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In 2011, former Barcelona mayor Xavier Trias took office after running on a platform of turning the recession-ravaged Spanish municipality into a city of the future.

The team he formed, Smart City Barcelona, initiated 83 projects in 12 areas it thought could be improved through technology including transportation, water, energy, waste and open government. The city invited companies to use it as a living laboratory for their products and services that had the potential to improve urban life.

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It didn’t take too long for Barcelona to come to the conclusion that technology is not the way to solve its most intractable problems, said Francesca Bria, the city’s chief technology officer who has now been tasked with giving Barcelona’s smart cities strategy a complete overhaul.

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“You think, ‘I’m just going to put out some sensors, gather some data and let the technology companies solve the problem.’ This is always failing,” Bria said. “Most of these problems don’t get resolved with a technological fix. They get resolved with a systemic approach.”