, while the population requires greater proximity and transparency to its governing bodies.

A global city is a large phenomenon in the social and cultural field in which it is generated. That dimension can be different in Asia and in America than in Europe; But in any case the increase in size raises new problems and forces to look for new solutions to the usual problems.

These problems are concentrated in the following areas:

1. Institutional and political: the global city is not generally a homogeneous nucleus or an urban continuum. It is a polycentric reality, which in most cases includes various municipalities. How to guarantee in this framework the democratic representation of citizens, how to improve democratic quality and how to create institutional areas of coordination that have the ability to plan and execute future projects, are problems that must be faced and properly resolved from respect for local powers, but also in search of the greatest functional efficacy.

1. Territorial: To the extent that it is a polycentric reality, the global city must face and solve the problems of expansion and mobility in the territory, taking into account the technological advances already in the phase of development and global implementation.

It must also be able to face the increasingly sophisticated and demanding waste management compatible with environmental quality and manage the provision and sanitation of water in situations often close to hydraulic stress.

1. Social: The global city as a phenomenon linked to the process of economic globalization must guarantee the access of all citizens to social services and correct “social exclusion”, a situation that cannot be reduced to the migratory phenomenon but also analyzed and resolved with an overall vision.

1. Economic: In a globalized world the fundamental problem is competitiveness. Global cities compete for attracting technological innovation, talent and science. An administration and a social environment favorable to entrepreneurs and innovation are the first condition of economic growth and the creation of quality employment.

The difficulties are many and important, but so are hopes. Urban mega-regions, the metropolitan areas that make up the global cities concentrate, as we have seen, at least 50% of the world economic product, but represent a much greater percentage in the area of ​​scientific and technological innovation, thus guaranteeing more social balance and better quality of employment where the challenges and problems described have encountered a valid solution.

5.-The path of success

There is no unique path to success or an infallible route towards the top, but the certainty that the world of globalization does not expect the laggards and does not make favors who have failed to find their own path.

Yes there is much to learn from those who have managed to achieve significant levels of success and perhaps the first is the need to perceive and enhance the always specific and always different strengths.

This is the case of Singapore, a global city that is also a state. Its success is based on a balanced combination of geography and governance. The geography places it in one of the maritime routes with the highest volume of traffic. Governance has made it the first port in the world for the volume of goods.

The creation of a “Business Friendly” administration with legal certainty, low taxes (7% VAT, maximum of 20% for IRPF and 18% societies tax –is-) and important stimuli for the installation of new companies have placed Singapore in the world of global cities and this has come to join the specialization in the chemical industry and the finances that make Singapore the 4th World Financial Center after New York, London and Tokyo.

All this has been compatible with an important activity deployed in the field of urban design that, in turn, has become a focus of high -level tourist attraction.

Something similar, saving the differences in socio-economic environment, has happened with London. It is true that departure assumption was much better than Singapore's, although not necessarily in all lands; But also here it is easy to observe the process of transformation of a city that ceased to be the capital of a world empire to become capital of culture, art, services and finance.

The key element in this transformation process has also been here, governance. If today, London is the second financial place in the world and the first city in the favorite world to go to work is because it has been and is an institutionally well structured city with an effective administration that has managed to face and solve its challenges.

London has banished the "smog" and has sanitated the Thames and has done so to gain positions in all lands of the economy, thus demonstrating that a conservation optics is not a cost, but also an advantage for the economy.

II.- Barcelona Ciudad Global

1.-The objective conditions

There is an extensive consensus on the impulse that supposed for Barcelona the celebration of the JJOO of 1992. Not only meant placeing Barcelona on the world map, opening the city to the sea or an important urban redesign; That event set the bases for Barcelona to enter the Nodal Network of Global Cities.

However, the Barcelona Global City is not the municipality of 100 km2 and 1.6 million inhabitants, is the urban continuum that configures the current Metropolitan Area of ​​Barcelona, ​​its 36 municipalities that bring 3.2 million inhabitants in its 600 km2.

This territory generates 13% of Spanish GDP, 65% of Catalonia's GDP and an even greater proportion of its scientific and technological production, which takes 56% of the Spanish investment in “start-ups”. It is, without any doubt, one of the most important economic "regions" of the U.E. And by virtue of its own merits it is the headquarters of the Union for the Mediterranean that brings together all the countries of the U.E. and the riverside of the Mediterranean with the tragic exception of Syria.

With 10 million visitors a year, an airport that moves almost 50 million passengers annually and one of the main ports in Europe, there is no doubt that the Barcelona metropolis brings together the objective conditions to be considered a global city.

For that reason Barcelona is the third city in the preferred world for the celebration of congresses and the fourth favorite destination worldwide to work, only behind London, New York and Berlin. (Boston Consulting Group study).

Headquarters of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) and hundreds of events associated with biomedical technology and research, Barcelona has been configured as the “hub” of innovation in southern Europe and has been located the fourth in the “Smart Cities” ranking in Europe. (Publications of the AMB).

2.-Alarm and deficiencies signs

In recent years Barcelona suffers the incidence of growing insecurity in the street. The number of crimes grows significantly while increasing the number of "manteros" occupying important spaces in public roads. The perception of a growing insecurity has had a reflection in local and international media.

It is not a problem of lack of resources or professional disability. There is a lack of political will to convert security into the street, housing and in the broadest field of legal certainty, in a priority of government action.

There is also an extensive consensus on the loss of pulse of Barcelona. Losing the new location of the European Medication Agency (EMA) for the benefit of Amsterdam has been interpreted as a very relevant alarm signal. Dozens of reasons made it assume that the chosen one would be Barcelona, ​​being the pharmaceutical industry of 7% of Catalan GDP and a sector that uses 42,000 workers mostly highly qualified.

In an extraordinary number dated March 17, 2018, the avant -garde echoed the loss of “pulse” of the Barcelona brand and called attention to the loss of consensus as a characteristic note of today's Barcelona.

Something is failing in the international projection of global Barcelona and that something is not, with all certainty, neither geography nor sociological determinants. Without pretending to exclude the incidence of other factors, we understand that the institutional sphere fails. We have a governance problem and that problem separates us from the path of success.

