Fragmented City: International Mobility and Housing in Spain

A special issue of Urban Science (ISSN 2413-8851).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 March 2021) | Viewed by 43102

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Research Group Atlantic Societies and Spaces (GISEA), Geography Department, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, C/ Pérez del Toro, 1, 35003 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
Interests: urban studies; urban planning; tourism; housing; migration

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Research Group Territorial Analysis (ANTE), Department of Geography, University of Santiago de Compostela, Pza. Universidade 1, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Interests: urban studies; urban planning; urban landscape; housing; segregation; vulnerability
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Research Group for Sustainability and Territory (GIST), Departament of Geography, University of the Balearic Islands, 07122 Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Interests: urban studies; urban planning; spatial planning; tourism; Europe; Caribbean; Latin America
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The Spanish economic model was based, from the beginning of the 1990s, on the growth of construction, tourism, and the internationalization of large business corporations. This model had its best expression during the first decade of the present century until the crisis that began in 2008 led to a profound breakdown of its principles. In the context of redefining Spanish capitalism, in the last five years, a new scheme of accumulation has been consolidated, at least until the crisis generated by the current health pandemic.

The new Spanish capitalist model is based on the devaluation of the cost of labor, the development of tourism, an increase in the export competitiveness of primary and secondary products, and the liberalization of the entry of foreign capital into the property market.

The different positioning of the country's capitalism on the international scene and the succession of situations of crisis and economic expansion have had important consequences in the urban sphere. The general tendency is to increase inter- and intra-urban inequalities, which implies the generation of increasingly fragmented realities.

On an inter-urban scale, dynamic spaces are being consolidated, capable of attracting large international investors and population from abroad, while new forms of tourism and innovative activities related to the recent technological cycle are being developed. On the other hand, urban and rural settlements are growing, which remain outside these new trends and maintain regressive demographic dynamics.

On an intra-urban scale, the city is becoming even more fragmented between the spaces of gentrification and those of exclusion. In the former, tourism and new urban projects become triggers for change while in the latter, poverty, residential segregation, and urban vulnerability are increasing. Housing becomes an indicator of this reality insofar as it is a key element in the processes of accumulation, both because of its production and because of its dispossession.

In this context, this monographic issue is will study the new processes that characterize the Spanish city on different scales in recent years. The relationship between these processes and the changes in the Spanish capitalist model and the urban and social consequences that have resulted are of particular interest.

Prof. Dr. Juan Manuel Parreño Castellano
Dr. María José Piñeira-Mantiñán
Prof. Dr. Jesús González Pérez
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • gentrification
  • housing eviction
  • tourism
  • internationalization
  • large urban projects
  • capitalist accumulation
  • poverty
  • urban vulnerability
  • residential segregation
  • urban inequalities

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Published Papers (11 papers)

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Editorial

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4 pages, 213 KiB  
Editorial
Urban Geographies in Transition. A Vision from Spain
by Juan Manuel Parreño-Castellano, María José Piñeira-Mantiñán and Jesús M. González-Pérez
Urban Sci. 2021, 5(4), 71; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci5040071 - 24 Sep 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1886
Abstract
Habitual statements in academic and journalistic fields on the growing inequality of our cities call for multiple reflections [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fragmented City: International Mobility and Housing in Spain)

