From Falangism to Technocracy: The Legislation and the Reality of Spanish Urbanism in Barcelona, 1939-1976

Abstract

While recognizing that Franco-era laws and institutions largely failed in their task to regulate the growth of Spanish cities, this article argues that Barcelona’s posttransition urban planning regime owes much to the internal transformation of an urban technocracy inaugurated in the mid-1950s to fight property speculation. Much discussion of Barcelona’s late-twentieth-century urban history has focused on the social and political consequences of the city’s chaotic development during the Franco era and has largely ignored the institutions of urban planning intended to regulate the city’s growth during this period. Although Spanish planning law was subverted in practice by the authoritarian state’s commitment to conflicting political priorities, Spanish planning law was, for tortuous ideological reasons, often surprisingly progressive in its contents and intentions. Starting in the late 1960s, an increasingly competent urban technocracy, which was quietly at odds with the Franco regime, confronted the urban crisis by refining its legal tools of control, following closely the urban policy developments and priorities of contemporary European social democracies.