Cities 26 (2009) 103–115 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Cities journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cities City profile City profile: Valencia David L. Prytherch a,*, Josep Vicent Boira Maiques b,1 a b Department of Geography, The Miami University, 216 Shideler Hall, Oxford, OH 45056, USA Departament de Geografia, Universitat de València, Apartat de Correus, 22060 E-46080, Valencia, Spain a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 23 June 2008 Received in revised form 31 October 2008 Accepted 4 November 2008 Available online 31 December 2008 Keywords: Valencia Spain Mediterranean regionalism planning entrepreneurialism a b s t r a c t The historically agrarian and provincial city of Valencia has recently been transformed into a Spanish regional capital, a Mediterranean cultural and economic center, and a major tourism destination. Valencia’s engagement with globalization and European integration has unfolded amidst complex regional politics, marked by vigorous debates about cultural difference, political autonomy, and official bilingualism (Castilian Spanish and Valenciano/Catalan). Here we survey the city’s two millennia of historical development, explore recent urban changes through five emblematic urban landscapes, and briefly discuss major urban policy and planning challenges facing the city. Valencia is a place of contradiction and juxtaposition, where global mega-events and neighborhood festivals, avant-garde architecture and two-millennia old croplands exist side by side. If these complex dynamics are not unique, they are powerfully exemplified in this Mediterranean city navigating between global modernity and regional tradition. Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction Few cities embody the engagement of urban process with globalization and European integration better than the Mediterranean city of Valencia, Spain (Figure 1). Valencia is Spain’s third largest city (after Madrid and Barcelona) with a municipal residents within a metropolitan area of more than 1.5 million, yet has until recently received little outside attention. Once called the ‘‘world capital of anti-tourism” by British critic Kenneth Tynan, this traditionally agrarian and provincial city has become capital of the Spanish autonomous region the Comunitat Valenciana, Mediterranean cultural and economic center and major destination for foreign visitors. Indeed, the University of Valencia is now the second largest destination for European exchange students. This metamorphosis is seen in the city’s changing landscape, embodied in the monumental cultural-entertainment complex La Ciutat de les Arts i de les Ciències (City of the Arts and Sciences, in the regional language Valenciano/Catalan2), a new conference center, the growing container port, gentrification and immigration in the city center, and the newly renovated ‘‘America’s Cup” port (host to the 32nd America’s Cup sailing race in 2007 and Formula 1 racing’s ‘‘European * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 5135299284. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (D.L. Prytherch), [email protected] (J.V. Boira Maiques). 1 Tel.: +96 386 48 37. 2 The Comunitat Valenciana is officially bi-lingual in Castilian Spanish and Valenciano/Catalan. Local place names and terms will be cited in the autochthonous Valenciano/Catalan. Castilian Spanish terms, when used, are indicated (for example (Sp: New Valencia) 0264-2751/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cities.2008.11.004 Grand Prix” in 2008). These changes are only the most visible emblems of the forces transforming local spaces and identities, and loci for resistance to these forces. This article traces Valencia’s historical development in context of its unique physical setting, the complexities of regional life and politics, and a changing political–economic backdrop. We briefly summarize the city’s origins as Mediterranean agricultural and trading center, rooted deeply in the irrigated L’Horta de València (Valencian croplands), and then discuss the city’s recent reorientation towards the Mediterranean and Europe. We explore this transformation through five urban districts embodying – in their planning, urbanization, and contestation – multi-faceted forces of change (Figure 2). Quintessential European tensions between the traditional and modern, local and global are evident in these Valencian landscapes. Agrarian iconography remains important in Valencia: the paella, citrus, the modest farm dwelling la barraca, the weekly meetings of irrigators in the Tribunal de les Aïgues (Water Tribunal), and the silken regional costumes and customs of the famed festival