Geography of Urban Occupation of the Greater Madrid Green Belt: from Autocratic Camouflage to Neoliberal Flaunting

Abstract

This paper focuses on describing the process of urban intrusion by the city and suburbs
of Madrid into spaces reserved as forested intervals under the 1963 General Greater Madrid
Planning to make up a green belt, defined by following the urban-planning tradition of the early
twentieth century, which was devised to solve the accelerated growth of new industrial cities and
maintain the balance between countryside and city.
First, the figure of the green belt has been contextualised historically and disciplinarily; then the
set of actions undertaking inside areas reserved as forested green areas on a metropolitan scale
has been recognised, analysing them according to parameters of location, occupation, use and the
planning instrument applied to develop them, structured by three key horizons, as determined by
the drawing-up of the city’s general plan, beginning in 1963, continuing in 1984 and ending in 1997.
Finally, two scenarios that are representative of the whole are explored: the Pozuelo de Alarcón area
and the current urban district of Hortaleza-Barajas.
The study shows that the Greater Madrid green belt was created as a result of an approach that was
physically, socially and economically ambitious but also excessively voluntary, as it lacks any valid
instrumentation that might have enabled a forested belt to be built for public use, recreation and
contact with nature for the people of Madrid. Instead, is has become reserved land that has been
brought into play to suit the private economic interests of a dominant social class seeking business
opportunities by occupying areas of high ecological value, river beds and farm land.