Urban development, Land zoning & Infrastructures

It seems reasonable to extend this territorial review on an especially specific basis to include our hinterland (approximately seven million people), taking it for granted that it should uphold a minimal coherence with the outside, which we shall consider a boundary condition. To do so, we need to overcome the specific restrictions of our devolved regional powers to enlarge our consideration of territory, extending it to our entire area of influence, to our hinterland.

Extending beyond the territorial and legislative framework of the Basque Autonomous Community is only possible by leveraging ourselves on relational notions such as leadership and alliances between regions (or better still, cities). We should be capable of generating a vision of our area of influence in its entirety that manages to identify all the parties involved and is based on a win-win strategy.

This all-encompassing vision implies basic shared goals and a balanced distribution of roles. Our metropolis could adopt a position of leadership that would enable it to gain the utmost value from its specialisation, while at the same time promoting that very process throughout neighbouring areas, managing the territorial-functional model to the highest standards.

The aim is to maintain overall equilibrium and equity, as this is the smartest approach, because it maximises the overall performance of both our area of influence and our own.

If our remit is “to turn Bilbao into a metropolis of advanced services within a modern industrial region“, we should pursue this through the detailed development of each and every one of the features in the three basic dimensions of any city:

Metropolis as a human and social environment
Metropolis as a physical environment and medium
Metropolis as an economic and professional setting