Metropolis Observatory is consolidated
| Subject: Indicators, Metropolis
It has published six issue papers and this year it will present a website of global metropolitan indicators
With a publication on the metropolitan financing of public services and policies, Metropolis Observatoty completed in 2018 its collection of issue papers addressing a series of contemporary issues and challenges that local governments face in the metropolitan field.
It also plans to present in June 2019 a consultation space for metropolitan indicators of the 51 metropolises that have been compiled in 2018 and that are now under discussion.
Created at the end of 2016, Metropolis Observatory is a project led and promoted by the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB). The Observatory promotes reflection on the worldwide phenomenon of metropolization in the world, relating it to the implementation of global agendas.
Its main objective is to offer benchmarks for metropolises in order to include the metropolitan perspective into urban governance.
Work areas: publications and indicators
The project structure is two-axed: on the one hand, a collection of issue papers, which address the various trends of urban life from a metropolitan perspective. On the other hand, a system of metropolitan indicators. Once completed this system will allow comparison of objective data on metropolitan realities around the world.
The collection of issue papers of Metropolis Observatory addresses a series of contemporary issues and challenges that local governments face in the metropolitan field. The collection is aimed to enable the construction of a global metropolitan narrative. Last year, the Observatory has managed to consolidate the project with the publication of four new publications addressing different subjects from a metropolitan approach: urban planning with a gender perspective; the blockchain technology to build metropolitan governance; metropolitan finances, and the processes of gentrification and pauperization of metropolitan areas. With these publications, the collection has reached seven volumes, and it plans to grow with four more issue papers during 2019, addressing subjects such as digitization and the internationalization strategies of metropolitan areas, among others.
The system of metropolitan indicators, is a project that Metropolis has worked with London School of Economics (LSE-Cities). During 2018 with the LSE-Cities we have defined a working methodology and the data search work has begun in a total of 51 of the members of Metropolis around the world. The project is currently in a data processing phase, and the results will probably be presented during the month of June. The final objective of the project is to set a space in Metropolis website where everyone can openly view, compare and cross data from all the metropolitan areas, analyzed through 38 indicators defined in the project.