We are not referring to the greatest or lower capacities of our municipal government, not even to the greater or lesser quality of one or another program or human team of the parties. It is, in our opinion, a structural problem that seems clearly diagnosed as a insufficiency and weakness of metropolitan government institutions.

We have seen that on the path of success good governance is a key factor. It is also our main problem today.

Few citizens of the 36 municipalities that make up the AMB know the existence of that administrative structure, few know that they share powers with the municipalities themselves, but also with the regions and the provincial council. If the AMB is known for something, it is because of its transport activity.

It is therefore in the field of governance where we have to focus our efforts, because it is the necessary condition, although not sufficient, to return Barcelona to the path of success.

The direct election of its governing bodies and especially its mayor-president, the competence and clarification of competence, the equivalent reallocation of economic resources and the assumption of powers that imply direct services to the citizen and that find their territorial scope of efficiency at the metropolitan level. All this would contribute to improving the democratic quality of the AMB.

3.-The ideal space for the provision of services.

After governance or perhaps as a specific part of that problem, it seems necessary to place the ideal space for the provision of each public service, based on the principle of subsidiarity and collaboration, but also in search of a maximum of efficiency.

Traditionally, both urban planning and in the field of infrastructure and management or management in transport and mobility, waters and waste treatment have been considered of the metropolitan field. As we will see in the corresponding section, the Barcelona conurbation has tended to maintain all the powers mentioned in the metropolitan field, an approach in which all the scholars of the metropolitan phenomenon would coincide.

However, the global city today must respond to many other demands that cannot have an effective response in a lower or more extensive and heterogeneous territorial scope.

1. The first of these is the fight against social exclusion, including the coordination of all healthcare programs and all social policy actions, with special emphasis on housing and birth support.

1. The second is the struggle for environmental sustainability, an area in which the presence of the Metropolitan Administration has been constant, but that must be intensified and extended to other fields such as clean energy and non -polluting and sustainable transport.

1. The third is the leap of planning to execution in the field of strategic infrastructure, giving the AMB the authority to restore priorities and to assign always insufficient resources.

1. The fourth is the creation of scenarios favorable to implementation in the territory of companies and economic initiatives that generate quality occupation, which attract talent and that guarantee through innovation future growth.

Our proposal presupposes a metropolitan administration with direct democratic legitimacy and with authority and resources to maintain its traditional activities, extending its action where the challenges of the future force to structure public services in a space more extensive than the strict term of a municipality.

We will have the opportunity to deal with later.

III.- A little history

1.-The theoretical framework

None of the problems, none of the hopes and none of the needs we have examined are entirely new or specific to Barcelona or any other city. They are the result of a process of population concentration and economic change that has been accelerated after World War II, but that was already manifested before.

The theoretical framework from which this complex issue is analyzed is different as started from the Reform School, the so -called rational election school or the School of Metropolitan Governance.

Each of them proposes solutions that in the first reinforces the institutionalization of the metropolitan government bodies with direct choice of their components, while the second defends the sufficiency of the second -degree bodies, with indirect choice of the metropolitan rulers and mainly planning powers and the third, developed more recently, puts the emphasis on coordination between all administrative level Metropolitan government bodies, when this is convenient for the proper provision of services.

2.-Metropolitan facts in Spain

Attending to the upper population concentration or close to the million inhabitants, they can be seen in Spain up to a total of six metropolitan agglomerations: Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Valencia, Seville, Malaga and Bilbao.

Of these was Valencia the first to create a metropolitan administration (1946) that has currently been eliminated (1999) and replaced by supramunicipal entities that operate in the areas of transport, waters and waste.

On the other hand, both in the Basque Country and in Andalusia the powers that the Metropolitan Administrations could develop have been absorbed by the foral deputations in the first case and by the autonomous administration in the second.

The case of Madrid is peculiar to the extent that after annexing 13 municipalities in its surroundings, the municipality of Madrid brings together half of the population of the CAM. Being a uniprovincial community and for the exposed reason, there are only two administrative levels, the municipal and the autonomous, the two of direct choice.

Only Barcelona has maintained, not without accidents, a metropolitan reality with metropolitan government organs being, for that reason, an exceptional case.

3.-The specificity of Barcelona

The first Metropolitan Management Body was created with the group of 26 municipalities under the presidency of Enric Masó in 1974. The Metropolitan Corporation of Barcelona (CMB) was born as a local administration body, but assuming not only planning functions but also of service provision.

Two substantial contributions of the WBC were the elaboration of a general urban planning plan in the metropolitan field and a metropolitan sanitation plan.

Despite being an organ with little defined competences and second -degree election, the truth is that the CMB exceeded the democratic transition and remained with a notable level of efficiency and without political or social dissent throughout the entire first municipal legislature.

It was throughout the second legislature that the conception of a mayor with strong personality, as was Pascual Maragall, crashed with the no less strong personality of the President of the Generalitat, Jordi Pujol. The clash of personalities was also a clash of political conceptions to the extent that PSC-PSOE ruled in most of the municipalities of the WBC while CiU did it in the Generalitat and, in our opinion, from all this a clash of projects for Barcelona was.

Through Law 7/1987 the majority of CiU in the Parliament of Catalonia intended to resolve the clash suppressing the WBC and attributing the planning powers to the Generalitat of Catalonia. The law was an institutional change, but did not modify reality or, therefore, eliminated the need for coordination in the field of Barcelona conurbation.

Already in 1988 the Commonwealth of Municipalities of the Metropolitan Area of ​​Barcelona (MMAMB) was created that initially hosted 23 municipalities, but that by virtue of successive additions came to 31 municipalities, almost all of the first crown in Barcelona.

Law 7/1987 intended to define as a metropolitan territory for planning purposes the regions of the Barcelona, ​​the Baix Llobregat, El Maresme, the Western Vallés and El Vallés Oriental (art. 3.a), but simultaneously created the metropolitan entity of the transport with 18 municipalities and the Metropolitan Entity of Hydraulic Services and waste treatment that grouped 32 municipalities.

