Working-class suburban housing, homeownership and urban social movements during Francoism in Barcelona, 1939–1975

Abstract

The text displayed below exposes some circumstances that demonstrate the importance of homeownership during the Franco regime in Spain. The article is the result of a more extensive research project that has studied the housing of the outskirts of Barcelona and its role in the morphological and social transformation of the city. As a result of this research, the evolution of the residential landscape of the outskirts, the community response to infrastructure deficits, or the transformations of the domestic space have been observed.1 In particular, home ownership has been identified as a fundamental factor to be taken into account in relation to such transformations. A first descriptive approach to this factor can be read in a previous brief article.2 However, this new look on the subject completes the topic in a more extensive, analytical, and relational way, drawing the connections between the observed data, urban social movements, and possible comparable international case studies.