AMB, 15 years doing everything that is taken for granted

Spatial planning, urban planning, infrastructure of metropolitan interest, transport and mobility, environment and sustainability, housing, economic development, and social cohesion are part of the DNAof one of the administrative entities that most strives to rationalize and simplify governance and provide service to the 36 municipalities of the metropolitan territory: the AMB.

The Barcelona Metropolitan Area is now celebrating its 15th anniversary. Heir to the former Commonwealth of Municipalities, the Metropolitan Transport Entity (EMT), and the Metropolitan Environment Entity (EMSHTR), it was approved by law of the Parliament of Catalonia and created in 2011 to plan essential public services for metropolitan citizens. Since then, the AMB has been in charge of everything that, as summarized by the motto with which it claims its work, we often take for granted.

The AMB manages essential public services that far exceed strictly municipal logic, and serves the 3.4 million inhabitants of this city of cities, of 636 km², which concentrates 42% of the population and 52% of the GDP of Catalonia. At the same time, the AMB has the third-largest public budget in Catalonia, with an amount for 2026 of 2.896 billion euros.

An ordered territorial plan

The entity has competencies in urban planning and makes contributions to the General Territorial Plan of Catalonia, also participating in the drafting and monitoring of territorial plans that affect the area of the 36 metropolitan municipalities. Landscape management and planning are part of its work plan.

In terms of urban planning, the AMB is in charge of the Metropolitan Urban Master Plan (PDUM) and the Metropolitan Urban Planning Plan (POUM), and also participates in the Urban Planning Commission of the Barcelona Metropolitan Area. The entity intervenes in project planning, execution of works, and the maintenance of parks, beaches, natural spaces, facilities, and infrastructure linked to mobility.

Mobility and environment

In addition to planning and management, the AMB has jurisdiction over collective urban surface public transport, except for the tram system, the provision of metro services and underground public transport, the regulation of taxi services, promotes sustainable transport, manages the Barcelona ring roads, and intervenes in the Metropolitan Urban Mobility Plan.

Competencies regarding the environment are linked to three areas: the water cycle, waste, and environmental services. It is responsible for the supply, sanitation, and purification of water, regulates water tariffs, treats and coordinates municipal collection systems, and acts against climate change, for the energy transition, and environmental education.

Affordable housing

For years, the AMB has led the criteria for land and affordable, quality housing policies established by urban planning legislation, facilitating affordable access for purchase or rent. It does so by delegation from the metropolitan municipalities and to ensure inter-municipal solidarity.

Another of its objectives is to grow the metropolis's economy and generate jobs and equal opportunities through the creation of companies in the fields of industry, commerce, services, and tourism resources within a metropolitan strategic plan for modernization, research, and innovation.

For a supportive coexistence

The AMB promotes and fosters policies of civic coexistence to achieve cohesive and solidarity-based metropolitan development, in which the benefits and costs of living in the metropolitan environment are distributed equitably among its inhabitants, regardless of the municipality in which they live.

There are things that happen every day and seem normal. Turning on the tap, taking the bus, walking through a park, enjoying a well-kept beach, cycling along a safe path, breathing clean air, and the AMB has been working for 15 years to make all of this possible.