4.-Institutional rethinking

To assess the intention and effect of Law 7/1987, it seems essential to reread the second paragraph of its exhibition of reasons in light of what happened later. Says like this:

“To adequately address this issue, a reflection on the metropolitan phenomenon is necessary, which must go beyond a restricted vision to a certain organizational formula. As other experiences show, there is no unique model of administrative organization to recognize a reality with peculiar characteristics and the territorial organization of each country, the formula that offers greater coherence and rationality, articulated with the current political coordinates, must be found.

It seems that in this case the determinant was not the search for greater rationality, but"The current political coordinates”That they forced the replacement of a weakly institutionalized model, by any institutionalization at all.

The way to overcome this situation was born from the affected municipal corporations themselves and thus promoted by the mayor of Barcelona Joan Clos, the first metropolitan strategic plan (2003) was approved while constituted a consortium between the MMAMB and the two transport management entities, waters and waste to which we have referred. This consortium included 36 municipalities that were also those included in the scope of the Strategic Plan and that after the approval of Law 31/2010 make up the restored metropolitan area of ​​Barcelona.

5.-The current and future situation

When restoring the institutions of Metropolitan Government, the Parliament of Catalonia was able to take as reference what the law itself calls Regio I, and this would have meant grouping up to 164 municipalities belonging to 7 regions and with a population of more than 5 million inhabitants.

He did not do so and preferred to take the 36 municipalities that constituted the scope of the strategic plan. It is a territory with common needs and characteristics and that is suitable as a territorial scope for the provision of services and for the management of metropolitan infrastructure.

We cannot consider the ABs currently existing as a true metropolitan government for lacking exclusive powers, due to its insufficient provision of economic resources, for leaving the municipalities the execution of some functions that should be performed at the metropolitan level and, finally, because being an administration with an indirect election of its governing bodies has a weak democratic legitimation.

It is, however, preferable to the situation created by the 1987 law and is a good base from which to build the future.

IV.- The global city within the framework of the territorial organization of the State

1. The different legislative levels

The global city, the metropolis capable of interacting in a network with other cities that combine science, technique, culture, art, quality of life and tourist attraction is today, unquestionably the center of the creation of wealth and the impulse of knowledge.

That global city or rather that network of global cities live in the administrative framework forged by the state of which they are part, a framework that should be conceived to favor its orderly development, correcting at the same time the new problems that this development is posing.

However, sometimes the territorial organization of the State becomes a ballast that slows growth and seriously affects the future of large cities by not giving adequate response to their specific challenges and challenges.

In our case, the territorial organization of the State is configured based on a triple organic and normative level constituted respectively by the State, the Autonomous Communities (CCAA) and the local entities, thus giving rise to a compound or complex state in which the local regime is the result of a double legality under the guarantee of the Constitution as a supreme norm that forces all areas of the State Administration.

The ordination of the territory that the C.E. It establishes is based on the CCAA, the provinces and the municipalities (art. 127 CE).

This initial configuration must necessarily be related to the competences recognized to the State in matters of “bases of the legal regime of the Public Administrations” (art. 149.1.18ª C.E.) and those attributed to the CCAA on the local corporations, to the extent provided by the local regime legislation (art. 148.1.2ª), a rule that must be completed with the possibility that the possibility that it is granted to the CCAA is to be completed own territorial with full legal personality through the grouping of border municipalities. (Art. 152.3 C.E.).

The State has developed the powers attributed by the C.E. through Law 7/1985 of April 2 Regulatory of the Local Regime Bases (LRBRL).

The Generalitat de Catalunya was collected in the first version of the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia (art. 5 EAC).

In this way, the territorial entities initially listed in the C.E., the region were added, the possibility that the CCAA created supracomarcap demarcations, the groups based on urban and metropolitan events as well as others that could be formal and with specific purposes (art. 3 LRBL and Art. 5 EAC).

To this organizational multiplicity, the consideration that is transcribed from the exposure of LBR reasons must be added:

“… Except for some exceptions, matters that in their integrity can be attributed to the exclusive interest of local corporations are rare; Logically, those in which there is no local interest at stake is also rare. ”

The global city formed by the metropolitan conurbation is framed at all overlapping levels of the territorial or functional administration, each of which exercises shared or concurrent powers with those attributed to the remaining ones.

1. Territorial administration in our system

The resulting complexity could be tempered as a consequence of the principle of autonomy that the Constitution recognizes to all territorial administrations and for being common the principles that proclaim state and autonomous legislation:

In the formulation of state law these principles are: decentralization, proximity, efficiency, efficiency, budget stability and financial sustainability (art. 2 LBRL). In general terms, regional legislation signs them in their integrity.

Common principles do not guarantee, however, equivalent regulations or homogeneous interpretations of these principles.

State legislation rigorously follows the provisions of the C.E. and therefore defines the province as a local administration constituted by the group of municipalities and, simultaneously, as the territorial demarcation for the fulfillment of the purposes of the State (art. 141.1 C.E.). Consequently, the alteration of provincial limits must be approved by the General Courts by Organic Law.

Functionally the Diputación is configured as a support body for the municipalities and especially those that have a population of less than 20,000 inhabitants (art. 26.2 LBRL).

After the approval of the EAC of 2006 the situation of Catalonia is different, at least in the legislative level, although not in the field of administrative reality.

The EAC begins by defining the basic territorial organization based on the municipality and the veguería (art. 83.1 EAC) to immediately add the region. (Art. 83.2 EAC).

The veguería is configured as a local cooperation body and as a territorial division adopted for the provision of services of the Generalitat (art. 90 EAC). The intention of the regional legislator is to replace the province with the veguería and expressly declare it:

"The advice of the veguería replace the deputations."(Art. 91.3)

In its current configuration, veguerías involve alteration of provincial limits and consequently its implementation requires an organic law (art. 91.4 EAC).

Less differentiation exists between state legislation and autonomic as soon as it refers to the regions.

State legislation is limited to recognizing in this field the competence of the CCAA, just establishing that its existence may not be the loss of municipal competences regarding mandatory services or the total exclusion of participation in the rest of its legally recognized powers. (Art. 42.1 and 4 LBRL).

For its part, regional legislation is limited to pointing out that they are organs of intermunicipal cooperation. (Art. 92 EAC).

Finally, it is necessary to refer to the metropolitan areas defined in state legislation as:

"… Local entities composed of the municipalities of large urban agglomerations between whose population centers there are economic and social links that make joint planning and coordination of certain services and works necessary."(Art. 43.2 LBRL).

