In 1988, the then mayor Pasqual Maragall promoted the creation of a technical office that would bring together the main economic and social actors of Barcelona, with the aim of thinking about what the city should be like after the 1992 Olympic Games.

At that time, the seed of strategic planning was beginning to be planted here, a seed that has grown to contribute to making Barcelona a global benchmark. We have been travelling along a winding path, going from planning basic needs to assuming the firm determination to respond to metropolitan challenges. A new approach that was strengthened particularly after 2010 with the constitution of the current Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB).

More than ten years have passed since that turning point and the metropolitan commitment has become essential. The world has changed and so has our territory. We need to go further and take a leap in scale if we want Barcelona to remain relevant in a global context. We have to envisage it, think about it and approach it as the metropolitan region of more than five million inhabitants that we already are.

In this long decade, our challenges and priorities have also evolved. The fight against climate change and its effects, the guarantee of the right to housing, the competitiveness of the economy, sustainable mobility and the commitment that the digital transition leaves no one behind demand coordinated action at the real city level. That is, from the metropolitan city.

Barcelona and its metropolitan area are a powerful centre of economic activity, characterised by the solid presence and dynamism of the industrial, tourist and service sectors. At the same time, however, we are a space in which we still find great social inequalities that must be fought with determination. Urban challenges must be faced with policies supported by metropolitan organisations. And it is precisely in this complex situation where institutions such as the Barcelona Metropolitan Strategic Plan (PEMB) play a prominent role, whose mission is to develop a strategic plan resulting from a consensus with the economic and social agents of the territory.

Transforming the progress model to reduce inequalities in a context marked by the climate emergency has been the central focus of the “Barcelona Demà” process, which, for almost three years, has brought together, under the coordination of the PEMB, a large number and diversity of actors to end up defining the Metropolitan Commitment 2030, the new strategic plan for the real city, that of 5 million, approved in December 2023.

Diversity, identity and our capacity for dialogue and understanding are our main strengths. With tools such as the Metropolitan Commitment 2030, we are in a position to make the decisions that will mark the future of greater Barcelona throughout this decade. Because we want to address and overcome the challenges of today and tomorrow with the same spirit that inspired Barcelona more than three decades ago, when the path towards metropolitan reality resumed.

We will be metropolitan or we will not be.

JAUME COLLBONI I CUADRADO

Mayor of Barcelona and president of the Barcelona Metropolitan Area and of the General Council of the Barcelona Metropolitan Strategic Plan Association