The mayors of Spain’s seven largest cities have called on central and regional governments to put social justice and improved investment in public services at the heart of the country’s post-coronavirus recovery plan, saying the crisis has shown the need to “shield the most vulnerable”.

In a joint declaration issued following a meeting earlier this week, the mayors of Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Valencia, Zaragoza, Málaga and Murcia say they must be included in plans to tackle the virus and its socio-economic aftershocks.

“We are in the front line of the pandemic and are taking an active part in the fight against the virus and its consequences,” they said in a communique. “That is why we need collaboration and to participate actively in the decision-making about the distribution of resources.”

Between them, the cities represent eight million inhabitants, half the country’s universities and a quarter of its businesses.

“Representatives of the Popular party, the socialists and other parties all took part and we were all speaking the same language about how to make the best use of our resources and how to cooperate among ourselves,” Ada Colau, the Barcelona mayor, told The Guardian. “This is the future, cooperation and finding shared solutions.”

The group is calling for more spending on public services, lines of credit to help small businesses and the self-employed and cash to make up the losses sustained by public transport and other municipal facilities during the lockdown.

“The important thing now is that our response should be the opposite of the response to the financial crisis in 2008,” said Colau. “The response then was austerity and cuts in public services. We can emerge from this stronger than before if we invest in public services.

“We need to shield the most vulnerable, and I don’t just mean the most impoverished,” she said. “The health crisis has exposed that those doing the most important jobs – health workers, people who supply us with food, those who care for the old and the very young - are also in the most precarious financial circumstances”

She said she believed that when Spanish people step out on to their balconies to applaud those in the front line every evening at eight o’clock, it was a protest as well an act of solidarity and appreciation.

“Public health has suffered severe cutbacks, above all in Catalonia and Madrid,” she said. “People are very conscious of the fact that cuts kill.”

An upside of the lockdown is that vastly reduced traffic has meant that cities such as Madrid and Barcelona have finally been able to meet WHO standards on air pollution – temporarily, at least.

In January Barcelona banned old cars with high emissions from entering the city. Colau points out that her government was criticised for damaging the economy but believes the experience of car and pollution-free city has made people more willing to accept traffic restrictions.

“Everything has come to a stop and it’s a good time to reflect,” she said. “People have seen that we can live without cars and without them we breathe easier. When this virus has passed, we’re still going to have to deal with climate change. We have this opportunity to open public space to people, to cyclists, and make it a safer and healthier place for everyone.”

Paradoxically, she adds, as long as the public has to maintain social distancing it will be safer to use private cars than public transport. Some community groups are campaigning to have a greater part of the streets given over to pedestrians to aid social distancing.

Colau believes this is the ideal time to rethink the three issues that have dominated public debate in Barcelona in recent years – massive tourism, pollution and soaring rents.

The tourism industry says it has effectively written off 2020 and is looking ahead to next year. Visitors will return, but perhaps not in such great numbers and, starting from zero, the city is in a better position to manage the type and numbers of visitors it receives.

Much of the increase in tourism has been driven by Airbnb and similar platforms, which have also been blamed for driving up rents.

“Owners of tourist apartments have already started looking for long-term tenants, which is good news because we’ve always said homes in the city should be for the people who live here,” the mayor said.

“We need to learn from this crisis, because there won’t be a return to normality. There will be a new normality, a chance to do things better, and it’s up to us and no one else.”