1 de 3 | Javier Cortés, Javier Sanz, Ana Sancho, Mercé de Miquel i Capdevila, Antonio Ginard and Antonio Deudero. | JAUME MOREY
2 de 3 | The art of communicating in images. Elena Urizar is Visual Thinking, a graphic representation technique that allows concepts to be easily summarised and shared. She has her own company, Visualea. In the photo above, Urizar is capturing in images all those ideas that were developed in the third session. | J. MOREY
3 de 3 | A global success story. Ana Sancho, responsible for the strategic planning to continue changing Bilbao's urban planning, described how the city went from having an estuary that was a "navigable and industrial sewer" to being the new sustainable backbone of the Basque capital. | R.L.
"We are not living in an era of change, we are living in a change of era". Javier Cortés, international consultant for the 2030 Agenda and founder of Coop&Co, began his speech with this blunt statement. He presented and moderated the third session of the first day of the eForum eMallorca Experiencie, which focused on The challenges of the future of sustainable port cities. The return to a concept in which the port is integrated with the city, as was the case until a few decades ago, is a global trend that is now being recovered with updated sustainability criteria. Green public spaces, as is being worked on in Palma's Paseo Marítimo, connect the urban fabric with the port, which responds to the era of digitalisation and the challenges set by Agenda 2030 to adapt the international economic model to the changes that are conditioning it.
Javier Cortés.
JAVIER CORTÉS International Consultant for the 2030 agenda and Founder of Coop&Co
Cortés argued that the world is facing environmental, social and financial limits produced by the economic growth that emerged after the Second World War. "The financial system is exposed in the short term due to the lack of confidence caused by these limits, such as the climate crisis and disinformation; this is what the Davos Forum itself says, the Sancta Santorum of the economy", said the expert, affirming that the recipe against these evils requires stability. The greatest adaptive capacity of human beings is not strength or intelligence, but empathy, he said, quoting the paleoanthropologist Juan Luis Arsuaga. "If we do not put people at the centre, it will be complicated to reverse these limits," according to the consultant, and this obliges companies to be more socially responsible. The 2030 Agenda is the framework for moving towards this future of greater stability.
Javier Sanz.
JAVIER SANZ President of the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands
In this context of transition, the improvement of the port of Palma is planned, which will connect it with the city through public spaces. "In the Paseo Marítimo we had a road that deteriorated the city, but now we are changing the priorities so that we move from traffic to gardens, from aggressive mobility to sustainable mobility, and from cars to pedestrians. It is a giant step forward," he defended. This is a trend that is taking place in the rest of the Spanish port cities and which involves decarbonising and reorganising the use of the docks. Thus, the West dock will house the nautical industrial zone, while the rest will be used for goods and passengers. "I haven't invented anything, it already exists, and there are examples of success, such as the Camins a la Mar port changes in Valencia, the Las Delicias dock in Seville and the integration of the Moll Vell in Barcelona," he explained.
Ana Sancho.
ANA SANCHO Head of Strategic Planning Bilbao Metropoli 30
One of the most paradigmatic cases in the recovery of the model of port cities with a vision of sustainability is the total reconversion of the Bilbao estuary, which has made it possible to transform the Basque capital. "It was a navigable sewer, as one councillor said at the time; the city lived with its back to the estuary because it was not part of what we wanted", recalled the expert. The decline of Bilbao's industry in the 1980s made it necessary to think of an urban and economic alternative for the city, which is already an international example of success due to the effect of the creation of the Guggenheim Museum. The estuary has become an axis of metropolitan development through green public spaces with large parks.
Mercè de Miguel i Capdevila.
MERCÈ DE MIGUEL I CAPDEVILA Researcher at the Eindhoven University of Technology
"It seems like a leap into the future, but we are recovering the symbiosis of the port city for which many cities were born", pointed out the specialist, who has studied in depth various changes that have taken place in several European ports, such as Antwerp, Copenhagen, Rotterdam and Bilbao. This trend is taking place as a physical consequence of the digital era, which is still in its infancy. "A smart city is not measured by the technological devices it has installed; it is one that combines virtual reality with physical reality", he claimed, because urban activities are combined with port activities. In addition, this makes it possible to recover disused spaces, such as large industrial buildings abandoned due to deindustrialisation, which are now being transformed into housing or offices.
Antonio Ginard.
ANTONIO GINARD Director of the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands
"The Paseo Marítimo project was modified thanks to citizen participation; all the actors involved were listened to, such as neighbours, shopkeepers and public and private institutions", he claimed, because during the drafting process of this great work, as many demands as possible were attended to. Both Ginard and the president of the Port Authority, Javier Sanz, insisted that the project being developed in this area of the port could have been better, but that as it is being executed, they believe that it will bring great value to the area and to the city as a whole and that it will benefit residents, visitors and traders alike.
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