Project:
Sistema de indicadores para a análise das dinámicas urbanas en España a comezos do século XXI [URBMETRO21].

Original title:
Sistema de indicadores para el análisis de las dinámicas urbanas en España a comienzos del siglo XXI [URBMETRO21].

Code:
CSO2010-16298

Funded by:
Ministerio de Ciencia e Educación; Secretaría de Estado de Investigación; Dirección Xeral de Invetigación e Xestión do Plan Nacional de I-D-i; Subdirección Xeral de proxectos e investigación.

Start date:
01/01/2011

End date:
31/12/2013

Reseach Team:
- Rubén Camilo Lois González (IP); USC [Idega].
- José Antonio Aldrey Vázquez; USC [Idega].
- Francisco Ramón Durán Villa; USC [Idega].
- Federico López Silvestre; USC [Departamento de Historia da Arte].
- Alberto Martí Ezpeleta; USC [Idega].
- Miguel Pazos Otón; USC [Idega].
- Mª Luisa Pérez Fariña; USC [Departamento de Xeografía].
- Román Rodríguez González; USC [Idega].
- Xosé Manuel Santos Solla; USC [Idega].
- Mª José Piñeira Mantiñán; USC [Idega].
- Rosa Mª Verdugo Matés; USC [Idega].
- Anxos Piñeiro Antelo; USC [Idega].
- Francisco José Armas Quintá; USC [Idega].
- Natalia Bouso Bouso; USC [Idega].
- Lucrezia Lopez; USC [Idega].
- Montserrat Iglesias Pérez; USC [Idega].
- Luis Mª Ulloa Guitián; USC [Idega].
- Xosé Antón Armesto López; Universitat de Barcelona.
- Belén Mª Castro Fernández; CESUGA-University of Dublin.
- Francisco Cebrián Abellán; Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha.
- Luis Alfonso Escudero Gómez; Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha.
- Francisco Javier García Delgado; Universidad de Huelva.
- Alejandro López González; Universidad de León.
- José Somoza Medina; Universidad de León.
- Adrián Guillermo Aguilar Martínez; Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
- Petros Petsimeris; Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne.
- Wayne Kenneth David Davies; University of Calgary.

Associates:
- Eixo Atlántico.
- FEGAMP – Federación Galega de Municipios e Provincias.
- Dirección Xeral de Sostibilidade e Paisaxe, Xunta de Galicia.

Summary:
The economical and social changes occurred in Spain since the 1980s implied various unprecedented transformations concerning space organization, people welfare and lifestyles. We can summarize these changes in the following items: economic growth and most striking changes in the productive structure; strengthening of the urbanization process and appearance of new metropolitan realities and of big interconnected urban archipelagos creating new supramunicipal scale analysis, such as metropolitan areas and urban regions; transportation and communications system revolution; spread of leisure culture and proliferation of tourism practices; hegemony of the global scale as explanation of the changes, as well as the incorporation of ICTs.

Since the 1950s, we have seen how the main Spanish cities grew, increased their population, diversified their activities; these cities saw themselves involved into a fast urban growth that did not care about life-quality and welfare, but it focused its efforts on massive building. Such situation lasted until mid-1970s, when the economic crisis, that the country was facing, slowed down. We have to wait until mid-1980s to note a recovery of the building activity and a new territorial reality: the diffused urbanization in the peripheral crowns closer to the cities, which have to cope with the increase of their population, the installation of new economic activities and the improvements of their services. It has been found that between 1975 and 1996 the central cities of the seven major metropolitan areas lost Spanish on the whole population in absolute terms: from 7,615,515 inhabitants in 1975 to 7,329,509 in 1996. In the XXI century we observe a new territorial reality, the coexistence of phenomena that a priori might be considered incompatible: the growth of the central city – due to the arrival of foreign population- and the maintenance of the urban sprawl on the metropolitan territory. For example, in the period 1975-1991 Barcelona lost population, during 1996-2005 it started to recover (from 1,508,000 to 1,593,075 pop.). However, if we consider the nature of the residents we can see that the city has lost 108,892 Spanish in this decade. What happens is that the arrival of foreign population is so large (190,320) that offsets the loss and reverses the global trend. The foreign population tends to settle not only in Barcelona but in all main cities. Thus, if in Barcelona the presence of foreign population grew by 656.9% and in urban continuum in 1075.0%, in the rest of the first crown did “only” in a 551.1%. If in the seven major metropolitan cities of the second crown in Barcelona increased by 893.1% in the rest of the field he did so “only” in a 506.3%. A pattern that is reproduced in the other Spanish metropolitan areas though with different degree of intensity.

This development underlines the shift from an urban reality to a metropolitan reality. A reality characterized by a new residential occupation of space, changes in demographic structure (both in the central city and in its immediate crowns) and new networks of social cohesion, a functional decentralization -both service and industrial activities-, changes in population mobility (commuters, leisure), increased competition and yet complementary transport services. We are witnessing a metamorphosis of the periurban belts, a new space growth, with its advantages and disadvantages, which requires the development of new governance policies and cooperation among regional actors in order to achieve territorial cohesion. The interests of the urban region or metropolitan area must end up with the exaggerated localist ideology and position their territory in a competitive framework.

Considering this, the present project pursues the following objectives:
a) Analyzing the dynamics of urbanization in the main Spanish cities-metropolitan areas, with particular attention to the changes of the last ten years.
b) Studying the evolution of metropolinization processes and observing how the major urban areas became supramunicipal realities and affirmed their leadership over the Spanish urban system as a whole.

Our firs work will be to develop a reserarch methodology structured in the following stages:
– Selection of indicators based on 5 analysis pillars: (1) changes in land occupation and its environmental impact, (2) changes in demographic structures, homes and social cohesion, (3) changes in the productive sectors, (4) changing patterns of population mobility, (5) ICT and welfare. These indicators will establish a definition of Spanish metropolitan realities.
Incorporation of results to a Geographic Information System. We will publish them in an Atlas and on the web through a virtual GIS.
– Multivariate analysis thereof, applied to three case studies: (1) a consolidated metropolitan area like Barcelona, (2) Urban Axis Galician Atlantic as an example of continuous settlement along an axis North-South -AP9-N, (3) network Castilian cities, as new models of large urban areas that arise in the center of the Iberian Peninsula outside Madrid.