BARCELONA REGION SPAIN S GATEWAY TO EUROPE

INFORMATION FOR INVESTORS BARCELONA REGION SPAIN´S GATEWAY TO EUROPE FOREWORD COMPETITIVE METROPOLISES FACING GLOBAL CHALLENGES ON LOCAL LEVEL FO...
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INFORMATION FOR INVESTORS

BARCELONA REGION

SPAIN´S GATEWAY TO EUROPE

FOREWORD

COMPETITIVE METROPOLISES FACING GLOBAL CHALLENGES ON LOCAL LEVEL FOCUSING ON EUROPE - THE COMET PROJECT Above all European metropolitan areas are facing globalisation in form of a dynamical growth of the service sector: the so called process of tertiarisation. Whereas industrial production units tend to move from Central Europe to Eastern Europe and Asia, the service sector is regarded as the future driving force in Europe´s economy.

CHANGING ECONOMY

- CHANGING CITIES

For the cities this process implies a radical structural change with dramatic consequences in many different fields: new demands concerning location of enterprises, town planning, employment ranges, qualification levels, infrastructure, housing or administrative cooperation with companies and investors. Moreover international acting companies are not bounded to a specific national location in particular. Cities and metropolitan areas around the world are competing with each other.

(Competitive Metropolises. Economic Transformation, Labour Market and Competition in European Agglomerations)

Realising the COMET-Project, the European Union tries to frame the complex process standing behind ‚globalisation‘ and wants to give an answer what it means to different European metropolitan regions. In order to meet the different demands of its broad audience (research, administration, planning, investors) the COMET-Project and all its results of research are documented in various publications. The degree of structural service diversification in inner cities and suburban areas in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Strasbourg and Vienna during the last decade were analysed within the project.

Finally, an individual combination of so called ‚soft‘ location factors (e.g. quality of life, housing situation, safety or image) and ‚hard‘ location factors (e.g. availability of qualified workforce, infrastructure or real-estate market) is the crucial point in a companys´ decision to settle down in a certain place. Thus every city has to establish itself as a prime location with many unique sellings points in international competition.

BARCELONA REGION POPULATION AND AREA

These maps show the borders of Barcelona region as a coherent economic unit as it was identified by using a scientific delimination method.

Data Source: COMET-Databases Method: Authors: Date: Code: Cartography:

N.U.R.E.C. Luzon, J.L., Vila, J., Rubio, F. 2004 01 05 map Enichlmair, C., Hagspiel, E., Ganten

Residents (2001)

Area (ha, 2000)

City of Barcelona - administrative boundary COMET boundaries: Inner city Rest of core city

1.503.884

8.612

337.248 1.166.636

1.195 7.417

Subruban area COMET agglomerations total

2.263.357 3.767.241

86.177 94.789

THE MEDITERRANEAN METROPOLIS Barcelona is not only Spain´s door to Europe, but also the main Mediterranean Sea port, which makes the city a huge logistic platform. Barcelona has traditionally been Catalonia’s economic motor as well as its political and cultural capital. Moreover, the city and surrounding areas have attracted different industries, services and population, shaping it into a metropolitan area that represents 75% of the Catalan population. Concerning infrastructure or relocation of industries the whole region has radically improved within the last ten years. And still enough land is available for further developement. Nowadays the city has gone from an old industrial site to a well structured polycentric metropolitan area with an very attractive inner city and a hinterland fullfilling all needs for companies and living.

The great quantity and quality of urban and architectural work carried out in Barcelona during the 1980s and early 1990s has turned the city into a model of urban intervention. This was made possible by the creation of more than a hundred new public spaces, the restructuring of all sorts of equipment, the creation of four Olympic areas and other areas of new centrality and the culmination of a complete modernization and revamping of infrastructures.

Within Barcelona region so called ‘Blue Collar Business Services’ as well as Finance & Insurance companies play a very important role concernig the latest economic development. Their biggest part is located in the outer zones of the metropolitan region. That shows the high degree of specialization of the whole region. For the rest of the core city these two branches are also very important but also Press and Media gain importance, while for the inner city the two most important branches are Consulting services and Telecommunication, Computer and EDP.

The sample for the conducted enquiry of enterprises based on stratified random sampling. That means that the number of interviews depended on the total number of enterprises in the key branches in every spatial zone.

