How can smart city networks empower medium-sized and small cities? — by José de la Uz
By | 2025
Cities are dynamic systems facing a myriad of challenges. While implementing innovative solutions —such as a city digital twin— may come with obstacles, this process brings invaluable knowledge that can be adapted and applied in diverse contexts. City networks play a pivotal role in facilitating connections between cities per se, mayors or technicians, and a space to learn from one another’s successes and challenges to ultimate improve the quality of life of citizens, creating more liveable, sustainable and resilient urban environments.
To explore this topic, we speak with José de la Uz, mayor of Las Rozas de Madrid, president of Las Rozas Innova, and president of the Red Española de Ciudades Inteligentes (RECI). With him, we discuss the impact that working in networks like RECI brings to both decision-makers and citizens, and how cities of all sizes can benefit from being a «smart city».
#ExpertVoices | 2025 x E01
Smart City networks: shaping better lives
— by José de la Uz —
Smart cities of all sizes: truth or fallacy?
Smart cities don’t have a specific size. It’s about every municipality, every leader, and every mayor having the opportunity, with their team and depending on the city, to build a long-term future plan. From there, based on the needs and characteristics of each municipality and each territory, it’s about identifying what technology, innovation, and digitalization can be incorporated to ultimately improve the quality of life and happiness of the residents, and ensure that everything is more efficient and sustainable.
When I became mayor, the focus was on what traffic lights could offer to make a city smart. Of course, Las Rozas, with 100,000 residents, doesn’t have many traffic lights. Instead of getting discouraged and throwing in the towel, we focused on our unique characteristics: our geographical spread, our sociological and socioeconomic profile. We worked to transform the administration from within, looking at how to manage our territory and buildings, and how to identify and connect our ecosystem in a way that would attract and retain talent, while also benefiting the city’s overall strategy.
How do smart city networks open up new opportunities for their members?
Working in a network is, first and foremost, an explosion of knowledge, an opening to what is happening. Often, in the office, city officials don’t really know what’s going on. You go out, you see, you listen. And the technicians working in the city, who are motivated and eager to make things happen, they enrich themselves through a network like RECI, which brings together 650 technicians and 150 cities, covering half of Spain’s population. Throughout the year, they share work agendas, collaborate systematically, and meet in person to exchange information and tackle challenges together. This saves money, and working in a network helps you go further.
From networking to creating impact on the street: the experience of Las Rozas de Madrid
The first time I heard about a city management platform based on a digital twin was, of course, at RECI technical meetings, as it was a completely unfamiliar term to me. Since then, and over the years, our work has focused first on organizing our own data, ensuring that our data is clean and prepare the sensors that gather information and feed them into a platform where data must be interoperable to create a digital twin of the city.
And what does this mean? A digital twin is about recreating Las Rozas virtually to analyse what happens if we restrict traffic near a school on certain streets and how to redirect it. It is about simulating digitally the decision-making and then applying those. For me, this is what RECI has made possible.
In 10 years, how would you like cities to be?
I would like cities to be more prosperous, with happier and freer citizens who have more opportunities. To that end, technology allows us to give people more time to enjoy their projects, save them money through efficiency, and create much more sustainable cities by optimizing urban management. Ultimately, what we aim for is happier, freer, and more prosperous citizens.
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Interview and edition by Sergio García i Rodríguez,
Head of Communication at Anteverti & CitiesToBe Executive Editor, and Martina Jané i Curtu, Comms specialist at Anteverti.
Video by Cristóbal Sarría Chitty and Alexis Rivas
About the authors
José de la Uz Pardos has been the mayor of Las Rozas de Madrid since June 2015. Since 2020, he has chaired Las Rozas Innova, the Public Innovation Company of the Las Rozas City Council. Since December 2023, he is also the president of the Spanish Network of Smart Cities (RECI). He was the president of the Waste Association of the southern area of the Community of Madrid from February 2018 to May 2019.
He began his professional career in the private sector, working in tax advisory services. He worked for several years at CaixaBank, a position he combined with his early political responsibilities in the Spanish People's Party, to which he became a member in 2004. Between 2006 and 2011, he was an advisor and head of the Cabinet in various ministries of the Regional Government of the Community of Madrid. In June 2011, he was appointed technical secretary general of the Vice Presidency and, shortly after, also of the Ministry of Presidency, Justice, and Government Spokesperson of the Regional Executive.
He holds a law degree from the Complutense University of Madrid and furthered his education with a Master's in Business Legal Advisory from ICADE and a Master's in Business Administration (MBA), also at ICADE. He completed his training with a Public Management Leadership Program at IESE.