les Falles. These have defined Valencia to locals (Fuster, 1962; Piqueras Infante, 1996) and foreigners (Company, 2007). But the city is increasingly identified by a different set of symbols: an upward-rising skyline dominated by the work of Santiago Calatrava, crowds of sun-tanned tourists at the redeveloped port, expanding traffic by discount airlines, and gantry cranes unloading container ships. With this duality come new social and environmental tensions, highlighted in Valencia by a sense of regional – indeed national – difference framed for many by a bilingual history, in which Valenciano/Catalan is co-official with Castilian Spanish. Maintaining Valencia’s distinctiveness in the face 104 D.L. Prytherch, J.V. Boira Maiques / Cities 26 (2009) 103–115 Figure 1. The City of Valencia and its surrounding metropolitan area. Urbanized areas are in dark gray. Map reproduced courtesy of the Ajuntament de Valencia. of rapid economic, social, and urban change is an increasing challenge. And the landscape serves as material and symbolic referent for struggles to define the city and region’s future. Below we offer a brief primer on Valencia and the complex and contradictory forces necessary to understand the city’s historical and urban development, and the cultural landscapes through which Valencians are constructing a new Mediterranean city. Two millennia of urban development Origins of an Agrarian, Mediterranean ‘‘Paradise” Valencia is a Mediterranean city situated on a broad coastal plain between the crescent-shaped Gulf of Valencia and a rugged mountainous interior. Although the city’s climate is semi-arid, snowmelt from distant mountains provides the source for local rivers like the River Turia. The physical geography of the surrounding environment is divided between fingers of higher elevation lands featuring pine forests and scrub (known locally as el secà, or dry lands), low lying plains and wetlands near the mouth of the Turia, and coastal areas of dunes and pine scrub (Costa, 1994). In 138 BC Romans first settled Valentia on a small island on the River Turia, inland from the Mediterranean. The absence of both a natural harbor and highlands for defensive fortification were offset by a mild climate, deep and readily irrigated alluvial soils, and access to transportation routes. Evidence of Roman settlement can still be seen in the excavated remains of the Roman forum and baths under the Plaça de l’Almoina (Almoina Plaza) and remnants of early irrigation canals under the Plaça del Tossal (Tossal Plaza) (Ribera and Jiménez Salvador, 2000). Even as the Roman Empire declined, and a new period dawned with the Visigothic invasions of 584 AD, the task of forging a city and its agricultural hinterland continued to occupy Valencia’s inhabitants (Sanchis Guarner, 1972). Muslims conquered the city in 718 AD. They walled the city and watered it and surrounding areas by constructing an elaborate sys- D.L. Prytherch, J.V. Boira Maiques / Cities 26 (2009) 103–115 105 Figure 2. Aerial image of Valencia in 2007, labeled with major places mentioned in this article (roughly in chronological order of development): (1) historical center of Ciutat Vella or Old City, (2) neighborhoods of Russafa and surrounding late 19th century Eixample or urban expansion, (3) coastal districts of the Poblats Marítims annexed to the city in the 1890s, (4) University of Valencia campus along the Avenue Blasco Ibañez constructed in the early 20th century, (5) new channel of the Turia River constructed after disastrous 1957 floods, (6) containerized Port of Valencia and adjacent croplands of Horta de la Punta, (7) City of the Arts and Sciences complex and adjoining development along the Avinguda de França (Avenue of France), (8) Palau de Congressos conference center and high-rise development along the Avinguda de les Corts Valencianes, and (9) historical docks of the dársena interior recently redesignated as the America’s Cup Port. Adapted from aerial photography courtesy of the Ajuntament de Valencia. tem of gravity-fed irrigation and agricultural landscape of incomparable productivity: L’Horta de València. These new Valencians introduced middle-eastern crops and techniques that would long endure as symbols of the region’s distinctiveness: citrus, rice, and silk, among others (Burriel de Orueta, 1971; Glick, 1970). The city’s population grew to nearly 15,000 people, larger than contemporary cities in eastern Al-Andalus or Europe (Sanchis Guarner, 1972). ‘‘In its profound symbiosis with its natural environment – particularly with the belt of Horta surrounding it,” Teixidor de Otto (1982) notes, Valencia evolved as a ‘‘single human and economic unity” (p. 7). Valencia was