Saying a simple "Hello" or "Goodbye" when you meet one of your neighbors in the stairwell or share an elevator. It may seem like a widespread custom, a majority gesture of cordiality, but now there is data to quantify it: in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, 63.8% of people greet each other frequently. Those who cross the greeting border and have a brief conversation frequently – at least ask "How are you?" – are 42.6% of neighbors. Lending oil, salt, and any other kind of favor is only done regularly by 16.1% of neighbors. And when we raise the level of trust, the number of neighbors who share personal problems (8.4%) or who visit each other (only 4.3%) decreases.

Barcelona is an expensive city. It's hot, and it will get much hotter. There are countless people on the sidewalks, on the subway platforms, on the beach, on La Rambla, in the shopping centers. And yet, it's a city that captivates. The city forges bonds as deep as a landscape or a farmhouse. And precisely because this sense of belonging exists, it's important to connect the past we've inherited with the future we're going to build. the metropolitan urban master plan The fact that (PDUM) has received more than 5,000 comments is indicative of how much the city matters to us.

AstraZeneca, Hipra, and Sanofi are some of the names of the laboratories that the citizens of Catalonia began to learn about as a result of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Since then, in just four years (between 2020 and 2024), up to 23 hubs Digital and healthcare excellence companies have established themselves in Barcelona and its metropolitan area, solidifying the Catalan capital's position as a leading hub for healthcare investment. The arrival of these companies has generated up to 5,000 new jobs and positioned Barcelona as the only Spanish city to appear in the EMEA ranking—which encompasses Europe, the Middle East, and Africa—for attracting global healthcare investment. This is one of the main conclusions drawn from the report. The Barcelona metropolis. Investing, working and living in 2025The study, presented this Tuesday by the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, compiles data from over 80 different indicators. According to the study, which shows that the greater Barcelona area has climbed to 12th position among the capital cities attracting the most investment in healthcare, at a level very similar to Zurich, Munich, and Dublin, but still far behind London, Paris, and Cambridge, which lead the rankings. Barcelona's position improves even further, to 9th, when we look at the health technology companies subsector. More companies and a stronger position also translate into greater talent attraction, more research, and more publications. The Barcelona metropolis has established itself as the ninth European region in scientific output and the 50th in the world. In 2023 alone, more than 1,500 articles were registered, representing 25% of the total published throughout Spain. The life sciences and health sector also attracted more than 25,500 graduates (with bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees) in scientific fields that year. And overall, Catalonia maintains its 3rd position in Europe in the number of "highly cited" publications per million inhabitants regarding advanced therapies, only behind Switzerland and the Netherlands. During the presentation, the president of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, Josep Santacreu, argued that to maintain this level, Barcelona must further strengthen its overall vision. "Our future involves presenting ourselves to the world as a metropolis that is larger than just the city of Barcelona," he said. From the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB), the vice president for social and economic development, Jordi Valls, emphasized the importance of public-private collaboration and asserted that the success of the health sector also brings "direct benefits" to citizens: strengthening the public health system and improving the salary structure.

The drinking water tariff will increase in 2026 by 2.9% (approximately €0.40/month) in the 23 municipalities of the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB) supplied by the metropolitan public-private company Aigües de Barcelona, and between 2.9% and 5.8% in the six municipalities where the supply is provided by the company itself. The remaining tariff conditions, such as consumption blocks and the social tariff, will remain the same as in 2025. The AMB, which approved this increase at its November metropolitan council meeting, explained that the updated tariffs reflect the approximately 7% that users pay for the purchase of this water (at the wholesale level) from Aigües Ter-Llobregat in the metropolitan area. Three other factors also influence the increase in the final tariff: a €0.5 million increase in an investment fund to carry out works resulting from the drought period—reaching a total of €8 million—various actions in the commercial cycle, and the increase in inflation.

There are two years left until the municipal elections, and the parties are already mobilizing to address their electoral black holes and maintain their strongholds. This is the case of Junts, which held a municipal convention this Saturday in Vic, one of its strongholds, where it addressed a document on tightening the electoral roll. as the ARA advanced, They have worked on a lobby of mayors, and now the party has adopted them. They intend to reform the law so that, for example, illegal occupations are excluded from the registry, as well as those without a "qualifying title or proof of residence," which would also exclude from the registry people who report that they are in municipal facilities. David Saldoni resigns from all party positions, responsible for municipal policy and deputy in the general secretariat, after a political career in the space of Junts and CiU since 1999.

Socialist Government's handbrake on the ambitious plan to create deterrent macro-parking lots - or park and ride, in its English name—which had been designed by the previous government of Junts and ERC and which was intended to relieve car congestion in Barcelona. The obvious failure of the first of these macro-parkings, which was inaugurated last summer in Martorell, has led Salvador Illa's executive to halt the thirty projects that had been started and to rethink the need for these large infrastructures, which were supposed to be a stimulus to improve mobility and reduce pollution in the metropolitan area.

Joan Anton Solans, once the General Plan for Barcelona (1976) was drawn up, which is still in force today, carried out an intense urban management action in the City Council, which incorporated so much public land that the subsequent democratic city council received a fabulous inheritance. And two years before the plan, in 1974, the Metropolitan Corporation of Barcelona had been created, the predecessor of the current Area (AMB). He then repeated the move as General Director of Urban Planning of the Generalitat, with the creation of Incasòl, which operates throughout Catalonia. There has never been a similar action on the Trinitarian front of planning, management and institutionality. And that was half a century ago.

It is not easy to find such a large stretch of undeveloped land in the middle of Barcelona's dense metropolitan area. The 400-hectare Parc de l'Alba in Cerdanyola del Vallès, next to Sant Cugat, is to be completely transformed over the next decade. The consortium formed by Incasòl and the Cerdanyola City Council plans to build a new neighbourhood with 5,733 homes where 15,000 people could potentially live. It will also include a business area around ALBA Synchrotron and create a commercial area and a large park that will occupy 200 hectares.

"Barcelona is more unequal than before. Despite the periods of growth we've had, poverty rates have not gone down", says anthropologist José Mansilla. Most of the most vulnerable areas of Catalonia are concentrated in the metropolitan area, along the Llobregat and Besòs rivers, while in the center of the Catalan capital, with the exception of Raval and Barceloneta, according to Mansilla, there has been a process of gentrification that has driven many low-income residents to the outskirts of the city.

More than 60,000 vulnerable families in the metropolitan area of Barcelona will be able to benefit from a 100% rebate on the first two sections of the water bill with a social tariff, which will mean a progressive increase of 1.5% on average for the rest of users.