Its creation, modification and suppression corresponds to the CCAA according to their respective statutes, as well as the determination of competences and resources of the metropolitan areas (art. 43.3. LBRL).

On the other hand, the autonomic legislation has fully assumed that competence that is recognized as exclusive not only in the LBRL but with a suppression in the CE itself in accordance with the literal interpretation of its article 152.

1. Present and future of the Metropolitan Area of ​​Barcelona

From this perspective, Law 31/2010 of August 3 must be analyzed by which the Metropolitan Area of ​​Barcelona (AMB) is created, understood as a supramunicipal local entity of a territorial nature composed of the municipalities of the conurbanization of Barcelona among which there are economic and social links that make public policy planning necessary and the implementation of services jointly (art. 1.2 Lamb).

In fact, the AMB was born to assume the powers exercised by the Metropolitan Transportation Entity and the Metropolitan Entity of Hydraulic Services and Waste Treatment as well as the Commonwealth of Municipalities.

However, the powers legally attributed to the AMB are broader and extend to the following areas:

1. 1. 1. Territorial Planning, Urbanism and Housing, including land management for affordable housing.

1. 1. 1. Transport that runs entirely in the AMB as well as urban collective transport on surface and underground, taxi and urban mobility metropolitan plan.

1. 1. 1. Aguas including home supply, high sanitation and wastewater purification, as well as cooperation with municipalities for low sanitation.

1. 1. 1. Waste including its treatment and coordination of municipal services.

1. 1. 1. Formulation and implementation of environmental management policies and the management of renewable energy facilities.

1. 1. 1. Actions in metropolitan interest infrastructure, including those necessary for the vertebration of the territory, connectivity, mobility and functionality.

1. 1. 1. Promotion of economic activity and promotion of the company, industry and commerce, services and tourism resources.

Specifically, it must promote a metropolitan plan for modernization, research and innovation.

1. 1. 1. Promote social cohesion, improving the living conditions of citizens.

Two observations are necessary in competence.

The first is related to the possible expansion of these powers by delegation of the municipalities that compose it (art. 13.1 Lamb) of the Generalitat de Catalunya or other supramunicipal entities (art. 13.5 Lamb) and even the State to the extent that it contributes to administrative rationalization. (Art. 27 LRBL).

The second refers to the orientation that the law gives to the AMB as a second -degree local administration in which the essential is not so much to meet citizens' needs… ”Satisfy the needs and aspirations of the municipalities that integrate it…”. (Art. 13.2 LAMB).

Another aspect that is appropriate to analyze is the territorial extension that the law gives to the AMB, an extension that includes 36 municipalities that the law lists (art. 2.1. Lamb), but that can be extended by law of the Parliament of Catalonia provided that there is territorial continuity. (Art. 2.2. Lamb).

The current territorial scope of the AMB does not correspond to the extension of Barcelona understood as a global city. Barcelona's conurbanization extends in all directions beyond the legally set demarcation.

However, before raising a modification of Law 31/2010 it seems convenient to undertake a process of reinforcement of its administration bodies, improvement of its financing and competence rationalization. Only this task will make sense to accommodate the legal framework to the imperatives of social, civic and economic reality.

Despite this, it seems inevitable to initiate without further delay the analysis of the lines that should follow an administrative rationalization process that allowed the AB to attribute the functions and capacities that global cities have in other environments. In this sense, it is forced to consider that the legal framework in which the Government of Barcelona develops and its metropolitan environment is uniquely complex being configured by the following laws:

1. The Special Law of Barcelona.
2. The legislation of the Parliament of Catalonia, including the LRL and Lamb.
3. The State Local Regime Bases.
4. The Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia.
5. The Spanish Constitution.

A plurality of laws that on numerous occasions are inspired by non -coincident principles or maintain different conceptions of supposed common principles, as with the principle of autonomy of local corporations, a principle formulated in all laws set forth, but not always respected by them.

The need and even the urgency of this process of administrative rationalization should be evident with the simple examination of the entities that share government functions over the city of Barcelona and its metropolitan area.

1. The Barcelona City Council and the municipalities of each of the municipalities that make up the metropolitan conglomerate.

1. The region of the Barcelona composed of the municipalities of Barcelona, ​​Hospital of Llobregat, Badalona, ​​Santa Coloma of Gramanet, San Adria of the Besós.

1. The Metropolitan Area of ​​Barcelona.

1. The veguería and contemplated in the EAC as an alternative territorial entity to the provincial deputations.

1. The Diputación de Barcelona.

1. The Generalitat of Catalonia.

1. The State in its multiple function of central, territorial and decentralized administration.

Within the framework of this analysis we must highlight the concurrence of up to three second -degree local administrations, operating on the metropolitan territory: the regions, the AMB and the Diputación de Barcelona.

The survival of three second -degree local administrations would not make sense, in our opinion, in no case, but much less when they operate on a metropolitan complex that requires a planning and organization of services criteria and organizational management and metropolitan infrastructure management.

The current situation is particularly dysfunctional as soon as it refers to the regions. On the territory of the AMB, the Barcelona region exercises competitions, but also of the Baix Llobregat, the Western Vallés and del Maresme. We understand that the regions whose territory is included in the metropolitan field should dissolve, at least in their status as administrative bodies, passing their powers to be exercised by the AMB.

In cases where only a part of the regional demarcation is included in the territory of the AMB (and as long as this circumstance is maintained) the competences on the affected municipalities could be delegated to the AMB under art. 13.5 Lamb.

On the other hand, any project to convert the administration of Metropolitan Barcelona into more effective, more rational and closer to its citizens demands to propose the improvement of democratic quality in the procedures of election of its governing bodies, management of its services and transparency and citizen participation.

We do not intend to analyze the reasons for the low level of confidence of citizens in public administrations, but to focus on the problems presented by the metropolitan governance begun to record that the current metropolitan administration is the great unknown for the citizens of the Barcelona conurbanization.

Good governance in a metropolitan area must have the citizen as a center of gravity and propose to meet their needs with maximum efficiency and transparency, but also seeking proximity. All this requires the direct election of the governing bodies and in particular of its president and the Metropolitan Council regulated today in arts. 5 and 6 of the Lamb through indirect election procedures: Art. 7 Lamb.

