Population and way of life in urban sprawl areas

Jordi Gavalda, Universitat de Barcelona
Gemma Vila, Universitat de Barcelona

The urban explosion of Mediterranean cities is an indisputable fact today. What are the population and households characteristics that live in urban sprawl areas? What socio-economic groups have been pushed to leave cities and relocate in low-density urbanisations? What are the social effects of this dispersal of habitat that invades spaces ever-further from densely settled urban nuclei? What adaptive strategies have families had to develop? What have been the implications of all this for everyday life, human relations, intergenerational solidarity and social cohesion? These were the questions that guided our research, which covers the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona (4,770,000 inhabitants, 164 municipalities and 3,241 km2). Our fieldwork is based on statistic data, survey and in-depth interviews. With the completion of the research, we present results in four main areas: a) Population and households characteristics. b) Strategies and motivations explaining the residential mobility of individuals and families to urbanisations. c) Social relations developed in low-density, segmented urbanisations. d) Residents’ use of space and management of time in the urbanisations.