SOCIO-SPATIAL DIFFERENTIATION AND RACIAL SEGREGATION IN SPAIN

The rise in the population of Spain as a result of emigration from the year 2000 onwards situated it among the countries with the highest immigration rates in the world: three or four times the average rate of the US and eight times that of France. The arrival of more than four million immigrants (more than 10% of the population) between 2001 and 2005, the period in which the housing bubble occurred, placed the focus of attention on the theories of urban development, stratification of cities, residential segregation and racial inequality. Urban planning undertaken to house this new population was in keeping with the neo-liberal policies of the central government, the autonomous communities and town councils. This brought about situations of inequality, a polarization of society and did not solve the problem of meeting the demand for housing for the immigrant population. In a country where ethnic ghettoes had never existed, 112 of such areas were created and 1.029.699 people found themselves in a vulnerable situation.