The maintenance of the mayors of the municipalities of the AMB as born members of the Metropolitan Council and the strengthening of mechanisms of coordination and citizen participation must guarantee the respect to the principle of autonomy and subsidiarity while ensuring the greatest identification of the citizen with the administration, the greatest transparency and the improvement of democratic quality.

Only in this way may the Metropolitan Administration be required to define and lead a multicultural and integrative global city project, understood as a country project, at the service of its citizens and open to collaboration in the European framework and beyond the U.E. itself, in its capital status of the Union by the Mediterranean and its vocation as a global city.

V.- The social dimension of the global city

1.-Conditions of sustainable growth

No growth is sustainable if it is not able to correct the imbalances it causes. Economic globalization causes imbalances that seem relevant at least in the political, social and environmental fields, in addition to the specifically economic.

Several warning signs have appeared in the political field as the unstoppable growth of populism, the rise of nationalisms or indiscriminate movements against immigration. All of them seem relevant as threats to growth, individual freedom and democracy, but overflow the scope of this work.

Something similar occurs with environmental imbalances, land in which climate change denialists find more difficulties in explaining the growing number of extreme climatological phenomena.

All this undoubtedly affects the future of the global city to the extent that they have an impact on all "the land ship."

The imbalances to which we have referred, as well as economic imbalances, can make a fair, inclusive and cohesive society unfeasible, but clearly exceed their causation, their development and their remedies to the metropolitan field.

The same does not happen with social imbalances. The trend of the world's population to move towards megaciudades makes them more evident the risk of social exclusion and therefore forces to seek solutions in the metropolitan field.

2.-The magnitude of the problem

When we try to measure the impact of the economic crisis triggered in 2008, it is mandatory to record that, even now, when we are surpassing its negative effects, 25% of the population of Catalonia is at risk of social exclusion according to Eurostat criteria. This percentage reached almost 30% in 2011 in the depths of the crisis, but even now the percentage is very high and is the reflection of labor market changes, changes in the family structure and the insufficiency of the welfare state to meet the new and growing needs.

According to the results of the application of the European strategy 2020, our society supports, in addition to the high unemployment rate, a new phenomenon, which is the risk of poverty of employed workers, a risk that reached in 2011 up to 12.7% of jobs.

In Catalonia, before the crisis, 25,000 people lived in homes without fixed income, today the figure amounts to 225,000 according to data from the Third Sector table.

Up to a total of 30,000 people receive the minimum insertion income whose benefits extend to another 45,000 additional people dependent on the former. The amount of the RMI ranges from a minimum of € 423 to a maximum of € 648 per month for family units of 4 members or more.

The application of the guaranteed citizenship income that we owe to a popular legislative initiative (ILP) and that figure the rent of sufficiency in € 569.12 is still in the initial phase.

It is in this context that we must structure the social assistance policy, forgetting the old criticism that it does not solve the problem and only implies a poor remedy to injustice. Such criticism always comes from those who are not in situations of social exclusion or extreme poverty. It is the latter, however, those who must worry.

3.-A social policy in the metropolitan field

Faced with the risk of social exclusion that is so intensely manifested among us, public administrations respond with insufficient resources, with uncoordination of their efforts and with programs full of administrative complexities that remain effective.

The deputy mayor of the City Council of Barcelona, ​​Laia Ortiz, declared on 15-5-2018 that despite the increase in the number of places to host homeless people (a total of 1343 in Barcelona) these were insufficientbecause "more than half of the people served in them are not from Barcelona"and that in the rest of the metropolitan area these resources are "almost non -existent." Laia Ortíz itself, on 10-08-2018, demanded greater efficiency and transparency to the Generalitat in its function of evaluating the degree of dependence on the applicants, when later the attention is municipal competence.

It does not seem reasonable to maintain this dysfunctional duality and not concentrate care policies in the metropolitan administration. If we want an inclusive and integrative global city, we must place all the resources under a single administration.

4.-Specific reference to housing

Even clearer is the situation as soon as it refers to social housing. The newspaper El País published on 06-25-2018 that the volume of social housing built in Spain has returned to levels of the 50s, which places us in the last place of the U.E.

To that insufficiency should be added that the price of housing in Barcelona rose 20% in 2017 and continues to rise unstoppably. Given this situation, the Municipal Government of Barcelona promised 4,000 affordable rental homes in this legislature, but in reality it has built 557 to which 325 in progress will come to join and 243 already tendered. Far from an objective that was not even enough.

It is worth writing a “Plan for the Right to Housing of Barcelona 2016-2025” that comes to continue the first 2004-2008 plan and the second 2008-2016 that was configured around the “Housing Consortium” participated by the Generalitat and the City Council.

The new plan does not seem better or more compliance possibilities than the previous ones and that to influence the same error.

A polycentric metropolitan Barcelona requires conceiving the social housing policy comprising the 36 municipalities that compose it. Only in this way, the resources will be applied effectively, maximizing the number of social housing built. We have municipalities with land availability and without resources and others with resources but with insufficient land. Contributing resources to the latter increases the cost, the number of constructed units decreases and is contrary to the policy policy.

5.-Rejuvenate the population

We have seen in recent years as the average age of the metropolitan population increases and there is a general consensus about the threat that this means for the maintenance of the welfare state and social policies.

It is necessary, already essential, to articulate policies of rejuvenation of the population and this from a double aspect: creating a socio-economic environment that attracts young people through the creation of employment opportunities and promoting maternity support policies. This is a responsibility that all levels of public administration share, but also has, or must have, a metropolitan component focused on assisted children's nurseries.

It is an action that must be oriented to make a younger motherhood possible and that does not suppose a cost or simply the exclusion of the labor market for women, so it must be framed among gender policies.

Also in this case the municipal conception of the service remains efficacy to the resources used both human and economic, and must be redirected to the metropolitan field.

6.-Effective management of public spaces

The lower the surface and quality of the private space available to a citizen, the greater its need for access and enjoyment of public space.

However, the public space management model does not prioritize free, direct and comfortable access to citizens.

