Collaboration and experimentation at the Bloomberg CityLab summit in Madrid

Summary

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The Urbanist – Collaboration and Experimentation at the Bloomberg CityLab Summit in Madrid

Monocle Podcast | Host: Andrew Tuck | Episode Date: April 30, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Urbanist is a special report from the Bloomberg CityLab Summit in Madrid—a global gathering of city mayors, urban planners, and innovators focused on creating better cities through collaboration and experimentation. The episode delves into the challenges and solutions surrounding civic trust, workforce renewal, youth engagement, climate action, participatory governance, and housing innovation. Correspondent Carlotta Rebelo presents interviews and insights from policymakers, nonprofit leaders, and mayors shaping the future of urban life.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Strengthening the Public Sector Workforce

Featuring: Caitlin Lewis, Executive Director, Work for America

(Timestamps: 02:40–07:00)

• Challenge: US city governments face persistent hiring challenges for critical roles (e.g., finance, operations), with government hiring processes averaging 130 days vs. 35 days in the private sector.
• "Reshuffling the Pie": Current hiring often pulls staff from neighboring cities rather than attracting new talent to government careers.
• Brand Problem: Local government struggles to market itself as an attractive career choice for young people.
• Solutions:
  • Recruitment campaigns featuring positive, non-partisan civic impact stories (via partnerships with TED and influencers)
  • Workshops to help cities define their unique employer value proposition (e.g., Chattanooga’s collaborative city identity)
  • New recruitment and retention tools centered on employee purpose and shared citywide missions

Notable Quotes:

• “Government has a brand problem. We are undergoing an effort to really change how government shows up in the culture.”
  — Caitlin Lewis [04:48]
• “We're no longer just reshuffling folks from city to city, but actually growing the pie of folks who are excited to serve in the public sector.”
  — Caitlin Lewis [03:19]

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2. Restoring Trust and Mobilizing Youth for Climate Action

Featuring: Patricia E. Harris (CEO, Bloomberg Philanthropies); James Anderson (Government Innovation Program, Bloomberg Philanthropies)

(Timestamps: 07:00–12:51)

• Program Spotlight: Expansion of the Youth Action Climate Fund (YACF), reaching 300 cities worldwide—tripling its reach in two years.

• Goals:

  1. Invite youth into city hall to work on pressing climate issues.
  2. Provide mayors with discretionary resources ($50,000 grants) to fund youth-led climate action projects.
  3. Foster mutual trust, showing policymakers the value of community-sourced solutions.

• Impact:

  • Significant uptick in youth trust and engagement:
    “The young people that participated last time, their trust in local government rose from 61 to 83%, a 22 percentage point increase.”
    — James Anderson [12:15]
  • “The expertise that exists within city halls is incredible. But there’s also incredible expertise in the community. And many of the best solutions come when those two expertises come together.”
    — James Anderson [00:53 and echoed at 08:10]

• Program Design: Two-stage funding—initial grants for implementation, followed by additional funding upon project completion and data reporting. City leaders are required to facilitate bureaucratic support (e.g., permits).

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3. Case Studies: Youth-Led Climate Solutions in African Cities

Featuring: Florence Namayanja (Mayor, Masaka, Uganda); Shelando Shelley Tangala (Mayor, Lusaka, Zambia)

(Timestamps: 12:51–19:07)

• Masaka, Uganda:

  • Youth comprise 70% of the city’s population; engagement includes a dedicated youth desk with Wi-Fi and a representative council.
  • WYCAF funding supported widespread tree-planting, civic dialogue, and improved data tools.
  • “They bring in their ideas, and we incorporate them in our plans … when they see themselves participating, it encourages them and more come on board.”
    — Florence Namayanja [13:15]
  • Ambition: “A clean, green, livable city”—with 25 neighborhoods and extensive greening initiatives.

