The mayor of València, María José Catalá, has established three strategic lines of work with the “Universidad Ciudad binomial”, composed of the Universitat de València and the Universitat Politècnica de València “to address the recovery of the city that has to be carried out hand in hand with the knowledge, science and its universities.”
Catalá made these statements after a meeting he held with the rectors of the two universities, Mavi Mestre and José Capilla, and where he announced that “new chairs and scientific and expert committees will be promoted.”
The first mayor has indicated that, just as was done with the flood of ’57, “I want a defined strategy for the city to also emerge from this tragedy, which takes the pulse of the needs and, above all, redefines its priorities.”
Thus, María José Catalá explained that the first axis of action will address the state of the hydraulic infrastructures, those of the city and its metropolitan area, “to study those that remain to be done and those that would be advisable to undertake more quickly to prevent and avoid floods like the one on October 29.”
The second has to do with economic recovery and, in this sense, the mayor has indicated that “we are already working because the dana did not lead to a drop in the excessive GDP of València and its economy and, therefore Therefore, we want to address future strategies.” And the third is related to the Albufera, which is why Catalá has proposed in the universities that “the catastrophe has to serve as a lever of change to provide a solution to the lagoon. Unfortunately, this is the time to consolidate a job that we spent time reflecting on and that now after the dana is possibly the opportunity to give it a definitive solution.”
The mayor of València has stressed that “these three strategic lines, which will also be addressed from the perspective of the metropolitan area, are those that will define the work of the City University binomial with the objective set in 2025-2027, in which this committee will develop a “a new city strategy where our top priorities will be to protect citizens, improve infrastructure, work on the economy, protect natural spaces and their main strengths such as the Albufera.”
World Children’s Day
On the other hand, María José Catalá has announced that the Valencia City Council has organized a series of school visits to Bioparc for the students of the districts and municipalities affected by dana, which will begin next week.
“We have focused on all the needs of our boys and girls and, for this reason, we have wanted them to recover normality, so taking advantage of World Children’s Day and the collaboration of the park, we will begin a series of outings to do activities and workshops in Bioparc. These visits will begin next week and we hope that they will generate a positive impact on our little ones from experiencing such a negative event. In addition, these outings will be transferred to schoolchildren in the affected municipalities in the metropolitan area,” stated the mayor.