The deputy mayor of Alcala de Guadeira, Jesus Mora, has a difficult task ahead of him. His town is only 15 kilometers from the famous Seville, the capital of Andalusia. It has majestic historic buildings, but also plenty of building anarchy. It will hardly attract visitors, as it is currently not connected to Seville by public transport. “In the future we want to welcome many tourists, thanks also to the subsidies from the Next Generation EU fund,” Mora tells Deutsche Welle.

To do this, much will have to change in Alcala de Guadeira, as in other regions of Andalucia. Today the city has a green lung around the Guadeira River, but the Atlantic Ocean is a full hour away and the Mediterranean two and a half hours away. The heat may appeal to some northern Europeans, but for most residents daily life in the city becomes unlivable from June to September, when temperatures reach 45 degrees in the shade. Heat is a common phenomenon. This is usually followed by catastrophic flooding across south-eastern Spain. Last autumn alone, 222 people died in the floods in the provinces of Valencia and Albacete.

Embankment against floods

At the same time, the historic city of Seville, the capital of Andalusia, remains unscathed by the floods. As architect Rafael Miranda Ferrer explains to Deutsche Welle, this is because “for many years there has been an underground network of dams, which absorb rainwater that overflows.” The project started operating 20 years ago with funding from community funds. Today Ferrer heads the real estate company Caralca, which is also financed by European funds, participating in the effort to make Seville “climate neutral” by 2030.

A total of seven Spanish cities (Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Valencia, Seville, Valladolid, Vitoria, Zaragoza) participate in a network of one hundred European cities (NetZeroCities), which have set the same goal. They will attempt to follow the logic of the “passive building” on a large scale, which is considered energy efficient, as it maintains a constant temperature throughout the year.

The main goal is to reduce the average temperature in the city center, with tree plantings and new fountains. To do this, municipal authorities in Seville collect rainwater in underground tanks. In total, they will invest 1.7 billion euros until 2030 in the renovation and expansion of the necessary infrastructure.

Measures to avoid “misconduct”

In Seville, the planning also envisages an expansion of the city with ecological and social criteria towards the South, as in the current densely built center life is becoming more difficult, but also extremely expensive due to the “tourism boom” in Andalusia. “Sevilla, One City” is the name of the ambitious plan for the future. Officials say, however, that they still do not know to what extent the EU will be able to co-finance the construction projects. According to Rafael Miranda Ferrer, this is also because Brussels wants to thoroughly check all proposals before approving the disbursement.

In the previous decades, Andalusia was one of the regions of Spain with the most cases of corruption in the construction industry, with the participation of the competent urban planning services. This practice has also been formalized by the High Court of Andalusia (TSJA). Many cases are still pending in the relevant courts.

“Mobility” in focus

In the center of Seville, the authorities are also focusing on transport, as cars have overwhelmed the city and “traffic congestion” is a daily reality. “We intend to expand the metro and the use of public transport” explains Ferrer. The question is whether there is enough time to implement the ambitious strategy.

“For southern Spain, the prospects are particularly worrying and we have to hurry if we really want to change something,” says biologist Antonio Turiel, partner of the CSIC Research Center. As he points out, the Mediterranean Sea is warming faster than the sea average, and so is the Atlantic Ocean. “All this causes more and more intense tropical phenomena” warns agronomist Marcos Gamboa. In his opinion, “the catastrophic floods we experienced this year are nothing more than the consequence of a wrong settlement and agricultural policy”.

Edited by: Yiannis Papadimitriou