MWCC has participated in the presentation of the Urban Strategy for the Economic Activity of Madrid, a document that analyzes the present and the future of the city, identifies the existing areas of opportunity and offers proposals to reactivate old and underused industrial spaces, generate employment, create new peripheral centralities and, above all, improve and offer alternatives to the southern districts.

The strategy developed by the Urban Development Area, which has been presented to the City’s Social Council so that everyone can enrich themselves, arises from the need to reactivate the city’s productive spaces to make room for new economic activities and generate a new territorial balance, which is committed to the polycentric city and the modernization of the urban fabric.

The role of the administration is to favor these changes demanded by society and this is what is pursued with this strategy that proposes some 40 actions, some of them already underway, and seeks to maintain the existing activity in the city and also generate spaces attractive to the new economy. This is based on four key ideas:

1. Redefine the productive use and proximity services: review the role of facilities to host new uses of services to citizens and favor a polycentric and proximity city.
2. Favor the hybridization of uses and the improvement of the urban environment: the objective is to maintain economic activity in the city, but at the same time generate an attractive space for the new economy.
3. Activate the municipal land heritage to promote innovation: municipally owned land will serve to promote new spaces that are innovative in their uses and in their organization methods.
4. Industrial areas and urban centrality spaces: design a comprehensive action that includes urban development at the level of planning and regulations, but also the necessary actions in terms of free spaces, mobility and infrastructure, ecology, landscape and built heritage.

Villaverde, the district with the most potential

The evolution of the Villaverde district has been marked by the presence of large industrial companies. 51% of Villaverde’s employment is industrial. Its territorial position gives it great potential to articulate Madrid’s relationship with the southeastern arc of the metropolitan area, especially with the large cities of the south through the M¬-45, the large exit highways and rail transport.

The actions would pursue integration with the urban environment, overcoming infrastructural barriers and proposing connection axes between business and residential areas; the improvement of the landscape and the provision of green spaces; promote new typologies (mixed buildings, active plinths) and provide equipment and common services for the operation of the business area. It seeks to encourage the industrial estate to be a place of life and community appropriation. Some of the urban voids where it is proposed to act are the urban front of the Toledo motorway, the surroundings of Marconi or the Villaverde Station, among others.

Vicálvaro, new logistics hub

In this district there is currently a predominance of productive industry linked to construction, civil engineering and logistics, in addition to wholesale commercial uses and food. The articulation of the productive area with the residential areas of the historic center of Vicálvaro and Valderrivas is sought, the implementation of mixed uses; improve the urban fabric to favor access from the polygon to the suburban network and improve accessibility from the M-45. Both Vicálvaro Norte and Vicálvaro Sur are potential places for logistics on their different scales, as are the industrial lands of Los Ahijones.

Vallecas, new centrality of reference

Large vacant spaces are identified, but with great potential to become a metropolitan reference center at the confluence of the districts of Puente de Vallecas, Villa de Vallecas and Moratalaz, supported by high-capacity public transport infrastructure.

The objectives of urban regeneration in this area are to generate an attractive space for the new economy and activate its relations and interaction with the surrounding environment. In addition, it is committed to the mixed uses of productive, dotational and residential activities; for strengthening the relationship between the South Campus of the Polytechnic University of Madrid and the fabric of the historic center of Villa de Vallecas, a project that has already begun; for promoting the dynamic role of the Hospital Infanta Leonor as a focus of activity and for improving the entire urban landscape.

Peripheral centralities

The vacant areas analyzed also offer opportunities to configure new urban centralities: Latina, Carabanchel, Tetuán, Fuencarral-El Pardo, Hortaleza, Barajas and Moncloa-Aravaca, allowing progress in the definition of a more polycentric urban structure.

This proposal for new urban nodes is fully aligned with the objectives of the urban agendas and the Recovery and Resilience Plan for Europe, as it seeks to reorient the urban approach towards people, towards greater habitability of neighborhoods, seeking a city of proximity. The general objective is to promote, in the existing peripheries, a polycentric city model that favors a greater urban balance and strengthens the quality of life in the districts.