given modern shape by the Christian conquesta (conquest) on October 9, 1238 AD – still the region’s ‘national’ holiday – and its incorporation within the Crown of Aragon. The region was ‘repopulated’ by Catalan speakers along the irrigated Mediterranean littoral and Aragonese Castilian speakers in the arid interior, setting enduring linguistic and cultural patterns (Fuster, 1962). Some Muslim institutions – like the collective management of irrigation resources embodied in the Tribunal de les Aïgues– were recognized and expanded upon. After 1305, the city became the capital of the autonomous Regne de València (Kingdom of Valencia), inaugurating two centuries of economic, urban, and cultural expansion whose architectural legacy includes the cathedral, the palace of government el Palau de la Generalitat (Figure 3), the silk-merchants’ exchange la Llotja (Lodge), and the defensive wall and city gates/towers (les Torres de Serrans and les Torres de Quart). But this autonomous ‘‘golden age” ended with a disastrous expulsion of Muslims (1609), and the later War of Spanish Succession (1707) that integrated Valencia into the new Spanish nation-state economically, politically, and linguistically (Fuster, 1962; Guia, 1988). Citrus exports and cultural Renaixença Valencia entered the industrial age as a city of 100,000 trapped within an enormous defensive wall, deeply embedded in surrounding farmlands, and connected to its port by road (Figure 4) (Sanchis Guarner, 1972). The city grew as a center of trade and light industrialization (Courtot, 1992) with introduction of steam technologies to the cultivation and transport of citrus, as rail connected the city to the port and its steam ship traffic in 1852. After 1865 the medieval wall was demolished, prompting rapid growth south and east through eixamples or urban expansions modeled after the orthogonal and chamfer-cornered blocks developed by Ildefons Cerdà in Barcelona. The separation between the city and the sea began to diminish through municipal annexation of coastal districts or Poblats Marítims (Maritime Villages) in the 1890s, and slow extension of a monumental new Blasco Ibáñez Avenue towards the coast. Accompanying economic and urban regeneration was a new romantic renaissance or renaixença reconnecting Valencian culture with its medieval and Catalan-speaking past, which found literary as well as explicitly political expression. These sentiments were expressed architecturally with major buildings in the modernista style (the local variant of art nouveau) like the central train station Estació de Nord (1906–1917) and the Mercat Central (Central Market) constructed 1910–1928 and Mercat Colóm (Columbus Market) constructed 1914–1917 (Figure 5). These featured agrarian iconography symbolizing Valencia’s prosperity, while the 1909 Regional Exposition emphasized equally symbolic neo-gothic (Boira Maiques, 2006). The center was remade through monumental new avenues and plazas, notably the Plaça de l’Ajuntament or City Hall Plaza between the new city hall [1918] and the post and telegraph office [1923]). 106 D.L. Prytherch, J.V. Boira Maiques / Cities 26 (2009) 103–115 Figure 3. El Palau de la Generalitat has been a seat of autonomous regional government since its construction in the 14th Century, when Valencia was a kingdom in the Crown of Aragon. Since 1982 the Comunitat Valenciana has been an autonomous region within Spain’s ‘‘State of the Autonomies”. Photo by David Prytherch. Valencia remained under the political leadership of novelist and Republican Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, though regionalists increasingly promoted autonomy and federalism (Cucó, 1999). But the chaos of the Second Republic and later Spanish Civil War stifled Valencia’s growth. After serving as capital of the Spanish Republic in November 1936, Valencia suffered brutal reprisal under General Francisco Franco’s nationalism and economic autarky that followed. Urban change under Franco Valencia emerged from the Civil War still a traditional agrarian and provincial city, characteristics reinforced by the conservative General Plan of 1946 (Gaja Díaz and Boira Maiques, 1994). If still a ‘‘Huerta city” (Houston, 1957), however, Valencia verged upon major transformation. On October 14, 1957 the rain-swollen River Turia flooded historic neighborhoods. In response the central government in 1958 adopted a new Solución Sur (Sp: Southern Solution) to divert the Turia into a massive new channel through adjacent farmlands (Burriel de Orueta, 1971). A revised 1966 General Plan rezoned swaths of farmland between the city and the coastline for develop- ment, and planned a freeway for the antiguo cauce (Sp: old