In examining the urban evolution of Aranjuez, Marcos García Moya presents a scathing critique of the commodification of urban territory, tracing the trajectory from the Industrial Revolution’s restructuring of urban planning to the catastrophic burst of the Spanish housing bubble. This transformation is embedded in a shift where housing transitions from a fundamental right to a speculative asset, with urban development becoming a vehicle for capital accumulation rather than social welfare. The case of the neighbourhood La Montaña, marked by overconstruction, vacancy, and socio-spatial inequality, serves as a stark representation of the failures of this speculative model. García Moya demonstrates how planning deregulation, driven by a coalition of developers, politicians, and financial institutions, enabled a frenzy of construction untethered to real social need, resulting in ghost neighbourhoods and fragmented urban fabrics. The author foregrounds how urban neoliberalism manifests through land commodification, precarious housing markets, and the erosion of urban commons. Critically, the article posits that the real estate frenzy was not an unforeseen anomaly but the logical endpoint of decades of policy favouring profit-driven urbanism. García Moya advocates for an urgent reconceptualisation of urban planning—one that reclaims its role as a public good instrument grounded in social equity, sustainability, and participatory governance. The article calls for post-crisis urbanism that challenges dominant paradigms and seeks to rebalance power dynamics in favour of community wellbeing and long-term habitability.
García Moya, M. (2018) ‘El territorio urbano y la vivienda como un negocio: el caso de Aranjuez’, URBS. Revista de Estudios Urbanos y Ciencias Sociales, 8(2), pp. 101–106.
