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Barcelona Mayor: Place people first in development plans
Mayor of Barcelona, Xavier Trias who is in Hyderabad to attend the XI Metropolis World Congress advised Hyderabad leaders to always place people first. “We need to build a city for the people and with the people, using technology to reinforce its main assets, and working together with the public and the private sector to face the global challenges of the 21st century,”
Xavier Trias, Mayor of Barcelona in Spain, counted as one of the foremost smart cities in the world, spoke to The Hans India about smart cities and the experiments in Barcelona
Hyderabad: Mayor of Barcelona, Xavier Trias who is in Hyderabad to attend the XI Metropolis World Congress advised Hyderabad leaders to always place people first. “We need to build a city for the people and with the people, using technology to reinforce its main assets, and working together with the public and the private sector to face the global challenges of the 21st century,” he said. In an exclusive chat with The Hans India, Trias said transformation of Barcelona as smart city had begun way back in 1980.
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“It all started in 1980 when real visionaries of the city decided to connect two municipal buildings with optical fibre. No one thought that this was something that could be useful and so important, but 35 years later, we have a powerful network that helps us to develop and test the smart services in the city. It was upon this initial network that current smart city efforts were established.” He said in Barcelona, latest technology was already improving urban services like security, public transport, street lightning, parking, waste and water management, as well as health and social care. “We also use new technologies to improve people's well-being and quality of life, through telematics home care, which nowadays provide service to 67,000 users, sensors of smoke, gas and presence in the homes of the elderly and geo-location for people affected by Alzheimers,” the Barcelona Mayor said. “We are developing a new model of economic growth based on technology, urban innovation and advanced services, thanks to the collaboration with the main social and economic actors in our city, developing public-private partnerships and working together with the Third Sector,” Trias said.
He said as a Mayor, he believed that city-to-city cooperation was very important to become a smart city and to improve the citizens' well-being and quality of life with the use of technology. “The Barcelona City Council is happy to share its knowledge and expertise with other cities,” he added.