channel), the former river bed (Gaja Díaz, 1996a). At the same time, immigrants from rural areas and Southern Spain seeking jobs in local industry swelled the municipal population by 148,000 people between 1960 and 1970 (Gaja Díaz and Boira Maiques, 1994). Municipal government, in the absence of democratic oversight, easily granted variances from building height and density requirements (Sorribes, 1985), fueling the emergence of real estate developers and builders as dominant forces in the city (Sorribe, 1978). Blocks of new high-rise apartments emerged in former farmlands, often lacking parklands, paved streets, or sewage disposal (irrigation canals served instead). Municipal democracy and autonomous regionalism Franco’s death in 1975 initiated a dizzying process of political and territorial restructuring, with a new Spanish constitution in 1978, democratic municipal elections in 1979, and a new Valencian Statute of Autonomy in 1982. From this tumultuous process Valencia emerged as the capital of a newly autonomous region Comunitat Valenciana (Valencian Community) comprised of the D.L. Prytherch, J.V. Boira Maiques / Cities 26 (2009) 103–115 107 Figure 4. Valencia as it appeared in 1811. The dense and walled city can be seen surrounded by croplands and at some distance from the port. Map in the personal collection of Josep Vicent Boira Maiques. Figure 5. A detail from the modernista (art nouveu) public market Mercat Colom. In the early years of the 20th century a number of important public buildings were built in a style that evoked regionalist themes of agrarian prosperity, including the central train station, the city hall or Ajuntament de Valencia, and the central market Mercat Central. Photo by David Prytherch. provinces of València, Alacant, and Castelló (Sanz Díaz and Felip i Sardà, 2006). As part of a Socialist electoral sweep known as el cambio (Sp: the change) in 1982 Mayor Ricard Pérez Casado sought to undo 108 D.L. Prytherch, J.V. Boira Maiques / Cities 26 (2009) 103–115 the nefarious elements of the 1966 General Plan, reducing the amount of urbanizable land (Gaja Díaz and Boira Maiques, 1994) and tackling urban problems via special plans under the overarching concept of ‘‘Valencia and the Sea” (Ajuntament de València, 1984; Sorribes, 1998). The City undertook a series of grandes proyectos (Sp: grand projects) (Gaja Díaz, 1996a): it reversed plans for a central freeway in the dry bed of the River Turia and hired Barcelona architect Ricard Bofill to design a linear urban park; built a new concert hall, Palau de la Música (1987), as the park’s centerpiece and a new beachfront promenade; and planned a new avenue Avinguda de França (Avenue of France) to structure growth toward the sea. In 1988 these disparate efforts were combined in the approval of a revised General Plan (Ajuntament de València, 1987; Gaja Dı´az, 1996b). By the late 1980s the regional administration of the Generalitat Valenciana under its President Joan Lerma began pursuing its own planning agenda. It generated territorial studies and reformed urban planning laws, while investing in cultural institutions like the Institut Valencià d’Art Modern (Valencian Institute of Modern Art) (1989) in the working-class neighborhood of El Carme, a new campus for the University of Valencia, and the new Ciutat de les Ciències. It built a metropolitan rail system, new subway network, and light-rail corridor from the coast inland to the new headquarters of the regional television and radio network, while collaborating with national and municipal government to expand the city’s port. These efforts helped consolidate and complete existing growth with adequate public infrastructure, and began to reorient the city towards a more global services and tourism economy. After a decade of Socialist rule and growing political scandals, a coalition of the conservative Partido Popular (Sp: Popular Party) and right-wing regionalists of the Unió Valenciana (Valencian Union) came to power with the election of Rita Barberá to mayor in 1991 and Eduardo Zaplana to the Generalitat in 1995 (succeeded by José Luis Olives in 2002 and Francisco Camps in 2003). The hegemony, indeed absolute majority, of the P.P. and its neoliberal ideology set the stage for aggressive growth since the 1990s, coinciding with general expansion in the European economy. Residences (43,968 units) were constructed between 1991 and 2000 (3000 more than the previous decade), and half again that many between 2001 and 2004. This growth occurred largely at the city’s edge in planned developments known locally as Programas de Actuación Integrada (Sp: Integrated Action Plan) or PAI, governed by regional land use laws passed in 1994 