The Peripheries of Spanish Developmentalism. An Enduring Model of Urban Fragmentation

Abstract

One of the urban spaces that best identify Spanish developmentalist cities lies on their outlying residential fringes. Built between the 1960s and the 1980s, they are dense, mono-functional areas, largely developed at the initiative of the public authorities during the Fordist stage. Areas initially planned to accommodate marginalized domestic migrants, 50 years later, they stand out for their serious shortcomings, with a resident population made up of vulnerable social classes. Within the above framework, the aim of this article is to analyse processes of urban fragmentation, examining the sociodemographic changes experienced by three neighbourhoods all representative of this peripheral growth, located in Barcelona, Palma (Mallorca) and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. An analysis is made of biodemographic and socioeconomic indicators in order to characterize the said neighbourhoods according to their level of vulnerability and the changes that have taken place. Broadly speaking, from the analysis, two characteristic typologies were identified: neighbourhoods where substitutionary migratory processes have occurred and others still inhabited by vulnerable groups of local origin, partly due to difficulties in the upward social mobility of their inhabitants. Despite the time that has passed, as a whole, they continue to be areas for the social reproduction of the most vulnerable social classes in cities that are even more fragmented in today’s current post-pandemic scenario.