• Lusaka, Zambia:

  • Climate change challenges: flash floods, drought, and 70% of the city being peri-urban and unplanned.
  • Initiatives: “Planted Tree with the Mayor” program, integrating WYCAF funding, youth competitions, and school engagement to plant and sustain tens of thousands of trees.
  • “For me, I think what has been so good is to see the good results from the young people. And then when we plant this idea into the young people, then we know we are not leaving anybody behind and then the future will be safe.”
    — Shelando Shelley Tangala [17:28]

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4. Civic Participation Beyond Youth: The Lisbon Model

Featuring: Carlos Moedes, Mayor of Lisbon

(Timestamps: 19:27–22:15)

• Citizens’ Assembly: Inspired by European Commission best practices, the assembly randomly selected citizens (ages 20–85) to spend two days co-designing city policies with officials.
• Results:
  • Practical policies generated, such as installing over 80 public toilets and street greening initiatives.
  • Balanced, consensus-driven changes like timed street closures, avoiding political polarization.
• “The Citizens assembly was really a way of co-designing the city with the people in a way that was never done before … absolutely crucial in our strategy for getting people to participate.”
  — Carlos Moedes [21:15]

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5. Housing Innovation: Barcelona’s ‘Rehabilitation as a Service’

Featuring: Michael Donaldson, Director, Barcelona Innovation Hub

(Timestamps: 22:44–26:57)

• Context:

  • Barcelona faces dual housing crises: affordability/access AND outdated stock (dense city, limited expansion, most homes built before 2000).
  • Housing accounts for 30% of city emissions and poses comfort challenges amid rising temps.

• Program: “Rehabilitation as a Service”

  • AI-driven platform guides citizens through barriers in housing upgrades:
    1. Access to information.
    2. Navigating finance/grants.
    3. Reducing bureaucracy/red tape.
    4. Fostering neighbor consensus in multi-family buildings.
  • Connects residents with professionals and city resources to streamline retrofitting efforts.

• “What we want to achieve is to have better conditions for the houses.”
  — Michael Donaldson [26:37]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The knowledge of people, because they are the ones who feel the problems … if not, people don’t do it.”
  — Carlos Moedes, commenting on the necessity of citizen participation [21:45]

• “If young people are doing cleanup of lots, if they're doing different projects … the mayors are required to lean in and make sure those permissions happen in a timely way.”
  — James Anderson on removing bureaucratic barriers for youth [11:45]

• “You have to have a number of people that are randomly chosen. And that is very important because you cannot have groups that are over represented.”
  — Carlos Moedes on assembly design [19:44]

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Key Timestamps

• 02:40 – Workforce renewal & government branding (Caitlin Lewis)
• 07:27 – Expansion of Youth Climate Action Fund (Patricia E. Harris)
• 08:10 – Theory behind youth engagement (James Anderson)
• 13:15 – Masaka youth engagement and programs (Florence Namayanja)
• 16:29 – Lusaka’s youth climate action (Shelando Shelley Tangala)
• 19:27 – Lisbon Citizens’ Assembly (Carlos Moedes)
• 22:44 – Barcelona’s housing innovation (Michael Donaldson)

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Episode Takeaways

• Collaboration, experimentation, and community engagement are the linchpins for successful urban innovation.
• Restoring trust and participation—across all age groups—leads to better policy, stronger implementation, and more sustainable cities.
• Technological and organizational innovation can both open city hall to residents and overcome longstanding urban challenges such as climate resilience and housing.
• Cities that reframe their own narratives, actively invite residents (especially youth) into the solution process, and lower barriers to participation are setting new standards for 21st-century urban governance.

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Transcript

[Sponsor/Arup Representative]

This episode of the Urbanist is brought to you by arup. Arup, the firm behind some of the world's most iconic public and structural projects, works with leaders to plan and deliver the systems that shape how cities and societies function across transport, energy, water and buildings. Arup's approach to design is how complex decisions get made, seeing the whole picture and creating outcomes that work in the real world. Because the future does not just arrive, it's shaped by the choices we make today. Learn more [e-mail] Next Arup Design for what's Next.