HIGH QUALIFICATION The city of Barcelona has two main competitive factors, the availability of qualified human resources at a relatively low cost and the proximity factors related to the size of Barcelona’s metropolitan market area. This is due to the fact that the city, as the capital of Catalonia, concentrates most of the ‘knowledge dense’ activities. This high amount of highly qualified people would not be found in any other area of the country for such a large zone. By key branches, the distinction of type of qualification shows that the key branches with a highest share of highly educated employees are mainly Press and Media and Technological services. On the other hand, the key branches with a highest share of primarily educated employees are Organizations, Culture and entertainment and Real Estate.

CITY ON THE MOVE STAFFING TRENDS

Comparing Barcelona’s development of staff of the last three years with the average for the rest of the cities, the first conclusion is that the mean percentage decrease is one of the lowest of all cities within the COMET project, although the mean values per zone are really closed to the average. The highest increass of staff has taken place in the inner city, followed by a lesser extent by the rest of the Core City and the Suburban Belt. This tendency for the case of Barcelona could be the result of the revitalization of the inner city policies and its good economic health. The spatial distinctions of Barcelona’s development of staff in the last three years tells that the enterprises in the inner city have had one of the biggest decreases of staff, but also the biggest increases. While the rest of the Core City and the Suburban Belt have followed the same tendency. Per key branches, the development of staff of the last three years shows how the branch Telecommunication and Computing is the one that has had the major decreases of staff, followed by the Blue Collar Services. The Real Estate branch has had a really low decrease, especially if one compares it with the average decrease for all the cities. The key branch with a highest increase of staff is Real Estate, followed by R&D and Technological services, which again does not follow the average with all the cities.

CITY ON THE MOVE

URBAN PROJECTS IN BARCELONA REGION

During the last years, the town planning has had two great focus areas: The development of „22@“ in the Poble Nou area and the Forum 2004 area. The first one, “22@”, is an attempt to act in six great areas, grouped by blocks, and where the intention is to give an urban answer to the needs of modernization and actualization that information technology and communication demand. The initial premise has been: to respect, when possible, the existing urban, social and productive web. Thus enriching the multifunctional City with a good understanding between the new and the old. In the second one, „Forum 2004“, the tendency has been to apply a more partial, fragmented urban design, filled with autonomous objects signed by global, famous architects, that provides conceptual thinking and urban discussions. It is clear that this ambitous operation tries to strengthen the urban project „Diagonal Mar“, a closed neighbourhood that breaks away with what’s been done until now in the City and that is strategically placed in the centre of the new coastal front, which has also been recuperated for the City.

WHAT KIND OF POLICY ARRANGEMENTS FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ARE ADOPTED IN THE METROPOLITAN AREA?

This is a selection of the most important institutions and cooperations within Barcelona Region.

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Public programs (governmental-intergovernmental) Institut Metropolità de Promoció de Sòl i Gestió Patrimonial IMPSOL www.amb/impsol Consorci del Parc de Collserola http://pmpc.amb.es Barcelona Regional BR www.bcnregional.com Agència Metropolitana de Residus www.ema-amb.com/residus/ amr.html Consorci de Comunicació Local www.ccl.es Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona TMB www.tmb.net Institut Metropolità del Taxi IMT www.bcn.es:8885/taxi/ IMTBmenu.html Autoritat del Transport Metropolità ATM www.atm-transmet.es

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Public-private agreements Pacte Industrial de la Regió Metropolitana de Barcelona www.pacteind.org Institut d’Estudis Metropolitans http://campus.uab.es/iermb Torre de Collserola, S.A. http://www.torredecollserola.com



Private-private agreements (e.g. consortia)

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Recuperació d’Energia, S.A., RESA Tractament i Eliminació de Residus, S.A., TERSA www.tersa.com Gestora Metropolitana de Runes

IMPRESSUM COMET (EVK4-CT2001-00050) - An EU-project in the 5th Framework Programme under the Key Action „City of Tomorrow and Cultural Heritage“, co-ordinated by the Institute for Urban and Regional Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Postgasse 7/4/2, A-1010 Vienna. Supported by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. Diagrams by: Marie Bachmann, Free University Berlin Design: Peter Johannes Görgl http://www.comet.ac.at