and modified in 2005. Yet concern about corruption and excessive development – and their impact on the traditional fabric of Valencian life – have persisted, if overshadowed until very recently by an unprecedented real estate and tourism boom. Local landscapes of global change Valencia’s reorientation from provincial, agrarian city to a regional capital and Mediterranean metropolis has accelerated dramatically amidst European integration, globalization, and the P.P.’s brand of ‘‘entrepreneurial regionalism” (Prytherch and Huntoon, 2005; Prytherch, 2006). In this section we discuss five landscapes emblematic of the economic and political forces transforming both the material spaces of everyday life and the meanings they are said symbolize. These districts of planned and unplanned change embody the complex, multi-faceted, and contested forces constructing a ‘new’ Valencia. Cultural-entertainment tourism: City of Arts and Sciences and Valencia’s eastern façade Transforming Valencia into a major destination for culturalentertainment tourism has been a singular focus of local government planning efforts. This is most evident on lands east of the city along the former bed of the River Turia, where the massive Ciutat de les Arts i de les Ciències has been built where croplands and light manufacturing traditionally stood (Figure 6). Figure 6. La Ciutat de les Arts i de les Ciències or City of Arts and Sciences and adjoining development along the former bed of the River Turia. This massive cultural entertainment complex was designed by local architect Santiago Calatrava and built and paid for by the Generalitat Valenciana. In the foreground is the recently constructed Palau de les Arts opera hall, in the background are the L’Hemisfèric IMAX theater/planetarium and the Museu de les Ciències science center. An entirely new urban district has grown around it since the 1990s, seen in the background. Photo by David Prytherch. D.L. Prytherch, J.V. Boira Maiques / Cities 26 (2009) 103–115 109 In 1989 President Joan Lerma proposed a new ‘‘city of science and technology” to compete with redevelopments in Barcelona (for the 1992 Olympiad) and Seville (Expo 92) and hired Valencian-born Santiago Calatrava as its architect. By 1991 the plan included a planetarium/IMAX theater L’Hemisféric (inaugurated in 1999), a science museum Museu de les Ciències (2000), and a Tower of Communications (which, like a large bridge with viewing deck, was not built). Although the P.P. administration of Eduardo Zaplana cancelled the tower, it added an aquarium l’Oceanogràfic (designed by Felix Candela, 2002), and on the foundations of the tower promoted a new Opera Hall Palau de les Arts (2005). The ‘eastern façade’ of the city has been remade by accompanying residential and commercial development around the project, creating a wholly new neighborhood, Districte Ciutat de les Ciències, which did not exist in 1996 but had grown to 5562 people by 2007. On the southern banks of the Turia’s former bed emerged blocks of new skyscrapers, hotels, and a large mall. Across the river bed the new boulevard Avinguda de França emerged an entirely new district with residential high-rises (including Valencia’s tallest skyscraper), a new mall and a Corte Inglés department store. Taken together such developments have linked the city center and port area, promoting a new district for residents and tourists. The city’s new eastern façade has been constructed in a monumental and self-consciously Mediterranean style, representing a massive investment of public and private capital. It offers a striking vision of a 21st century Valencian lifestyle that is conspicuously distinct from the traditional landscape of croplands, manufacturing, and working class neighborhoods it has displaced, connecting some existing neighborhoods while leaving others isolated (e.g. Natzaret). Rodenas in 1991 but completed under Mayor Rita Barberá. Designed by British architect Sir Norman Foster the 15,000 m2 building was inaugurated in 1998 and had attracted 175 events and 120,000 participants by 2006. Like the Ciutat de les Arts i de les Ciències, it became the icon for a new urban district marked by postmodern skyscrapers, congested traffic, and feverish development. 