But our Bilbao is not only that intensely typical and at the same time modern business heart of the metropolis.
The urban continuum of the municipal complex makes up a civic environment that is intensely alive at all points. Via a broad fabric of 3000 local shops, as well as a solid network of supermarkets and municipal markets, a daily mode of life has taken shape in which there is a trend toward minimizing the need to travel to the downtown area and in which the various districts of the city--from Deusto to Santutxu, from Bilbao La Vieja to Basurto--are becoming areas of urban life with their own importance, with their own social and economic dynamism, and these together make up a mesh of integrated, live, and diverse urban realities.

This commercial equilibrium between a dynamic, attractive city and a practical, commercially efficient residential environment, in which high mobility is afforded by the public transport network, marks a sustainable city, an integrated space of high quality, a place in which to live intensely from day to day and to enjoy a truly enviable quality of life.