Half of the metropolitan territory are protected areas (300 km2) and public administrations have thousands of square meters destined for equipment as a result of mandatory assignments by virtue of urban regulations.

The first principle in the management of a public service is that it effectively serves its purpose. It does not seem reasonable to increase the municipal heritage of the land with the link to use as “equipment”, it must be possible flexible use that meets the real needs of the population and that allows the citizen to use these spaces.

We live in a metropolis with an enviable climate, but in which to install a terrace on the sidewalk is little less than impossible, in which to walk through certain areas involves overcomeing hundreds of "blankets" and dodging mobile gadgets of increasing sophistication and in equally growing number.

Returning the city to the citizen is to make it safer, more accessible, more comfortable; We do not need more public administration, we need it to be more effective and that the management of each service is done at the territorial level that gives maximum efficiency to the resources used.

VI.- Public Transport, Water and Waste

1.-Permanently metropolitan services

Public transport, water sanitation and waste management are services that have always been provided at the metropolitan level. Another territorial approach would not make sense and therefore when the Law of Territorial Planning dissolved in 1987 the CMB simultaneously created the Metropolitan Entity of Transportation and the Metropolitan Entity of the Environment.

For that reason when in 2010 the Metropolitan Administration was restored in its current form, highly qualified and experienced technical teams were found in all those fields. There may be deficits due to the growth of needs or the deep crisis that has shaken us to the foundations, there may be errors in the conception of the most convenient or efficient solutions at all times, but when that happens it is more the consequence of the governance deficits already pointed out than of the performance of the metropolitan technical teams.

Thinking in metropolitan terms is something that our technicians already do under their training, their responsibility and experience. It is only necessary to provide them with institutions with the ability to decide and direct and with competition, media and legitimacy to do so. That is today the deficit that conditions the future of the Metropolitan Area of ​​Barcelona.

2.-Rethink public transport based on technological advances

Every two years the International Public Transport Union (UITP) held an international conference. His last meeting took place in Montreal (Canada) in May 2017 and then it was manifest that we were in a period of rapid and deep technological transition, not only in public transportation but in the widest field of interurban and urban mobility.

Clean technologies without polluting emissions and without noise pollution are already an economically profitable and essential reality in terms of sustainability. The basis of these technologies at the present time are electric motors, but not even that can be considered as something not subject to changes in the immediate future.

This forces to rethink urban design based on technology advances, avoiding rigid infrastructure, installation and maintenance faces and that can be a very short -term ballast, but also forces attention to pay attention to the new individual means of transport that are invading the spaces reserved for pedestrians.

When we think about returning the street, the public space, to the citizen we must keep in mind that we are facing a citizen who moves, more and more and with increasingly long displacements, as the metropolis becomes more polycentric and that also moves in different directions as a consequence of the dispersion of places of residence and workplaces and the disconnection between each other.

A good part of these displacements are already made by public transport, to reach 682 million displacements during 2017. It is a certainly impressive figure, but which represents only 30% of the displacements in the city of Barcelona and 20% in the AMB, percentages that must necessarily grow in an orderly and sustainable way.

On the other hand, the appearance of autonomous driving vehicles will deeply affect mobility within the framework of digital disruption. New models will be needed that allow the sustainability of the global transport and mobility system in a context of energy efficiency.

3.-Towards an authentic metropolitan transport authority

The metropolitan transport authority is a consorcial administration created in 1997 and in which the Generalitat of Catalonia represents 51% and the set of local administrations consortered 49%. Among those local administrations is the AMB and a group of municipalities of the Alt Penedés, Baix Llobregat, Barcelona, ​​Garraf, Maresme, Vallés Occidental and Vallés Oriental. A territory that exceeds even the territorial scope of the region I.

At the meetings of the Government bodies of the ATM they attend as observer representatives of the General State Administration (AGE), although their presence has decreased significantly in recent years.

It is absolutely essential to increase the ATM decision -making capacity and improve the participation channels of all affected administrations and the provision of resources at their disposal. Only in this way the Cercanías railroads can be coordinated effectively with the Generalitat Network and the Metro overcoming the insufficiencies that we suffer today and the saturation of the tunnel system.

Technical reports prepared by all administrations coincide in pointing out the growing mismatch between demand and supply, exchangers deficit and inconsistent investment decisions. In short, an integrated mobility model that can be incarded in the set of economic, environmental, social and urban policies that develop in the territory of Metropolitan Barcelona.

The functional inadequacy of the current management system translates into numerous problems that daily affect increasing sectors of the population. Without the claim to be exhaustive, we will highlight the following:

1. Law 9/2003 of June 13 of the Parliament of Catalunya defined objectives and instruments to rationalize access to economic activity polygons (PAES). Fifteen years after the approval of the law these accesses remain especially conflicting points in mobility, a problem not less in a territory that is defined as the main logistics "hub" of the Western Mediterranean.

1. The ordination of public transport in the urban environment of the regulation of mobility in its streets must be compatible with the use of private means of transport of increasing sophistication and must guarantee the safety and comfort of the pedestrian under the basic principle that no mobile with wheels, used as a means of individual transport, can share the sidewalk space with the pedestrian.

1. Efficient management implies rigorous investment control. A system that allows Metro Line 9 has reached, far from being completed, an expense volume of 17,000 million euros when its budget was less than 2.6 billion euros has not been considered satisfactory.

Good metropolitan governance claims a transport authority with the ability to decide: to establish priorities, but also to control the execution of the projects it develops.

4.-Water and waste

Analyzing the management of the water and waste cycle is reinforced by the idea that a unique authority for the management of these services located at the metropolitan level is a condition for their efficient provision.

In both cases, waters and waste, the Amb action is decisive and the level of coordination with other concurrent administrations seems sufficient, perhaps because they are services that directly affect the life of the citizen and whose lack produces a high level of distrust.

That explains that in 2017 there have been more than 124 million m3 of drinking water to almost 1.5 million subscribers in the territory of the AMB. This huge amount of water has been treated in the 12 drinking water treatment stations of which, however, the two most important (Abrera and Cardedu) are outside the territory of the AMB and transported to the places of consumption under the technical control of the AMB in collaboration with various private companies.

