The “prodigious decade” in Spanish housing growth (1997-2006)

Abstract

Between 1997 and 2006 Spain witnessed a housing boom, exceptional due to its intensity and duration. This phenomenon, though generalised throughout Spain , has been especially noticeable on the Mediterranean coastal strip and in the provinces surrounding Madrid . In an economic and social context extremely favourable to growth, a conservative ideological position has sought, by way of changes in regulations and in urbanistic practice, to progressively undermine public land planning in order to eliminate barriers to growth, and to be able to carry this out on rural land without limits in quantity or location. The result has been an exaggerated and disordered increase in construction, managed by building companies rather than in the name of general interests.