Executive summary Barcelona is the capital city of Catalonia. It is well known both Helsinki (Finland), Manchester (UK), and Vienna (Austria; see as a tourist city with a strong brand and as a leading smart Chapter 7) (European Parliament, 2014).1We can also classify city. In 2017, the biggest event that happened in Catalonia was Barcelona as a transversal city because it has developed the independence referendum, which the Spanish Supreme projects focused on areas such as telecommunications Court held to be illegal. Moreover, in 2017, around 74 percent networks, urban platforms, and intelligent data (the Open of people were dissatisfied with democracy in Spain, and Data BCN portal). within that sample, 81 percent of Catalans were disappointed too (Dorothy Manevich, 2017). Barcelona’s smart city agenda rests on two pillars. The first pillar is digital transformation. This pillar focuses on how the A city that has had renewed success in attracting tourists city’s government should make use of technology. The core since the 1992 Olympic Games, Barcelona has become one of idea is to give citizens and startups access to data. The second the most distinctive international tourist destinations over the pillar is a fundamental shift in the web of relationships between past twenty-five years. Barcelona is the only city in the world city stakeholders. In this case, the aim is to modernize the links with nine UNESCO World Heritage Site buildings. It is also and interactions between public bodies, the private sector, and the fourth most important cruise port in the world. In recent citizens. This shift is therefore characterized by moving away years, however, tourist inflows have raised social concerns from a purely technology-led agenda toward the creation of a and sparked resident-led campaigns against the continuous disruptive city that is capable of undertaking urban projects growth in visitors that the city has been experiencing. involving both private companies and citizens. The expected effect of transforming the city-business relationship is to Barcelona is also a leading smart city. In 2011, it was selected drive local economic growth. Moreover, this new policy, set as the GSMA Mobile World Capital for the 2012-2018 period, up in 2018, should allow citizens to control their own data. and it was awarded European Capital of Innovation (iCapital) The underlying idea of Barcelona’s strategy is to “develop the status by the European Commission (2014) for “introducing digital empowerment of residents,” as Francesca Bria, Chief the use of new technologies to bring the city closer” to its Technology and Digital Innovation Officer of Barcelona, has citizens. stated.2 The city was awarded the Bloomberg Philanthropies 2014 This shift had also meant reworking procurement Mayors Challenge Grand Prize for Innovation. The prize was agreements to reflect that data is something like a five million euros of financing for a digital and community collective good—or, potentially, a right for people. Barcelona “trust network” for the city’s at-risk elderly residents. In municipality aimed to set a new policy able to improve addition, Barcelona won the City Climate Leadership Award the common good. As a consequence, Barcelona has 2014 in the category of Intelligent City Infrastructure for its envisaged a new environment in which a partner company new ICT architecture, which connects the entire city via a single or any stakeholder will transfer good-quality data to the city platform. platform. Therefore, the municipal government can reuse specific data in its open and free-access data platform. The European Parliament (2014) selected Barcelona in its An interesting example could be how all the operators of first group of smart cities. The main selection criterion scooters, bikes, and even ebikes could share data with the city for cities was their running a large number of initiatives platform, allowing entrepreneurs to create new opportunities that address a variety of issues. The European Parliament or business models focused on multimodal transport. This selected the six most successful cities for further in- deep improvement leads to a greater protection of privacy, depth analysis: Amsterdam (Netherlands; see Chapter 2), so citizens and local companies can create value out of it. It Barcelona (Spain), Copenhagen (Denmark; see Chapter 4), is about the optimization of data for business and citizens. (1) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/etudes/join/2014/507480/IPOL-ITRE_ET%282014%29507480_EN.pdf (Accessed in June 2020 and on 13 July 2021). (2) https://www.connective-cities.net/aktuelles/how-barcelonas-smart-city-strategy-is-giving-power-to-the-people (accessed in June 2020 and on 13 July 2021). 82 Quélin and Smadja | HEC PARIS | SMART CITIES | The sustainable program of six leading cities | 2021