[James Anderson]

The expertise that exists within city halls is incredible. But there's also incredible expertise in the community. And many of the best solutions come when those two expertise expertises come together.

[Andrew Tuck]

How are mayors rebuilding trust in the age of polarization? What are some of the emerging solutions aiming to tackle the global housing crisis? This is the Urbanist Monocle's programme all about the cities we live in. I'm your host Andrew Tuck. This week we report from the Bloomberg City Lab Summit organized by Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Aspen Institute. With cooperation between cities high on the agenda, we wanted to get a snapshot of some of the key themes on the table. Monaco's Carlotta Rabelo headed to Madrid for the event and sent us this report. This is the Openist.

[Carlotta Rebelo]

I'm in Madrid this week to attend Bloomberg City Lab, the annual conference organized by Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Aspen Institute. The gathering is an important mark in the mayoral calendar, bringing together city from around the world to discuss the pressing issues their cities are facing today. But most of all, this is a forum that truly promotes collaboration, encouraging politicians to not only learn from one another, but to engage with the private sector, NGOs and the activists in the room. Looking beyond that bubble can be tricky sometimes, and that's where organizations such as Work for America come in. A fairly new enterprise that this nonpartisan nonprofit is helping state and local government attract talent and recruit precisely from outside of their comfort zone. As the Executive Director Caitlin Lewis told

[Caitlin Lewis]

me, if you talk to any mayor attending the conference here in Madrid, they will tell you that their city governments are powered by people. But cities across the country, at least in the United States, have been struggling to hire for some really critical roles for quite some time now. Roles ranging from finance and accounting, staff, operations, frontline roles, the jobs that are really the backbone of our communities and of service delivery. So Work for America is a relatively new Nonprofit started in 2024, focused on really strengthening the local government workforce. And in Particular inspiring a new generation of Americans to choose government as a career path.

[Interviewer (possibly Andrew Tuck or another host)]

Just paint a picture of the challenges.

[Caitlin Lewis]

There are myriad challenges to hiring in local government, and often they come down to process. So it takes an average of 130 days to hire into a local government role. That's compared to about 35 days in the private sector. So it takes significantly longer to hire in government, and that not only leaves vacancies open longer, but it just keeps people out. If you're in a hiring process that takes six months and you haven't heard anything, you may assume that you didn't get the job and move on to other things. So a lot of the work that we do focuses on working directly with governments to approach a reduction in time to hire as one of the key challenges facing governments. But then we also see a lot of talent reshuffling between governments. So often if a city needs to hire a director of parks and recreation, they're going to go to their neighboring city, offer a little bit more money, and take the parks and rec director from their next door neighbor, who then has to go hire a parks and rec director. So we're also really focused on inspiring the next generation to choose government and to help get them into the pipeline to government jobs so that we're no longer just reshuffling folks from city to city, but actually growing the pie of folks who are excited to serve in the public sector.

[Interviewer (possibly Andrew Tuck or another host)]

Often one of the challenges that cities face is also when it comes to interest from talent, you know, young people entering the workforce, even thinking of the public sector and city halls and municipalities as a potential employer.

[Caitlin Lewis]

Yeah. So I'll say simply that government has a brand problem. We are undergoing an effort to really change how government shows up in the culture. So we have a partnership with TED and work with creators and influencers who focus on a whole range of topics to help tell positive stories of things working in communities that don't wade into partisan politics. I think young people in particular want to have purpose and impact in their career, and there's no better place to do it than in local government. And so we're trying to really help them see government as a place where they could imagine actually not just having a job, but building a career and really, actually having a tactical impact on the communities that they live and work in.

[Interviewer (possibly Andrew Tuck or another host)]

And from the local government side, are you able to help with that issue of branding? It is important to have that conversation about how it can position itself, perhaps change the terminology of certain jobs, or rethink how departments can be formed to attract this young talent you're describing.

