Southern European city leaders share strategies for social, environmental and economic resilience

Last week, the mayor of Porto participated in the European Conference of the Urban Land Institute. In Madrid, Rui Moreira joined the panel “Leadership of Southern Cities: Enough Sun for All”, where he shared Porto's experience and strategy to become a more resilient and balanced city, from a social, environmental, and economic point of view.

After fighting the Covid-19 pandemic “with more or less success”, the city “now faces other challenges”, assumes the mayor of Porto. In addition to the “climate issue”, Rui Moreira considers that the mobility and attraction that the city has demonstrated deserve the focus of municipal policies.

Regarding mobility, the mayor stressed that this is not a matter that can be seen only from an environmental point of view. “Sustainability also has to be social", says the mayor of Porto, referring to how the city has “bet on new modes of transport, electric buses and more metro lines” to advance in the pursuit of carbon neutrality, while making public transport “free for young people” and accessible through an intermodal pass.

Asked about the commitment to decarbonization, Rui Moreira considers the intermunicipalization of STCP an essential point, but also brought to the conference the reduction in wasted water – which should reach 10% by the end of the year – the increase in recycling by more than 25% and the commitment to the production of solar energy in municipal buildings, attracting private and other public entities to this mission.

For Rui Moreira, the focus is also on “looking at the city in terms of using public space”, which should be “ambivalent”, in the sense that it should serve everyone: on the one hand, “people who want to walk, use the parks, be with children and ride a bicycle” and, on the other, “roads where all transport can coincide”.

In economic but also demographic matters, the mayor recalled how Porto has “attracted many technological companies that not only want to bring their people to the city but have proved to be a reason to attract much of our talent that had left the country at the end of the university”.

The fact that digitalization and artificial intelligence are changing the type of profiles that employers are looking for is also a challenge in the transformation of the city, which today is the target of “more demand”.

Also related to the greater demand, another challenge addressed by the mayor in the panel he shared with the former mayor of Barcelona, Joan Clos, and the counterpart of Malaga, Francisco de la Torre Prados, is related to the issue of housing.

Considering the “scarce” resources of the Government in this matter, and also having to face “all the European bureaucracy and high prices”, Rui Moreira shared with the Urban Land Institute audience how Porto today presents 13% of municipal public housing, “which we have renovated and whose average income is 55 euros”.

In addition, “we have regenerated the PDM to allow investors to build, committing to a share of housing being made available on the affordable market” and “we are helping families with housing subsidies.”

“But we need them to invest in Porto”, reinforced Rui Moreira, assuring the commitment to transparency: “the rules are very clear and we will be very agile with the necessary licenses if they comply with them”.