Municipal planning policies in Spain: 40 years of democratic city councils (1979–2019)

Abstract

Over the past 40 years, Spanish cities have changed considerably. This has occurred within a wider framework of deep-seated political, social and economic transformation. This work is mainly based on bibliographical analysis and a review of relevant territorial planning documentation. Firstly, it aims to contextualise and characterise the evolution of the urban policies that have been applied from the arrival of the first democratically-elected city councils through to the present day and to identify the city model in which these changes have been thought up and (physically and symbolically) constructed. To do this, we established three periods for our analysis: 1979–1991, 1992–2007, and 2008–2019. This division was made while also taking into account the evolution and dynamics of the property market and the dates on which municipal elections were held. Secondly,  it tries to characterise the nature of urbanism during the last of these periods, after the financial and property crisis (2008–2019). During this period, and particularly after the 2015 municipal, the parties and coalitions that emerged from the 15th May 2011 movements, managed to enter some local government bodies.