[Caitlin Lewis]

It's a great question. And we do a lot of work with cities actually thinking about their employer brand. So you have your employer brand and then the expression of that brand in your employer value proposition. So how do you explain the way in which you want to show up as an employer and really kind of state the purpose and goal and mission of doing work in a particular city? So a good example is we worked with the City of Chattanooga. We brought together about 20 city employees from all different departments. Some had been with the city 30 years, some had been with the city for three months for a workshop and dialogue around why they choose Chattanooga. Not why do they want to work in government, why do they want to do mission driven work, but why the City of Chattanooga and why do you want to work on behalf of your neighbors and in your community? With that, we helped them build out this employee value proposition statement and helped create some really compelling recruitment materials that they're now integrating into a brand new recruitment website and also training their city workforce on the employee value proposition and using it as not just a recruitment tool, but also a retention tool to make sure that everybody who works for the City of Chattanooga has a shared understanding of why each other does the work.

[Carlotta Rebelo]

The theme of trust in government was something that kept coming up throughout the event. So it's no wonder that Bloomberg Philanthropies have been hard at work trying to find solutions. One of them is through Youth Engagement and the Youth Action Climate Fund in Madrid. Bloomberg Philanthropy CEO Patricia E. Harris announced the expansion of the program, which will now reach 300 new city halls, tripling its reach since it was first launched two years ago.

[Patricia E. Harris]

We were so impressed by all of this creativity that came out of this program. We knew we had to do more. So last year I was very proud to be there. In Brazil, during COP30, we announced Youth Climate Action Fund 2.0 and we invited more cities to apply today. I am so pleased to share. We've selected 300 cities.

[Carlotta Rebelo]

I wanted to find out more about how WYCAF is supporting municipalities in mobilizing young residents. So I sat down with James Anderson, who leads the Government Innovation Program at Bloomberg Philanthropies.

[James Anderson]

This is an initiative that we first tried two years ago, launched at COP in Dubai and really went big then with 100 cities to do a few things. Number one, to help mayors bring more hands into climate action. Mayors around the world are focused on increasing climate activities and reducing emissions and they need more community support. So this Initiative does that. Number two, we wanted to give young people a pathway into City hall to work on the issue that keeps them up at night. And climate is number one on Youth Agenda, basically all over the world. And number three, we wanted to show city policymakers the value of, of asking residents for their solutions. That's a core principle that the Government Innovation Program at Bloomberg Philanthropies is all about. The expertise that exists within city halls is incredible, but there's also incredible expertise in the community. And many of the best solutions come when those two expertises come together. And that's what the Youth Climate Action Fund has really proven.

[Interviewer (possibly Andrew Tuck or another host)]

What I found fascinating when I heard about this initiative is precisely that is you trying to engage with a core demographic that is tricky to get them involved in what's happening in their cities. Then you add in climate, which as you said, is the top concern around the globe for the youth, and often a lot of that disengagement is because they don't see the city leaders delivering on that. So it's quite a clever tool here.

[James Anderson]

In some ways you could call it a market failure. You have demand in city halls to get more help and more people active on the issue. And you have a lot of people in the community who would love to help but don't see City hall as a viable or trusted partner. I saw a statistic a couple years ago that really shook me. Young people, it was a global survey, looked at City hall and local government as an unimpactful way to make social impact in the world. The numbers are devastatingly low. And what we've seen through the Youth Climate Action Fund is that young people, when given the opportunity, take it. When City hall opens its doors and invites them in, they come. And those young people that participate come away from the experience, seeing City hall with new eyes. They see City hall as a trusted partner, a partner that will listen to them. And their confidence in local government as a problem solving institution goes through the roof. The numbers were so strong on trust that we knew we needed to do a second round of this program.

[Interviewer (possibly Andrew Tuck or another host)]

Well, let's get to that second round because it's a staggering number. 300 cities now will be involved in the program.

