Contemporary urban attributes of mediterranean coast in the global crisis: the case of Costa del sol Metropolitan Area

Abstract

Current economy produces urban attributes which involves new imaginary and lifestyles. These ones are based on overdevelopment, in contrast to development seeking the welfare state. Contemporary attributes are reflected in the practices of architecture, urban space and territory, economy, politics, sociability, and mobility and temporality. The new territory is an open social ecosystem, where the internal relations are so crucial than external ones. Reproduction is based on the increased land extension, property speculation and population base, settling in urban growth machines. The Metropolitan Area of Costa del Sol, on the southern coast of Spain, is a neoliberal model in full global crisis and a paradigm of transformation from a theme park in other space with more complex uses than the original ones. His urban attributes are a laboratory of the contemporary atmosphere and the southern Europe.