Barcelona representative at WUF13: Modern metropolitan areas face a range of challenges

Modern metropolitan areas face a whole range of interconnected challenges, including population growth, increasing pressure on transport systems, growing demand for natural resources, the housing crisis and a number of other factors.

Report informs that Eva García Chueca, head of foresight and strategy at the Área Metropolitana de Barcelona, said this at an event held as part of WUF13 in Baku.

"These challenges do not exist separately and cannot be addressed in isolation. They require coordinated and integrated solutions. That is why the metropolitan level is becoming especially important today," she noted.

Speaking about possible approaches to addressing the housing crisis and climate change-related problems at the same time, Eva García Chueca stressed that in the Barcelona metropolitan area, housing is viewed as an element of care infrastructure - as nodes in a broader system of everyday urban life.

According to her, this approach means that housing policy cannot exist separately from other areas, such as access to public transport, the availability of services, the distribution of jobs across the territory, and the development of social ties and quality public spaces.

"In other words, housing cannot be viewed in isolation. It is always connected to other elements of urban life," she added.