[James Anderson]

It is hands down the largest group of cities we've ever invited to work with us at any one point in time. And the program works in two parts. Part one, the mayors get $50,000. It doesn't sound like a lot of money, but it's actually quite significant in terms of discretionary funding that the mayors then can push out into the community for young people who've come up with great ideas so that they have some change in their pockets to implement those ideas. The mayors go through the first round. If the young people get the money, produce the projects, bring back the data, A second check for another $50,000 is issued to the city, and they get to go again. And so it's a small discretionary pool of money that the mayors get to use to award to young people who have ambitious solutions. And so they are both advertising the opportunity. They're inviting young people to come up with their best ideas. One of the other responsibilities of the bureaucracy is to remove barriers. If young people are doing cleanup of lots, if they're doing different projects that require the participation or the approval of the sanitation department or the public works departments, the mayors are required to lean in and make sure that those permissions happen in a timely way.

[Interviewer (possibly Andrew Tuck or another host)]

So when we talk here about youth engagement, it's not just about getting this demographic to help change their city, but also be engaged in the democratic process.

[James Anderson]

The young people that participated last time, their trust in local government rose from 61 to 83%, a 22 percentage point increase. Their confidence in their own ability, their own sense of self efficacy to address environment challenges increased from 65% to 90%. And three in four young people said their city hall values their input. We're trying to create an opportunity for people to see city hall with new eyes, for city hall to see young people with new eyes, and for a new relationship to be born out of that collaboration.

[Carlotta Rebelo]

Now, one of the recipients of the fund is masaka in uganda. Having only been elevated to a City in 2020, new Mayor Florence namayanja, the only female mayor in the country, has big ambitions. With nearly 70% of the city's population under the age of 25, WYCAF became a lifeline to shore up engagement with this core demographic.

[Florence Namayanja]

When I came in to be a mayor, I was looking at how I can mingle, because I'm not at that age, how I can mingle with the youth, and they accept me. In fact, I've succeeded because I set up a youth desk in my office. It has Internet and wi fi. We interact, they come, and we discuss and dialogue about issues that concern them. We have representation. Youth who are elected as youth, who come to council. When we are doing our budgets and setting priorities. They bring in their ideas, and we incorporate them in our plans. That one also is something that is putting us ahead to ensure that the youth are not left behind. They are included and when they see see themselves participating, it encourages them and more.

[Carlotta Rebelo]

Come on board and tell me finally

[Interviewer (possibly Andrew Tuck or another host)]

about some of the projects and the programs. When it comes to greenery and increasing the tree canopy that you're doing in

[Florence Namayanja]

your city, my legacy goal is having a clean, green, livable city. When I joined the Alliance House of Mayors, that's how I was introduced to Bloomberg and the opportunity of getting the Youth Climate Action Fund came timely. When we got that advantage, we have increased on the tree cover because we have planted so many trees. I have 25 walls in the city and in each of the woods we have planted trees together with the youth. The planting of trees has not only excited the communities, but it has increased on the beauty of the city. And because it is visible, the trees are growing, we boast about it. The other thing is the data tools that they are giving us. They are sensitizing our staff on the importance of data and how we can utilize it. That also is an addition and something I am proud of in my leadership

[Carlotta Rebelo]

elsewhere in the region. Lusaka Mayor Shelando Shelley Tangala was one of the first to embrace the idea. The Zambian capital is feeling the literal heat posed by climate challenges, from rising temperatures to flash floods and then periods of extreme drought. Climate action has become a marquee point of her mayorship, making Bloomberg philanthropies an obvious partner.

[Shelando Shelley Tangala]