The EBR competition also effectively extends to the sanitation of water in close cooperation with the municipal sewer services. That has allowed to treat more than 265 million m3 of wastewater during 2017, of which a small part has been reused (5.3 million m3). It is in this field where the three operating water regeneration stations in the territory of the AMB (Gavá, Viladecans, Sant Feliu de Llobregat and the Prat de Llobregat) seem insufficient for the future, considering the growth of demand and the difficulty in increasing the collection.

Also in terms of waste the level of cooperation between the AMB and the 36 municipal corporations that comprise it seems adequate and capable of guaranteeing (in general terms) the selective treatment and the recovery of usable materials by means of recycling. The 2017-2015 Metropolitan Program must ensure the treatment of 100% of the waste generated in the territory and recycling of at least 50% of those waste.

A council in which the local administrations involved participate, together with experts and technicians, under the coordination of the AMB has proven its effectiveness in this field and should become the model to follow in other areas.

5.-Environmental protection and sustainability

Only part of the inhabitants of the AMB lived in 1968 how much Buckminster Fuller published their "Operations Manual for the Earth's spaceship ”:But its conception of the planet as a ship that travels in space with passengers has been the basis of all conservation theories developed later. Today we are more aware that the ship we are traveling in is extremely fragile and that we all have the responsibility to take care of it.

The global cities network has, in this field a triple challenge:

1. Minimize the emission of pollutants, eliminating non -biodegradable products.

1. Recover the damage already caused to our habitat through special plans for the protection of natural spaces.

1. Efficiently execute the energy transition process.

These are areas in which macrocyities create a good part of the problem, but in which they are able to provide an important part of the solution. They are also areas in which the collaboration between administrations is fundamental and in which the AMB has legally recognized competences that require greater capacity for planning, management and control and also greater economic resources.

VII.-Metropolitan Infrastructure: A space for cooperation

1.-Important capabilities and great challenges

The Metropolis Barcelona is the only city in Europe that concentrates on a short radius, an international airport that has moved 47.2 million passengers in 2017, an important port through which 56.2 million TM of merchandise have passed also in 2017 and a high -speed train connected with the European network. All this makes the AMB a first -order logistics center at European level.

These infrastructure are the result of an intense and fruitful cooperation between the central administration, the Generalitat and the local administrations affected, including the AMB. This cooperation has resent, in recent years, as a result of the increase in political conflict in Catalonia, but especially due to the lack of capacity of the Generalitat government to face the problems of the real economy and its excessive concentration in the construction of "state structures." With little or no incidence in solving problems or the management of the future. This lack of cooperation is especially unfortunate in an increasingly competitive world and in which every lost opportunity is a train that does not pass for the second time.

As we succinctly propose in this analysis, if the capabilities of Metropolitan Barcelona are important are the challenges it must face without delay.

2.-The Barcelona Airport Hub

Barcelona - El Prat airport management depends on AENA with the collaboration of a Airport Cooperation Council that is not considerate as a governing body. This centralized management model has not been an obstacle to its proper functioning. A correct management has been in second place in Spain and the sixth of the entire U.E.

The Master Plan for the Barcelona-El Prat Airport (2017-2026) contemplates the construction of a new satellite terminal connected to Girona airport by high-speed rail. This new infrastructure would place the passenger roof that can use its facilities at 70 million/year, well above the current roof estimated at 55 million passengers/year.

In our opinion, however, these initiatives do not eliminate the need for a fourth track if you want to maintain long -term competitiveness.

On the other hand, the entire area near the airport is in the process of transformation in accordance with the provisions of the “Real Estate Plan of the Barcelona-El Prat Airport”, a project that has been highly valued at European level and that will allow establishing a business and logistics complex and an area of ​​economic development linked to airport activity and innovative companies (industry 4.0).

Even if in this case the centralized management system has been successful, we understand the creation of a specific management body with the participation of the AMB.

3.-The port of Barcelona

Barcelona has one of the most important ports of the Mediterranean due to the volume of container traffic, it is the first port of the Spanish Mediterranean for the value of the goods that travel through it and has become the first cruise port in Europe and the fourth in the world. The connection of the port with the Free Zone and with the Pedrosa industrial estate constitutes one of the most important industrial and logistics parks in southern Europe.

The Port Board is a cooperation model between interested public administrations and business and union organizations.

However, the Association of Chambers of Commerce of the Mediterranean (ASCAME) records that maritime traffic that circulates through the Mediterranean is a flow between southern Asia and the ports of northern Europe. Only 23% of the merchandise that circulates through the Mediterranean is disembarked in Mediterranean ports, 77% remains by Gibraltar and/or Suez towards their destinations.

Competing for a greater quota of this maritime traffic requires improving the Puerto-Aerepuerto-Ferrocarril connection, thus creating the profitability conditions for the land movement of goods, a purpose that presupposes a significant increase in the land movement of merchandise used the railroad, reducing the use of trucks except for short distances.

Only from a metropolitan vision of these problems can make their solution possible.

4.-The Mediterranean corridor

The execution of the "Mediterranean Corridor" is essential to maintain competitiveness and increase the social cohesion of the entire Spanish Mediterranean aspect: Andalusia, Murcia, the Valencian Community and Catalonia represent about 50% of Spanish GDP, 55% of its industrial production and 60% of Spanish exports to the U.E.

It is not just about facilitating passenger traffic but of connecting in this route ports, logistics knots and industrial centers, increasing the volume of goods transported by rail can be a significant competitive advantage in the immediate future and is a complementary objective to the previously commented on the collection of international maritime traffic from Mediterranean ports. In 2017, only 5% of the goods are transported in Spain by rail, the Mediterranean axis could raise that percentage to 15%, approaching the European average and thus decreasing the volume of CO2 emissions very significantly.

It is not a defined objective with metropolitan, regional or state optics. It is a defined objective with European optics. The Mediterranean corridor would allow connecting (viaTrans European Network Railways) Algeciras with Stockholm with a 3,500 km route that would connect 250 million citizens of the U.E., more than 50% of its population and more than 66% of the GDP of the U.E.

There is no doubt that we are also here, before a project that demands collaboration between all interested public administrations, a collaboration that does not seem conceivable from confrontation or mutual disdain.

