Some interesting facts on the worst planning disasters in Spain

Spain has more than 25 million homes, of which nearly three and a half million are empty. The urban construction in recent years has caused serious environmental and economic consequences across the Spanish geography, although it is more evident in coastal areas. In this article I will try to indicate the worst urban of Spain.

A question of figures. Some of the data of the so-called housing bubble speak for themselves: Spain, with a population of about 47 million people, had by the end of 2006 about 23.5 million homes (in late 2012 just over 25.3 million), according to the Ministry of Development. Of this total number, nearly three and a half million are empty, according to the most recent (2011) National Institute of Statistics (INE).

A team of five people who include civil engineers, an architect and an illustrator, have tried to make an inventory as exhaustive as possible of the more than 8,000 Spanish municipalities. The material collected so far serves as to get a good idea of what happened.

The impact is tremendous and specially along the coast, in particular the southeast, and in and around Madrid . Other regions were previously developed and overdeveloped.

In all cases, a common denominator, which results in the web page title : " Before this was field "

Here are some suggestions.

But how could we remedy such a catastrophe? Well here are some suggestions that may if not solve the problem at least diminish the disaster.

• We should learn from past mistakes, analyze them, debate them and avoid repeating them, there is much to learn from the planning figures used during the bubble and we should consider reviewing and editing the existing planning laws now, before the construction industry picks up again. One example that springs to mind is that before any development is permitted to sell properties they should require all the infrastructure and services to be built before any building takes place to avoid selling houses before all the necessary services such as water pipes, pavements, lighting or even the streets reaches the light.
  
• Active participation of citizens in conservation of nature on urban institutional policies.
• To make expats understand that before buying land or a house they should follow the same rules as in the UK. Not all expats but a good number of them for an unknown reason lose their senses when they arrive at any Spanish airport and do not follow the basic rules.
• Buy from a reputable land developer and when you are building yourself, engage only professionals who have been in business for at least 10 years.