4000 new residential units were completed nearby by the time of the facility’s inauguration (García del Moral, 1998), absorbing croplands and the previously distinct villages of Benicalap and Beniferri (Figure 7). This district in particular has been a focus of planned developments or PAIs. This outward process of growth has extended haphazardly along the highways and transit lines to adjoining towns of Benimàmet, Burjassot, Paterna, and beyond. Public investments in the district include the Universitat de València campus in Burjassot (a center of high-tech research), the headquarters of the regional radio and television networks RTVE, and the massive trade-show complex Feria Valencia (Valencian Trade Fair) adjacent to Paterna (at 230,000 m2 the largest in Spain). Each is connected by light rail to the city center and port, near regional rail stations, and adjacent to the city’s freeway bypass (leading to the nearby Manises airport) and A-III freeway to Madrid. In 2007 Valencia modified its general plan to allow the construction of a new Olympic-scale arena for the Valencia C.F. soccer team. These developments have created a new metropolitan corridor where centers of global business provide focal points in an expanding and disjointed landscape of apartments, highways, and industrial parks amidst degraded agricultural lands. This district, shared between a number of municipalities, has emerged as a perhaps distinctly Spanish style of urban sprawl. International business and trade: Valencia’s northwestern gateway Valencia as node in global trade: the containerized Port de València In a complementary strategy the city promoted business-oriented development on a planned axis of growth stretching northwest from the city along the Avinguda de les Corts Valencianes (Avenue of the Valencian Parliament) and Pista d’Ademús, amidst remnants of citrus groves. The architectural focal point is the Palau de Congresos (Conference Palace), conceived by the Socialist Mayor Clementina Valencian governance has also worked aggressively to make the city and region a European center of import–export trade through investments in the Port of Valencia. For centuries the maritime district of el Grau and the quays of the port’s dàrsena interior (interior harbor) exported the products of local agriculture and manufacture (Boira Maiques and Desfilis, 1994; Boira Maiques, 2007). In 1980s and 1990s quays were Figure 7. A new urban district rises from croplands along the Avinguda de les Corts Valencianes, a major boulevard that extends from the city center northwest to the Palau de Congressos conference center, designed by Sir Norman Foster. In this scene a draft horse contest takes place in the shadow of high rise construction, an expression of a wider movement to protect Valencia’s agrarian heritage and landscapes. Photo by David Prytherch. 110 D.L. Prytherch, J.V. Boira Maiques / Cities 26 (2009) 103–115 Figure 8. Gantry cranes of the Port of Valencia, which is Spain’s busiest container port. The croplands in the foreground, part of the irrigated district L’Horta de la Punta, were subsequently expropriated and razed for construction of a logistical activity zone to smooth transport flows to and from the port, sparking a city-wide protest movement. Photo by David Prytherch. extended seaward on landfill, and a large new container terminal completed in 1999 (Piqueras Haba and Sanchis Deusa, 2003). Such growth was premised upon ready access to a large hinterland which encompasses Madrid and half of Spain’s GDP (Viruela Martínez, 2004), as well as the kind of smooth transition between transport modes promoted by a planned Zona de Actividades Logísticas (Sp: Logistical Activity Zone), on croplands adjacent to the port (Figure 8). Since 1985 the Port Authority has expanded to include nearby Sagunt and Gandia in an integrated Valenciaport. As a result maritime trade through Valencia has grown exponentially, increasing from 6.6 million tons in 1993 (Piqueras Haba and Sanchis Deusa, 2003) to more than 40 million tons in 2006. Container traffic grew from 380,000 TEU in 1993 (‘Twenty Foot Equivalent Units’ or one 20-foot container) (Piqueras Haba and Sanchis Deusa, 2003) to more than 2.4 million containers in 2006 (www.valenciaport.com), attracting major shipping companies. Valencia’s growing inter-connectedness with global trade circuits is advantageous for some local manufacturers, like ceramics, furniture, and automobiles (Ford operates a plant in nearby Almussafes). But it exposed others (e.g. Valencia’s shoe industry) to increased competition. By 2008 Valencia had become Spain’s most important commercial port. Port growth has engulfed the Mediterranean coastline directly to the city’s east, and gantry cranes dominate the city’s eastern horizon. Intermodal containers wall the port’s edge, and are illegally stored too among nearby croplands. Heavily trafficked access routes connect the port to factories and import/export warehouses along the Autovia del Mediterrani (Mediterranean Freeway) or A-7 highway north, west, and south of the city. The port’s Plan Estratégico 2015 (Sp: Strategic Plan 2015) proposes to expand