A review of land policies and urban planning models in Madrid from mid 1990s: From liberalization to the collapse of the real estate bubble

Abstract

This article reviews the policies and planning models that have shaped Madrid in the last 30 years, with particular attention to their positioning with respect to the economic situation, and particularly to its role in the formation of the recent housing bubble. On the one hand, it highlights the link between policies and models of different levels of government, such as land liberalization policy promoted by the State and the regional level; the abandonment of territorial planning by the regional government; and, the evolution of the urban model of the city of Madrid through the three General Urban Plans elaborated by the City Council. It is also possible to point at a displacement in the three spatial scales towards policies located half-way between the emerging neoliberal policies with common features in the global scale and a particular local neo-urban entrepreneurialism, with a gradual devaluation of the role of planning as a regulatory mechanism of market dynamics, and as the expression of a political consensus around the spatial pattern of the local society.