Barcelona mayor calls for ‘inclusive, safe and sustainable’ world cities at UN

Barcelona mayor, Ada Colau, represented the world’s large cities on Monday in New York, during the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development being held in the HQ of the United Nations.

At the meeting, Colau presented the 'Cities for Housing' declaration, which calls on national and state authorities to provide cities with more resources and powers to combat housing speculation and gentrification.

Signed by such world cities as New York, London, Berlin, Madrid, Paris, Mexico City, Seoul and Amsterdam, the declaration’s ultimate aim is for large cities to become more “inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.”

Among the demands made by the cities in the declaration is increasing municipal cooperation, more legal and fiscal control of the housing market, and major investment to improve access to rented accommodation.

"Speculation and right to housing are opposed, it is impossible to guarantee one if the other one is allowed," she said.