Urban Change in the Iberian Peninsula

The book addresses the current situation of the urban world in Spain and Portugal. Cities and metropolitan areas have become the key to understanding the organization of the territory and the economic system in the Iberian Peninsula. With this objective, six major themes are raised, which are then developed in more than 25 chapters. The themes are urbanization, inequality, finance and housing market, consumers and new residents, mobility, and governance. Taking each one of them as the main reference, the contributions were prepared by prestigious geographers and urban planners from the most important universities of the Iberian Peninsula. This book provides a complete overview of the urban and metropolitan reality of Spain and Portugal in the first quarter of the 21st century. A reality is defined by the primacy of three main cities (Madrid, Barcelona, and Lisbon), followed by six metropolitan areas with around one or two million inhabitants (Porto, Bilbao, Zaragoza, Valencia, Seville, and Malaga). The remaining regional urban system shows, as in these large capitals, problems of income inequality and access to housing, mobility, and government. Iberian cities continue to be the predominant scenario of financial-based business, and they constitute the main centers of commerce and tourism, since urban and economic organization at present are presented as two directly related variables.