Lusaka is a city that is not exempt from climate change challenges. We suffer from climate change issues just like many other cities in the world. And Lusaka being a city that is on a rock means that when we have flash floods, which we suffer from a lot of times, the water goes down very slowly then apart from that, we think that it's important to engage the youths because we are 70% peri urban. So it means that 70% of our city is unplanned. And if we don't involve the youths, then we're going to have a challenge in the future. As mayor, I've had a challenge with really communicating and convincing the adults. So what I decided under the mayor's office is to introduce a program called Planted Truth. The Mayor so when we received funding for WYCAF from Bloomberg philanthropists, which we are very happy and very thankful for, we looked at the groupings of 14 to 24 those that are dealing in climate change issues. In the first phase we had 11 winners and the second phase we had, I think about 24 winners. So what we've done is that same grouping from the Wycup we've been Going into schools where we could plant trees and we know that there's water already and then the schools can continue watering the trees. Then the kids look forward to water the trees and then get a fruit at the end of it. This has worked so well because during the rainy season, those same youth groups I've been planting trees around the city with the mayor. So I've combined planted tree with the mayor with the wycuff and we've been working along side by side. For me, I think what has been so good is to see the good results from the young people. And then when we plant this idea into the young people, then we know we are not leaving anybody behind and then the future will be safe. So it's been a very successful program. But at the same time, I must say that with the fund that we received and the 36 groups that received the funding, we've covered over 20,000 people. So that's very good for the city. We've been really going out there, using the youth groups to also educate the people on adaptation and resilience.

[Interviewer (possibly Andrew Tuck or another host)]

And Mayor Chintangala, I just have one last question, which is, what is the thing you love the most about your city?

[Shelando Shelley Tangala]

Lusaka is my hometown. I was born, I went to school in Lusaka and I've worked in Lusaka. So it is my hometown. And I want to see a green city. I want to see a city that is so safe for people to live and work in. And I think the best job that any politician can have is being a mayor, because you are really the front line of communicating with people, sorting out their issues.

[Carlotta Rebelo]

But civic engagement is not limited to climate nor to a younger demographic. The benefits of engaging with the community can have a tremendous impact in the city they call home. Something that more mayors are keeping keen to embrace. One such example is the city of Lisbon, where Mayor Carlos Moedes decided to create a citizens assembly.

[Carlos Moedes]

When I was in the European Commission, I actually studied a lot of models for citizen assemblies and citizen participation. So I wanted to apply in my city. And what I've learned is that you have to have a number of people that are randomly chosen. And that is very important because you cannot have groups that are over represented. So what I did was basically to send around 25,000 letters to people in Lisbon randomly and ask them if they wanted to participate. And so the people that received the letter, they could answer back or not. Some didn't, some did. And then we would put a group of around 50 people, they would come for two days to the municipality they didn't know each other. That would go from, I don't know, 18 or 20 years old to 85 years old. And then they would get together in the first day, we divide them in groups with the public servants, and then they would look into ideas, ideas that they had for the city. And the public servants would challenge that, because some ideas you cannot do, or there's a problem, or people don't even know that is not possible. And so with that, we did that for four years. And it was amazing because from that there was a lot of great ideas that came up and ideas that today are part of Lisbon. I'll give you the example of like public toilets. I mean, we didn't realize that we needed more public toilets. And so when people came saying, no, we need more public toilets, then, we actually now created more than 80 public toilets that people enjoy because they knew they needed, but we were not that aware of that, or people that came to us with the idea of putting a tree in each corner of the city. It's not that easy, you know, because some corners, you cannot do it by different reasons or engineering reasons or architectural reasons. But we started doing that, and that was also a fantastic idea that comes from the people, from the people of Lisbon, or closing a square or a neighborhood for the weekend or for Sundays so people can walk. So people were not asking to close the street every day, but they were asking to close the street on Sundays. And it's interesting because, you know, this wall that is very polarized, some of the political parties were saying, this street, we have to close it always. And some people were saying, no, no, we need to open all the time for the cars. And actually people were in the middle. I think that people are very smart, the knowledge of people, because they are the ones who fill the problems. And so the Citizens assembly was really a way of co designing the city with the people in a way that was never done before. So for us was something that it's absolutely crucial in our strategy for getting people to participate. If not, people don't do it.

[Carlotta Rebelo]

Now, it would have been remiss to discuss the future of city living without turning our gaze to housing. And a city that knows well just how much it can impact quality of life is Barcelona. But even here, the municipality recognizes that one of the paths to solving the crisis is by engaging with the residents. The result is a new program called Rehabilitation as a Service, promoted by the Barcelona Innovation Hub, which is part of City Hall. I caught up with its director, Michael Donaldson.

