The Spread of Gentrification Processes in Southern Europe: Analyzing Socio-Spatial Reconfiguration in the Largest Spanish Urban Cores.

Carlos Sanz Pérez , Centre d'estudis demografics

This study addresses the under-researched phenomenon of gentrification in Spain, focusing on its ten largest cities over the last decade, which has been dubbed the 'decade of gentrification' due to its spread into previously untouched neighbourhoods. While existing research has focused mainly on Madrid and Barcelona, and to a lesser extent on cities such as Granada, Seville and Palma, there is a notable lack of comprehensive research covering Spain's largest urban centres. We take advantage of the recent release of the 2021 census data to study the changes in the socio-spatial configuration of the population in the inner cities during the 2010s, especially in dynamics associated with gentrification. A set of socio-demographic indicators are used to assess gentrification, which are compared between the 2011 and 2021 population and housing census. These indicators include age distribution, population origin, educational attainment, occupation, household composition, or tenure patterns, while complementary data sources are used to analyse the evolution of the housing market. In our approach, we descend to a fine-grained scale, the census tract or the neighbourhood. In addition to comparing the different indicators across neighbourhoods and cities, the study proposes the development of a composite gentrification index. Preliminary results suggest that gentrification have also penetrated into medium-sized cities that had not previously experienced this phenomenon. In large cities, gentrification have expanded intensively beyond the historic centers, which had been the main gentrified spaces until the last decade.

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 Presented in Session 47. Internal Migration and Urban Change