Using more data and more indicators to define as well as possible the dynamics of the metropolis is one of the great challenges posed by the third Rethink Bcn report. The document, Rethinking the metropolis. Activar la metropolis collects the contributions of some professionals from the business, political, social and cultural sectors to ultimately contribute to improving the quality of life of the more than five million inhabitants of the Barcelona metropolitan area. In this context, the report proposes adaptation to climate change and the fight against social inequality as axes for defining future policies.
The report shows that it is necessary to expand and activate the number of indicators that establish metropolitan dynamics. Manage the figures on the evolution of demography, the income of citizens, their movements, their education, their business activity, that of active cultural bodies or registered patents to adjust the management and also make visible the potential of the metropolis.
“Technological development places us in front of a new way of interpreting the indicators”, said Fèlix Riera, director of the Barcelona Society of Economic and Social Studies for Employment Promotion, during the presentation of the report. The event, introduced by Ciril Rozman, vice president of Aigües de Barcelona, ??was attended by Ángel Simón, CEO of CriteriaCaixa; Javier Godó, count of Godó, editor of La Vanguardia, and some of the participants in the conferences and articles that have been used to prepare the report. Among them, Llum Delàs, president of the Roure Foundation, to whom both Fèlix Riera and the president of Foment, Josep Sánchez Llibre referred: “To live honestly in an unfairly unequal world, it is essential to put in place a series of mechanisms because social inequalities are not accentuated”, he said.
The report addresses inequality as one of the challenges – along with data management and climate change – to be addressed. “In an era in which everything is measured, the only area that detects from the front line the problems that will come is that of the third sector”, affirmed Riera, also referring to the contributions of Delàs.
The report sets out two major proposals to activate the metropolis: firstly, rethink it to promote a wider region, favor the integration of new municipalities and facilitate their governance and, secondly, strengthen the public-private relationship, ” essential to face the new challenges”, insisted Sánchez Llibre. To address social inequality, the president of Foment advocated that labor incomes be higher than those of capital and urged the implementation of “a new social pact so that everyone can have more adequate wages and address inequality.”