Research

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18 pages, 5005 KiB  
Article
Environmental Justice and Urban Parks. A Case Study Applied to Tarragona (Spain)
by Joan Alberich, Yolanda Pérez-Albert, José Ignacio Muro Morales and Edgar Bustamante Picón
Urban Sci. 2021, 5(3), 62; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci5030062 - 19 Aug 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 4646
Abstract
There is consensus regarding the fact that urban green areas contribute to the quality of life of their inhabitants. Therefore, efficient city management must assess whether the population has access to green areas and the areas’ quality in relation to, for example, vegetation, [...] Read more.
There is consensus regarding the fact that urban green areas contribute to the quality of life of their inhabitants. Therefore, efficient city management must assess whether the population has access to green areas and the areas’ quality in relation to, for example, vegetation, facilities or furnishings. Therefore, the objective is to establish environmental justice of urban parks in Tarragona (Spain) by developing a Park Quality Index (PQI) and the sociodemographic characteristics (level of studies, Human Development Index –HDI–, home sale and rental prices) of the population living within 300 m of a park. To prepare this, a GIS-integrated Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) was produced. The results show that the green areas have low accessibility and availability and that most parks obtain an average-low PQI, with the best-valued aspect being the vegetation and the worst being the facilities. Regarding the degree of environmental justice, a causal relationship between the PQI and the indicators used emerges. The average value of the home sale prices is the one that shows the greatest correlation. These results can be used together with participatory procedures as a basis for identifying places with greater inequality, and for selecting the more effective actions that enable increasing environmental justice with respect to green areas. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fragmented City: International Mobility and Housing in Spain)
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18 pages, 1833 KiB  
Article
Residential Segregation and Living Conditions. An Analysis of Social Inequalities in Catalonia from Four Spatial Perspectives
by Joan Checa and Oriol Nel·lo
Urban Sci. 2021, 5(2), 45; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci5020045 - 31 May 2021
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 4993
Abstract
Spatial inequalities in living conditions have traditionally been attributed to geographical location, the opposition between urban and rural settings or the size of settlements. Accordingly, the geographical literature has used these oppositions to explain not only differences in access to education, work and [...] Read more.
Spatial inequalities in living conditions have traditionally been attributed to geographical location, the opposition between urban and rural settings or the size of settlements. Accordingly, the geographical literature has used these oppositions to explain not only differences in access to education, work and services but also diversity of lifestyles, beliefs and even political attitudes. In recent decades, however, urban areas have extended their scope, urbanization has become more dispersed, territories have become more interdependent and spatial hierarchies have tended to weaken. At the same time, social inequalities have become more marked, as manifested spatially by residential segregation. This article puts forward the thesis that residential segregation constitutes a considerably better explanatory factor currently for the elucidation of social inequalities and differences in living conditions in regional spaces than geographical location, the urban/rural divide or the size of settlements. A set of key indicators in the population of residents in Catalonia (level of education, socio-economic position, risk of poverty, self-perceived health and life satisfaction) are therefore analyzed from various spatial perspectives to explore this argument and evaluate each indicator’s explanatory potential. The main results seem to confirm the hypothesis that the most striking spatial inequalities are associated with residential segregation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fragmented City: International Mobility and Housing in Spain)
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17 pages, 6690 KiB  
Article
Urban Policies and Large Projects in Central City Areas: The Example of Madrid (Spain)
by Dolores Brandis García
Urban Sci. 2021, 5(2), 42; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci5020042 - 20 May 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3912
Abstract
Since the late 20th century major, European cities have exhibited large projects driven by neoliberal urban planning policies whose aim is to enhance their position on the global market. By locating these projects in central city areas, they also heighten and reinforce their [...] Read more.
Since the late 20th century major, European cities have exhibited large projects driven by neoliberal urban planning policies whose aim is to enhance their position on the global market. By locating these projects in central city areas, they also heighten and reinforce their privileged situation within the city as a whole, thus contributing to deepening the centre–periphery rift. The starting point for this study is the significance and scope of large projects in metropolitan cities’ urban planning agendas since the final decade of the 20th century. The aim of this article is to demonstrate the correlation between the various opposing conservative and progressive urban policies, and the projects put forward, for the city of Madrid. A study of documentary sources and the strategies deployed by public and private agents are interpreted in the light of a process during which the city has had a succession of alternating governments defending opposing urban development models. This analysis allows us to conclude that the predominant large-scale projects proposed under conservative policies have contributed to deepening the centre–periphery rift appreciated in the city. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fragmented City: International Mobility and Housing in Spain)
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19 pages, 4386 KiB  
Article
Towards an Even More Spatially Diversified City? New Metropolitan Population Trends in the Post-Economic Crisis Period
by Fernando Gil-Alonso, Cristina López-Villanueva, Jordi Bayona-i-Carrasco and Isabel Pujadas
Urban Sci. 2021, 5(2), 41; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci5020041 - 14 May 2021
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 3827
Abstract
