Researchers from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid have studied the vulnerability of the 13 largest Spanish cities using both statistical methodology and urban planning methodology.
Evolution of the vulnerable neighborhoods in Madrid (from top to bottom) between 1991 and 2011. Credit: Fuente: Hernández Aja et al, 2018. Available at http://oa.upm.es/51015/
The vulnerable neighborhoods have great potential for the urban transformation. Thus, the Research Group on Architecture, Urbanism and Sustainability (GIAU+S) at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) has analyzed the urban vulnerability in Spain between 1991 and 2011 and has published their results in a catalog.
Every neighborhood included in this study meets not only the socio-economic vulnerability criteria, but also the condition to be a homogeneous urban piece, and thus, they are able to assume a multidimensional intervention that allows them an internal improvement and the rebalancing with the whole city.
This study analyzed the 13 largest Spanish cities (with over 3000,000 inhabitants). They found 342 vulnerable neighborhoods with a population of 2,578,655 inhabitants among the cities included in this study. The catalog shows the statistical analysis of the evolution of the vulnerability of each city and its cartographic representation, this allowed researchers to carry out a territorial analysis of urban vulnerability and its comparison.
The methodology used in this work neither intends to compete nor replace other statistical works with more complex goals. This research has used simple indicators to be used in discussions on the urban vulnerability in the studied cities.
There was a significant increase in urban vulnerability in Spain between 2001 and 2011, similar to the period between 1991 and 2001. The vulnerable neighborhoods went from 621 in 2001 to 918 in 2011, this meant an increase of 50% while the population only increased by 14%.
Agustín Hernández Aja, a researcher of this work, states, "Some hypotheses suggest the increase of urban vulnerability is the result of the financial crisis of 2007, however, these results show that this significant growth of urban inequality occurred in previous years. Therefore, the urban policies implemented by then do not seem to have achieved the expected results".
In this way, the apparent prosperity of our cities based on the quality of new outskirts was related to the depression of the existing city that lost its resources and increased the inequality indexes. Taking into account the results of the period between 2001 and 2011, there are significant central areas that are no longer vulnerable and this may be due to the transfer of the initial inhabitants to the outskirts.
Evolution of the vulnerable neighborhoods in Madrid (from top to bottom) between 1991 and 2011. Credit: Fuente: Hernández Aja et al, 2018. Available at http://oa.upm.es/51015/
Hernández Aja concludes "we aim to expand the vision of urban vulnerability in our cities, to think of their possible causes and the way to solve this problem. Barrios Vulnerables de las grandes ciudades españolas. 1991/2001/2011 is a work that raises the need of developing urban policies that provide neighborhoods with the condition of a city in all its dimensions".
This study is the continuation of "Atlas de Barrios Vulnerables de España that was also carried out by the GIAU+S group, based on the results of the analysis between 1991 and 2001 and thanks to the collaboration with the Ministry of development. This documents can be consulted at the Spanish Observatory of Urban Vulnerability.
References:
Hernández Aja et al. Barrios vulnerables de las grandes ciudades españolas. 1991/ 2001/ 2011. Madrid: Instituto Juan de Herrera, 2018. ISBN 978-84-9728-568-1.
