Vila-seca
2050:

Through a strategy driven by city stakeholders, we guided Vila-seca toward a sustainable, digital, and inclusive future, anchored in seven strategic pillars and aligned with the 2030 Agenda.

The challenge

In a rapidly evolving world, small and mid-sized cities face a critical dilemma: how to plan their long-term future without compromising their human scale and quality of life. For these cities, embracing the green and digital transitions—anchored in national and global frameworks—is not just necessary; it’s potentially transformative. Yet doing so comes with significant challenges, especially for local governments striving to maintain a vibrant, inclusive, and welcoming environment.

In this context, the town of Vila-seca—a coastal Catalan municipality of 24,000 people located near Tarragona—set out on a bold mission: to create a forward-looking strategy, Vila-seca 2050, that maps out a clear, citizen-centered path toward a green, digital, and inclusive future. More than a vision, this would be a shared, actionable roadmap built with and for its people.

Our approach

To turn this ambition into a concrete plan, Vila-seca’s City Council entrusted Anteverti with designing its long-term strategy. With extensive experience advising cities of all sizes worldwide, we began with a deep-dive diagnosis of Vila-seca’s current landscape—its strengths, challenges, and potential.

From there, we identified seven strategic pillars crucial to its future:

1. Competitiveness and Economic Development
2. Territory, Urban Planning and Mobility
3. Sustainability, Energy and Environment
4. Well-being, Social Care, Housing and Participation
5. Culture, Education and Sports
6. Innovation, New Technologies and Open Governance
7. Security and Resilience

Each of these areas became the focus of dedicated participatory workshops, bringing together diverse voices from across Vila-seca and its region: local residents, businesses, cultural institutions, universities, entrepreneurs, sports organizations, public servants, and civic leaders. Over the course of seven strategic sessions, stakeholders discussed, debated, and co-created proposals that would shape the town’s future.

We also integrated the perspectives of expert advisors in each domain to ensure the final roadmap was not only inclusive but also rigorous and future-proof. The result is a transversal and consensus-based strategy—designed with purpose and built to endure.

The impact

Thanks to this collaborative process, Vila-seca 2050 now stands as the town’s official strategic framework for the coming decades. It lays the foundation for all future policies, actions, urbanistic plans and initiatives to be developed within a unified, coherent, and inclusive vision — and aligned with the 2030 Agenda.

The strategy outlines 22 key objectives, organized around the seven core pillars, guiding Vila-seca toward a future that is greener, more digital, and deeply rooted in its community values. But more than a list of goals, this initiative has created a lasting internal governance structure—ensuring that progress is monitored, adapted, and sustained over time.

By 2050, Vila-seca envisions itself as a town that is welcoming, sustainable, innovative and inclusive—a place where no one is left behind and where the richness of its diverse community is celebrated and preserved.