The (over)Dimension of Residential Growth in Madrid: Urban planning as an Alibi

Abstract

This paper analyzes the role that territorial analysis plays in the decision-making processes of planning proposals. It assumes that such processes often lack rigor, are undervalued and used in a self-interested way, but offer false scientific evidence to support urban planning schemes.
To corroborate this statement, we analyze the demographic projections and quantification of housing stock proposed under the general urban development plans of 19 municipalities of the Community of Madrid. New urban developments or those proposed in these urban plans do not respond to criteria of rationality, balance or territorial sustainability.
This paper adds to the literature denouncing the urban development model and the role that urban planning is playing in it and makes a novel contribution for its concern about how to better apply territorial analysis in planning proposals. The paper highlights the lack of rigor of technical analyses as an explanatory factor of territorial irrationality.