[Michael Donaldson]

The agency belongs to the City hall of Barcelona and our main focus is looking for innovation that help us to resolve to tackle the different challenges that modern cities, complex cities such as Barcelona, but many other in the world are facing at the beginning of this 21st century. We've got problems that we didn't have like 25 years ago, such as climate change, energy, mobility, the impact on AI digital divide, a lot of new challenges that we didn't face, as I said 25 years ago. And we don't have the same solutions. But at the same time, there are so many digital and technological disruptions nowadays that we need to take advantage. We need to leverage all that knowledge that is in our ecosystem in order to solve the public problems.

[Interviewer (possibly Andrew Tuck or another host)]

And tell me then, when you're looking at some of these solutions that you want to test out in a certain way, what are some of the key areas of focus? You know, of course we know that AI is being really disruptive. We know that housing is an issue around the continent, not just Barcelona. There is issues with processes, eliminating bureaucracy.

[Carlotta Rebelo]

So on this list of all the

[Interviewer (possibly Andrew Tuck or another host)]

priorities, what are some of the key things you're looking at?

[Michael Donaldson]

You kind of said it all. It's true that when we're talking about innovation is such a wide world, and when we're talking about urban, we're talking about the problems that are in the city. But I say if we had to focus, we would be talking about housing and climate change. When we talk about housing, I would say that there are two main problems. First of them all would be the access, renting or buying a house. Affordability, that's a big issue. And then there's another one. And that's something that especially impacts in Barcelona because we are such a dense city. We are surrounded by two rivers, the mountain and then the sea that is very difficult to grow. So what we have is a lot, a lot, a lot of buildings, but most of them were built before 2000. So we now have a huge amount of houses who don't have all this technology that would help, first of them all, not to send so many emissions. Housing is responsible for 30% of the emissions in a city. And then we're talking about comfort as well, and especially when with the climate change and the effects on the heat waste. What we need is houses that are more comfortable for our citizens. That means that we need to change the windows, we need to change the facades, we need to facilitate a lot of new resources in our housing. So retrofitting and rehabilitation is the second main problem when we're talking about housing. And that's what we want to tackle with this rehabilitation as a service project.

[Interviewer (possibly Andrew Tuck or another host)]

How does it work in practice?

[Michael Donaldson]

The project kind of starts pointing out what are the barriers for the citizens when they want to rehabilitate their buildings, their houses. And we have found out that there are four of them. First of them all, it's basics. It's like the access to information. You need to know that if you change certain parts of your housing, you will spend less money in energy. It's more healthy even for you, and so on. So access to information. Second one is finance. You need a lot of investment. There are a lot of public grants and there's a lot of money coming from the European Union, the state and the City hall of Barcelona. But you need to access to it, and it's not easy. The third one applies directly to our bureaucracy, with our procedures, our red tape. It's not easy to ask for all these grants and all these permits. So we need to help the citizens to get that finance. And the fourth of them, it is more on the community, because we're talking about big buildings with a lot of neighbors, and they have to come together. They need to get a consensus in order to change structural and common spaces. And it's not that easy. So we found out that four barriers, we kind of put them all together in an AI platform that helps that guide, that goes along with assistants during this process. It even at the end puts them in touch with the professionals that they are working on retrofitting and rehabilitation. So what we want to achieve is to have better conditions for the houses.

[Carlotta Rebelo]

For Monocle in Madrid, I'm Carlotta Rebelo.

[Andrew Tuck]

My thanks to Monocle's Carlotta Rebelo for that report. That's all for this week's episode of the Urbanist. You can follow us for new editions of the show every week. And you can subscribe to Monocle magazine for reports on all things design, architecture and urbanism too. Just visit monocle.com this episode of the Urbanist was produced and edited by David Stevens and also Carlotta Rebello. I'm Andrew Tuck. Goodbye and thank you for listening, City lovers.