What will the connected cities of the 21st Century look like and how will they provide service for even their most disadvantaged residents?
The latest Decoding the New Economy Video features an interview with Antoni Vives, Deputy Mayor of Barcelona, about his community’s journey to become a smart city.
What’s striking about talking with Antoni is how passionate he is about Barcelona’s future and the importance of the city building new industries around the digital economy.
Particularly notable is the administration’s vision for the city which combines Barcelona’s traditional industries, such as the port, with future technologies.
“Barcelona has to become a city of culture, creativity, knowledge but mainly fairness and well being,” says Antoni when asked on where he sees his city as being in ten years time. “I would love to see my city as a place where people live near where they work, I would love to see the city self sufficient in energy and it should be zero emission city.”
“Rather than having a pattern of PITO – ‘Product In, Trash Out’ we should move to what we call the DIDO model – ‘Data In Data Out’.”
It’s a broad view for the future which many other city and state governments will be watching closely.