Abstract
Over the last two decades, the property bubble and the subsequent economic crisis and post-crisis policies have heightened urban inequalities, mainly in cities in southern Europe. The gaps between social classes have widened with the configuration of new urban spaces characterized by segregation and exclusion. Palma is the capital of one of the top tourist destinations in the Mediterranean (the Balearic Islands) and it is usually regarded as a successful tourism model and a land of opportunity for property investors. Nevertheless, serious problems of inequality exist in the city. The centre of this dual city is split between a process of spreading gentrification and the urban blight of its poor neighbourhoods. Son Gotleu is a particular case in point. The neighbourhood is home to a large number of social housing blocks (1960s) with residents from mostly migrant backgrounds. Within a global context of new redefined rent-seeking mechanisms, this article analysed impoverishment in Son Gotleu, based on three variables associated with housing: evictions, foreclosures and the property market. Our study shows that evictions were a determining feature of impoverishment, linked to the emergence of new speculative investment interests. Indeed, investment funds are very probably the most influential urban agents today.
Highlights
Anyone who understands Spain’s urban reality is aware that many scenarios might be defined as social emergencies, even in the context of a moderately optimistic economic outlook and emerging areas specialising in tourism and leisure (Majorca).This situation is not uncommon in other countries, and it grew in momentum during the world crisis and when the Spanish property bubble burst in 2007.The makeup of the city that emerged from the 2007–2008 crisis and from post-crisis austerity policies is hinged upon inequality
Two main approaches are taken in our analysis of urban poverty in connection with the housing market: on the one hand, a spatiotemporal analysis is made of evictions, differentiating between foreclosures and evictions due to non-payment of rent and, on the other, an analysis is conducted of the property market in this neighbourhood, classified in different studies [28,51,52] as having the highest vulnerability ratio in Palma
Evictions should be construed as a class analysis, reflecting the urban tensions of capicapitalism today.The
Summary
Anyone who understands Spain’s urban reality is aware that many scenarios might be defined as social emergencies, even in the context of a moderately optimistic economic outlook (e.g., the late 2010s) and emerging areas specialising in tourism and leisure (Majorca).This situation is not uncommon in other countries, and it grew in momentum during the world crisis and when the Spanish property bubble burst in 2007.The makeup of the city that emerged from the 2007–2008 crisis and from post-crisis austerity policies is hinged upon inequality. Anyone who understands Spain’s urban reality is aware that many scenarios might be defined as social emergencies, even in the context of a moderately optimistic economic outlook (e.g., the late 2010s) and emerging areas specialising in tourism and leisure (Majorca). This situation is not uncommon in other countries, and it grew in momentum during the world crisis and when the Spanish property bubble burst in 2007. Studies of socio-urban inequalities are a traditional field of research in geography, since the 1980s, with the onset of late capitalist globalization and the coining of concepts like the dual city [1]. Various approaches to the subject have been developed, exploring it, for instance, from the perspective of gentrification [2],
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