After the deep economic crisis that began in 2008, in 2014, Spain started to show signs of recovery, entering the so-called “post-crisis” period. Though it has not yet reached the entire population, economic improvement has had a positive impact on the real estate [...] Read more.
After the deep economic crisis that began in 2008, in 2014, Spain started to show signs of recovery, entering the so-called “post-crisis” period. Though it has not yet reached the entire population, economic improvement has had a positive impact on the real estate market, economic activity, and employment. Residential mobility has also increased, but flows have become more unstable and complex. The direction of these flows, the reasons for moving, and the ages and socioeconomic categories of migrants have diversified. These complex “new mobility” patterns are reconfiguring the spatial distribution of the population in Spanish urban areas. On the basis of Continuous Register (Padrón Continuo) microdata, this paper primarily aims to study population changes in the 69 Spanish functional urban areas (FUAs) defined by the National Institute of Statistics (INE)/Eurostat, focusing on their population growth or decline in their centers and peripheries during the crisis (2011–2015) and post-crisis (2015–2019) phases. Then, the paper analyzes the five major Spanish metropolises (Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, and Bilbao) in greater depth. The findings confirm the hypothesis that, during the post-crisis period, the population growth of cores and rings and thus the spatial distribution of urban inhabitants have been changing, resulting in the growing demographic heterogeneity of Spanish urban areas that are diversifying both internally and compared to each other. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fragmented City: International Mobility and Housing in Spain)
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11 pages, 645 KiB  
Article
Gentrification and Touristification in the Central Urban Areas of Seville and Cádiz
by Julio-José Parralejo and Ibán Díaz-Parra
Urban Sci. 2021, 5(2), 40; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci5020040 - 2 May 2021
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 4098
Abstract
Intensive tourism in historic city centers is causing socio-spatial effects that are already visible to society. This has led politicians and academics to focus on the issue, creating a debate about gentrification in certain central urban areas which overlaps with studies on touristification, [...] Read more.
Intensive tourism in historic city centers is causing socio-spatial effects that are already visible to society. This has led politicians and academics to focus on the issue, creating a debate about gentrification in certain central urban areas which overlaps with studies on touristification, understood by some authors as tourism gentrification. This article aims to identify whether socio-demographic changes identifiable as touristification have occurred in the historic centers of two Andalusian cities, Seville and Cádiz, and which we interpret as the replacement of residents with visitors. The work is based primarily on the exploratory analysis of socio-demographic data from the Population Register and data on housing and rentals provided by different sources. The work shows strong indications of a relationship between the increase of tourist apartments and losses of residents in both historic centers. The paper concludes by pointing to the need for further research on this relationship in public statistics that can guide future policy action. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fragmented City: International Mobility and Housing in Spain)
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16 pages, 52539 KiB  
Article
The Evolution of Urban Planning in Medium-Sized Catalan Cities (1979–2019)
by Carme Bellet Sanfeliu
Urban Sci. 2021, 5(2), 36; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci5020036 - 13 Apr 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3232
Abstract
Urban planning, as well as the type of city in which it takes place and is promoted, has changed a lot in Spanish cities since the return to democratically elected municipal governments in 1979. This work seeks to characterise the transformation that urban [...] Read more.
Urban planning, as well as the type of city in which it takes place and is promoted, has changed a lot in Spanish cities since the return to democratically elected municipal governments in 1979. This work seeks to characterise the transformation that urban planning has undergone over the last 40 years. It sets out to do this by studying the cases of two medium-sized Catalan cities, their underlying city models, and the ways in which planning has been defined and managed in Catalonia. All of this was undertaken through a bibliographic and documentary analysis of the approved planning documents, which was accompanied by a study of the population dynamics and building cycles. In Spain, urban planning has been one of the instruments used to catalyse expectations for economic growth based on land consumption through urbanisation. Within this context, planning has progressed from fulfilling an initial requirement to regulate activities and urban growth (1979–1991) to facilitating urban development through a clearly expansive and speculative form of neoliberal urbanism (1993–2007) and, finally, to assuming a form in which these previous tendencies coexist with certain new orientations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fragmented City: International Mobility and Housing in Spain)
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18 pages, 2363 KiB  
Article
Gentrification on the Move. New Dynamics in Spanish Mature Urban-Tourist Neighborhoods
by Josefina Domínguez-Mujica, Jesús M. González-Pérez, Juan Manuel Parreño-Castellano and Dolores Sánchez-Aguilera
Urban Sci. 2021, 5(1), 33; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci5010033 - 17 Mar 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 5074
Abstract
Mature tourism neighborhoods are a valuable laboratory for the study of socio-urban processes. In them, it is possible to analyze the urban transformations and social changes linked to tourism cycles: those corresponding to the stage of tourism involvement, development, and consolidation; those of [...] Read more.
