Inequality on the Increase: Trajectories of Privilege and Inequality in Madrid

Abstract

In Spain, housing is one of the main axes of social inequality. Its position within Spain’s economic model and welfare system is key to understanding why its financialization at the beginning of the 21st century had such different consequences among residents as well as territorially. In this context, from 2001 to 2011, Madrid became one of the most segregated metropolitan areas in Europe. This article delves into how both housing and its location organise inequality in different social spheres and reproduce it over time. To this end, the geography of this inequality is analysed in different social residential trajectories, along with how segregation produces its own dynamics of inequality. The analysis is based on census data and applies a combination of factor and cluster analyses. The results reveal important processes of social residential marginalisation articulated by the interaction between high international immigration and the spatial manifestation of the housing bubble. The main socio-spatial result of this process is the disappearance of mixed social spaces in Madrid, previously located in the centre of the city. This dynamic produces opposite territories in terms of advantage and disadvantage in different spheres linked to social inequality such as education, health, leisure, care and even prejudice. In the process, impoverished immigrants disperse towards the neighbourhoods that concentrate the greatest disadvantages in each of these spheres.

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“…The social housing areas developed between the 1950s and 1980s overlapped with the socio-economically disadvantaged geographies of the Madrid metropolitan area in the early 2000s ( Tamayo Palacios, 2011 ). Their structural position was further aggravated in the first two decades of the new millennium ( Leal and Sorando, 2016 ; Sorando et al, 2021 ; Uceda Navas, 2016 ). Academic and institutional initiatives mapping vulnerability repeatedly identified the inner suburbs (hosting self-built areas and, later, social housing) as having the lowest living standards in the metropolitan area ( Alguacil Gómez et al, 2013 ; Matesanz Perelada, 2016 ; Rodriguez-Suárez et al, 2021 ; Temes, 2014 ).…”

“…The social housing areas developed between the 1950s and 1980s overlapped with the socio-economically disadvantaged geographies of the Madrid metropolitan area in the early 2000s (Tamayo Palacios, 2011). Their structural position was further aggravated in the first two decades of the new millennium (Leal and Sorando, 2016;Sorando et al, 2021;Uceda Navas, 2016).…”

“…This disproportionate impact seemed to correlate with vulnerability and most affected Madrid’s inner suburbs ( Gómez Giménez, 2020 ; Menéndez and Higueras García, 2020 ; Paisaje Transversal, 2020 ). Madrid is one of Europe’s most unequal cities ( Sorando et al, 2021 ), with a (2012) Gini index of 33.2 ( Leal and Sorando, 2016 ). Both scholars and the Spanish government have classified a large area of the city’s inner suburbs as ‘vulnerable neighbourhoods’ ( Alguacil Gómez et al, 2013 ).…”

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“…This process has resulted in a clear dividing line between, on one side, the higher‐income urban centre and northern peripheries, and on the other, the lower‐income southern peripheral neighbourhoods. However, while this segmentation is clearly visible in the city, Sorando et al (2021) have depicted a more complex picture. Rather than being divided in two separate areas, the city of Madrid is fragmented into several spatial structures, conforming to what the authors refer to as an ‘Edge City’.…”

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“…Sorando et al (2021) used data from 2001 and 2011 census, and state that Madrid became the most segregated capital city in Europe in 2011, although it was in an intermediate position at the beginning of the century.…”