VIII.- TO REPINED THE GLOBAL BARCELONA

1.-The future is not written

This work is not intended to be a complete catalog of potentialities, capacities and needs of the “real” Barcelona city that is, in opinion shared by all experts and declared by all politicians, Metropolitan Barcelona.

The associations, people and entities that have collaborated in multiple sectoral or global meetings and who have given their collaboration for their execution and writing have only intended to attract attention to an administrative level, the Metropolitan, which has been the great forgotten in the whole of Spain and, as we have seen, the least known and worse treated in Catalonia. This situation attracts attention in a global world that is increasingly configured as a network of megacities that generate innovation, ideas, projects and thus become path to the future.

A future that is certainly not written. He is not for anyone. Nor for us.

We have not always been a territory or a rich society by comparison with other territories or societies of our environment, we have alternated periods of prosperity with others of decay. We cannot consider obvious and unquestionable that our relative current wealth will be preserved forever. We know that good governance is a necessary condition to follow the path of success, but we also know that a deficit in that governance can mean economic decline and a social disaster.

We lost, against all prognosis the new EMA headquarters, we have gone from the 8th to 15th in the cities evaluation index, we continually read in the local press that have lowered hotel stays in Catalonia or the volume of business in the restoration. They are alert signs and most likely all these signs together mark a trend; We consider, however, that this trend can be reversed and that Barcelona, ​​the “real” city that is at the same time the global metropolis can be an exciting future project again.

We will not get it without improving our governance, without reinforcing the administration of the AMB, without returning to the path of cooperation to all administrations with inevitably shared competences, without greater citizen participation. We will not get it without a zero tolerance system with corruption, without greater transparency or without major resources applied to social equality and solidarity policies. We will not get it to improve the quality of our democracy and without further legal certainty.

2.-What future do we want to build?

Precisely because it is not written we have the possibility and responsibility to decide which future we want to build for the “real” Barcelona, ​​for the “real” citizens that inhabit it, who live in the Metropolitan Space of Barcelona.

And surely, because we live in freedom and in a democratic system, that future project will not be unique or shared by all. It is legitimate to consider Metropolis Barcelona as an ram against a state, it is legitimate to consider it as a lever to build an alternative state, but in our opinion these projects conceive Barcelona as an instrument. It can be legitimate, but it has a cost in the present and a much more important one in terms of opportunity cost for the future.

This work has been done with another purpose, with another plan for the future of Metropolis Barcelona, ​​in which the aspiration to live reasonably happy is more than a chimera and in which to make possible that reasonable happiness is the obligatory aspiration of the rulers of the AMB, of the municipalities that compose it and the administrations of the Generalitat and the State with which we share powers and capacities.

We live a time when the possibility of non -polluting and sufficient energy has become real, in which health sciences advance day by day, in which new means of collective and individual non -polluting transport are continually develop and we also live and fundamentally, in a world in which talent and creativity have become the main creators of wealth.

We have seen that we have the conditions to do so, we want to make a small contribution that stimulates the volunjtad to bring the project to a good end.

3.-The economy of talent, the path to success.

85% of AMB employees work in the services sector; But according to AMB data itself, only 11% do so in the field of creative economy.

During the crisis, new business models based on digital innovation and the use of information and communication techniques (ICT) that allow high business volumes and access to distant markets with small structures with small structures have been developed. We share with London, Paris, Berlin and Amsterdam the leadership of digital “start-ups”.

The new headquarters ofBarcelona Tech CityIn the Palau de Mar, District 22@ and the research centers associated with theBarcelona Institute of Science and Technology(BIST) They are a very positive contribution to the development of these activities, as is the Horizon 2020 program in the Biomedicine area.

We know how to do it and, nevertheless, we often play with provocation and with the displacement questioning whether or not it is interesting to keep theMobile World Congress(MWC) In Barcelona, ​​blocking the opening of luxury hotels, while we claim to want to improve the quality of tourism, paralyzing the installation of a subsidiary of the “Hermitage” museum while we want to intensify the cultural life of Barcelona. Attracting talent means eliminating administrative barriers and using the resources of public administrations to facilitate the activity generating wealth.

An area in which a positive attitude of the administration is essential is tourism. Perhaps some of our rulers have forgotten that tourism is a relatively old phenomenon in some areas of Catalonia, but very recent in the city of Barcelona and even more in the rest of the metropolitan territory. However today the AMB receives more than 10 million tourists a year, 2.7 million of them cruisers. The sector is 120,000 direct workers who serve 30 million overnight stays per year and suppose 12% of GDP.

We can consider that these jobs are not, mostly highly qualified, but eliminating them many can lose everything, losing how little they have. We can consider that tourism has costs or that it is necessary to improve the quality of our tourism, but administrative obstacles will not solve that problem and are creating a recessive trend.

The global city is a polycentric, multisectoral city in which the new economy coexists with traditional sectors and in which administrations cooperate and drive instead of fighting and curbing growth. One of the sectors that seems necessary to strengthen is the world of knowledge. We have first level centers at state scale, but the reference frame must be much broader. This is a field in which the collaboration between administrations is substantial, although the areas in which this collaboration is more fruitful are frequently known. The Syntrotron Alba and the Mare Nostrum supercomputer are clear examples of it.

In the same sense, the celebration in Barcelona of the “IoT’s World Congress” (the World Congress of the Internet of Things: IoT) on October 16, 2018 is deserves The Fira de Barcelona continues to show an important capacity for tune with progress and is part of the social capital of Ciudad Global Barcelona.

4.-A hopeful conclusion

With effort and fatigue we have made and sometimes multiple the path that leads to the top. With pain and resignations we have fallen into moments of economic depression and social regression. We have the resources we have and the ability to use them efficiently.

It makes no sense to live in the melancholy of what could be and it was not, nor live a present "past patients" with the result of making the construction of the future we want impossible and that we think we deserve.

We live in an open world and in full development of the information society. Metropolis Barcelona is an agent in the nodal cities network, but we go out to that open world asking to look at us, to understand us and help us instead of going out to look, to understand and help, that is, instead of learning.

From Barcelona Federal District we will continue working to improve, through concrete proposals, the quality of our governance and cohesion of our society, offering our fellow citizens a forum for collective reflection that nobody excludes.