As the world’s population multiplies and today exceeds 8 billion people, the planet is urbanising at an increasing pace, and is expected to have more than 10 billion people living in 10,000 larger cities by the year 2100. This has led many nations, companies, and multilateral organisations to engage in a conversation about the future of our cities. The future of our cities is now the future of our species, our civilisation, our planet, and our economies. Urbanisation itself is no longer a choice, the real choice is whether that urbanisation is good or bad. It is crucial that these 10,000 metropolises, as well as smaller cities, are sustainable, equitable, inclusive, safe and prosperous.
At the same time, this century of cities is happening in the context of wider global crises, in climate, geopolitics, biodiversity, conflicts and violence, poverty, segregation, hunger, and ill health. It is therefore urgent to act, and to address the issues that matter most to people and to the planet. It is clear that we can no longer afford to deny, ignore, or fail to act in the face of the pressing challenges that threaten us. Both our economic model and our way of life are materially expansive, socially divisive, and environmentally hostile, and this is causing damage of acute severity, particularly within our cities.
The Urban Revolution Aurrera! Community is an initiative born in Bilbao, Biscay, Basque Country and launched by Bilbao Metropoli 30, a non-profit public-private association, founded in 1991, which brings together more than 140 public entities, private companies, and social organisations. The Basque Government established it as a public interest entity in 1992, and its main function is to jointly address, through long-term strategic thinking, the ecological, economic, cultural and social well-being of the Bilbao metropolis in the future, as well as to promote transformative projects that help us to achieve this mission.
Aurrera! is a special Basque word meaning «forward». It implies an unwavering will to move forward and create unstoppable momentum.
This initiative seeks to build a community of practitioners, activists, thinkers, public authorities, businesses, professionals, as well as allied networks and forums from around the world, to unite in a shared quest to change city making with a disruptive and pioneering approach. We hope that this international initiative to share strategic thinking will become an influential movement for change. It should be capable of inspiring cities to move decisively towards the common goal of being sustainable, prosperous, and human. This implies strategic thinking, vision and clear and resolute principles and actions to address today’s ecological, economic and social challenges.
This project builds upon the foundations articulated by many organisations, networks, and experts from across the world. It arises from a substantial global consensus on the challenges we must address, on the role of cities in facing those global imperatives, and an increasing realisation that the changes we must make are not proceeding with the intensity or speed needed.
We need to undertake and accelerate urban innovations with dynamism and imagination, by reactivating the energy of non-conformism and critical thinking that underpin urban inventiveness. Our cities are capable of creative and innovative transformation, and it is possible to generate sustainable and inclusive development. It is an important transition; one that must be guided by principles, values, courageous decisions and actions. A difficult odyssey, but at the same time a necessary one, because our time demands no less.
Inspired by the words of Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2006, this initiative and the innovations it promotes is structured along three axes covering the economic, ecological, and social dimensions. Yunus spoke of creating a world of zero carbon, zero poverty, and zero exclusion – three inseparable necessities of life as well as their interconnections, which the French sociologist and philosopher Edgar Morin highlighted:
‘…between ecology and the social, a liveable world; between ecology and the economy, a viable world; and between the social and the economic, an equitable world’ (Moreno, 2020)[1].
These three dimensions constitute the WHAT of this urban revolution. The fourth element refers to the HOW – the strategy of getting there, such as: combining the long term and the short term in a balanced, shared, participative and inclusive way; dreaming big, maintaining identity; and innovating in a disruptive, non-incremental way.
Overriding everything is the need to understand that the scale of transformation now required must be a deep cultural change project, if we are to address what really matters for people, cities, and the world. It is about values, mindsets, attitudes, behaviours. It is about the skills we need, and the choices we make, to build a path to a desirable common future. It is the biggest cultural project of our times.
At this crucial and complex juncture, Bilbao Metropoli 30 offers its modest contribution to this shared endeavour by launching our initiative of this international community Urban Revolution Aurrera! This is to be more than a simple ‘good ideas’ sharing network, but a setting for members to convene and to share their aspirations and to highlight path-breaking initiatives in all fields that are being implemented by individuals, organisations, and cities around the world.
To complement this platform, we have launched The Bay Urban Visioning Awards. These will take place every two years, starting in 2024, to recognise pioneering solutions to today’s most pressing urban challenges. The Bay Awards will highlight strategies with the potential to encourage and inspire all those involved in the development of cities around the world. Awarded initiatives and projects will be recognised for their contribution to a long-term, sustainable, and collaborative vision for the urban regions. They will demonstrate originality and impact in one of the five following categories: Horizon Shaper, Partners in Progress, SDG Champion, Prosperity Catalyst, The Bay Urban Pioneer.
The Metropolitan Bilbao revitalization process, as an example, proved that an urban revolution is possible. It proved that public-private collaboration and shared, bold and disruptive decisions can produce far-reaching changes capable of addressing challenges of great magnitude.
Addressing this urban revolution implies critical optimism. It implies opportunity and proactivity. This is why Bilbao Metropoli 30 launches this Urban Revolution to promote strategic reflections that will lead to disruptive ideas and projects that are not limited to improving what already exists. Cities and metropolis are ecosystems, capable of innovating and, as the revitalisation process of Bilbao and its metropolis have shown, capable of building themselves from their uniqueness, distinctiveness, self-reliance, resilience and self-consciousness.
When we say today that we need a true Urban Revolution, we are proclaiming, here, from Bilbao, Biscay, Basque Country, to the world, that human rights and the planet should be the backbone of the decisions we make for our cities.
No time to waste. Let’s start this Urban Revolution now.
[1] Moreno, C. (2020). Droit de cité. De la «ville-monde» à la «ville du quart d’heure». Editions de l’Observatoire/Humensis. Paris