Mature tourism neighborhoods are a valuable laboratory for the study of socio-urban processes. In them, it is possible to analyze the urban transformations and social changes linked to tourism cycles: those corresponding to the stage of tourism involvement, development, and consolidation; those of stagnation and urban decline; and those of tourism rejuvenation and urban rehabilitation. Currently, there are indications of a fourth cycle, where vacation rentals and the arrival of new groups of foreigners are causing a tourism gentrification process. In this context, the aim of this work is to study the socio-urban transformations of two mature tourism neighborhoods in Palma (El Terreno) and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Santa Catalina-Canteras) and detect this tourism gentrification process. The analysis is based on indicators of resident population (total population and foreigners by nationalities), housing (holiday rental market and real estate market), and socio-economic levels (income), which allows us to detect the existence of a new urban-tourism cycle. This, supported by strong investments associated with rehabilitation plans, is producing the substitution of foreigners from the South for those from the North, changing from residential rental to vacation rentals, in a context of elitization. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fragmented City: International Mobility and Housing in Spain)
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17 pages, 2334 KiB  
Article
Opaque Urban Planning. The Megaproject Santa Cruz Verde 2030 Seen from the Local Perspective (Tenerife, Spain)
by Marcus Hübscher and Johannes Ringel
Urban Sci. 2021, 5(1), 32; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci5010032 - 17 Mar 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3936
Abstract
Megaprojects, as a part of neoliberal urbanism, have become an important element of cities worldwide. In Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain, the megaproject Santa Cruz Verde 2030 represents this type of project. The ambitious plan seeks to transform the city’s oil refinery into [...] Read more.
Megaprojects, as a part of neoliberal urbanism, have become an important element of cities worldwide. In Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain, the megaproject Santa Cruz Verde 2030 represents this type of project. The ambitious plan seeks to transform the city’s oil refinery into an urban quarter. However, since its announcement in summer 2018, no critical public discussion has taken place, although the project is expected to reconfigure the city’s waterfront and its tourist model. In this context, it is particularly the stakeholders’ point of view that is neglected. We thus offer a qualitative analysis of five interviews with local stakeholders from the real estate sector, politics, urban planning and an environmental association. The analysis shows that the interviewees feel insufficiently informed by the project’s initiators. The project is interpreted as an elitist symbol of how the project’s initiators understand urban development. While some of the stakeholders want to accelerate the whole process, others call for a more integrative and participative planning approach. Moreover, the observed marketing campaign is directly linked to the upcoming elections. The interviewees observe a simple top-down planning process, which contradicts the promises of the initiators to enable civic participation and integration. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fragmented City: International Mobility and Housing in Spain)
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19 pages, 4367 KiB  
Article
Home Dispossession and Commercial Real Estate Dispossession in Tourist Conurbations. Analyzing the Reconfiguration of Displacement Dynamics in Los Cristianos/Las Américas (Tenerife)
by Dennis Hof
Urban Sci. 2021, 5(1), 30; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci5010030 - 9 Mar 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3046
Abstract
Since the onset of the global financial crisis, urban dwellers face an increasing number of obstacles in establishing themselves on the housing market. Against this backdrop, this paper addresses the variegated dynamics of real estate dispossession in the tourist conurbation Los Cristianos/Las Américas [...] Read more.
Since the onset of the global financial crisis, urban dwellers face an increasing number of obstacles in establishing themselves on the housing market. Against this backdrop, this paper addresses the variegated dynamics of real estate dispossession in the tourist conurbation Los Cristianos/Las Américas on an intra-urban scale. First, I will present the spatio-temporal patterns of dispossession for the period 2001–2015 using the ATLANTE database (CGPJ). Specifically, I analyze mortgage foreclosures and tenant evictions, both for residential and commercial spaces. Second, I delve deeper into local experiences of dispossession of the resident population and their housing and income conditions by means of questionnaires that I conducted in 2018. The data shows that mortgage foreclosures and dispossessions of residential spaces predominate the initial years after the crisis, albeit with varied spatial incidence. However, the increase in tenant evictions from 2014 onwards points to a reconfiguration of displacement dynamics. Indeed, as stated by the interviewees, staggeringly high rent burdens have become the main driver for displacement from both living and working spaces in recent years. Given the ongoing global pandemic, further and more nuanced research is necessary to grasp how these prevailing housing insecurities are shaped during and beyond the coronavirus crisis. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fragmented City: International Mobility and Housing in Spain)
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Other

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17 pages, 4901 KiB  
Commentary
The Urban Mirror of the Socioeconomic Transformations in Spain
by Josefina Domínguez-Mujica
Urban Sci. 2021, 5(1), 13; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci5010013 - 25 Jan 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2936
Abstract
This study offers an interpretation of the most significant characteristics of Spanish cities in the post-Fordist capitalist era, as a mirror of the economic and social transformations that have led to them, differentiating: (i) the stage of economic expansion at the turn of [...] Read more.
This study offers an interpretation of the most significant characteristics of Spanish cities in the post-Fordist capitalist era, as a mirror of the economic and social transformations that have led to them, differentiating: (i) the stage of economic expansion at the turn of the century; (ii) the stage of the economic crisis from 2008 onwards; and (iii) the uncertain times we face for the future. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to identify the economic, housing, and political factors conditioning this evolution according to the processes of capitalist accumulation, dispossession, and repossession, and how they shape the social and urban configuration of Spanish cities. A careful selection of urban and economic indicators, its mapping, as well as an in-depth bibliographical review lead to this commentary and make it possible to identify urban developments in Spain in the light of the economic and social transformations of post-industrial capitalism. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fragmented City: International Mobility and Housing in Spain)
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