Valenciaport to 68 million tons and 4 million containers (TEUs), making it a principal Spanish and Mediterranean gateway (www.valenciaport. com). The rapid expansion of the Port of Valencia, in tension with neighboring land-uses, represents the challenges of reconciling different scales of economic and urban activity within the confines of a dense urban fabric. And it suggests the advantages and perils of full engagement with the global economy. The 153 ha expansion poses environmental problems related to the instability of the coastal littoral: as sediments accumulate north of the port they are eroded to the south. The port thus embodies a major debate between economic growth and environmental protection. Tourism, gentrification, and immigration: remaking the city center Growth in tourism and immigration flows has also transformed Valencia’s Ciutat Vella (Old City) (Figure 9) and surrounding neighborhoods, which had suffered an intense loss of population over the 20th century. In 1981 35,415 people still occupied the city center, but by 2007 only 25,368 remained, while the resident population aged: today there are more residents aged 75–79 (1262) than young children aged 0–4 (1024). To prevent the degradation of this historic space, municipal and regional governments made significant public investments. In addition to the rehabilitation of major historic structures to accommodate the growing bureaucracy of autonomous government, the city and region have signed accords known as Rehabilitación Integral de València Antiga (Comprehensive Rehabilitation of Old Valencia), known as RIVA I and II. And the much-degraded neighborhood of Velluters – a center for prostitution and drug trafficking – has received European Union funding since 1994. These public investments, if limited in scope, have been designed to catalyze private redevelopment. The Ciutat Vella’s slow abandonment has, however, been counteracted recently by its discovery by foreign tourists and immigrants. While in 1992 less than 400,000 tourists visited Valencia, by 2007 this number was nearly 2 million, a 25% increase over 2006. Though many come for leisure (58%) nearly as many visit for business (42%), and by 2007 40% of all visitors were foreign. Such travel has increased concurrently with the growth of low-cost airline flights: flights to Valencia grew 19% in 2007 alone (Turismo Valencia Convention Bureau website, 2008). With tourists have come exchange students and expatriate residents. This provincial ‘‘capital of anti-tourism”, which had nine museums visited by half a million people in 1996, counted 30 museums visited by 6.6 million people in 2007. In addition, the city’s famous festival les Falles – which transforms the city with enormous combustible statues, parades, and round-the-clock street life – attracted 1.2 million visitors in 2008. The festival involves more than 100,000 local resi- D.L. Prytherch, J.V. Boira Maiques / Cities 26 (2009) 103–115 111 Figure 9. The Ciutat Vella or old city center has long been a dynamic center focused on the main cathedral, seen in the background with the landmark bell tower el Micalet. The increase in tourism and immigration has transformed traditional public spaces like the Plaça de la Virge seen here. Photo by David Prytherch. dents (including fallers i falleres, direct participants in the festivals and the neighborhood organizations that support them) and generated an economic impact of 760 million Euros and some 7500 jobs. The impacts of tourism are visible in the growth of global franchises like Starbucks and McDonald’s, whose opening adjacent to the city’s cathedral was marked by anti-globalization protest. It can also be seen in the transformation of the working-class neighborhood of El Carme into a cosmopolitan nightlife destination featured in the New York Times (10 September 2007). With these changes have come increasing gentrification, part of a wider real estate boom. A new generation of Valencians, along with a growing population of expatriates, is rediscovering the Ciutat Vella. As the center has become more of a tourism and retail zone, rapid growth in immigration has transformed adjacent neighborhoods. In 1991 foreign immigrants comprised only 0.7% of Valencia’s population. Today, however, 12.8% of the city’s population is comprised of recent immigrants, representing an historic change for Valencia. In some neighborhoods immigrants represent Figure 10. The docks of Valencia’s historic dársena interior, including modernista storage sheds, were transformed in preparation for the 32nd America’s Cup sailing race hosted in 2007. Major investments created a new public space visited by tourists and city residents alike, opening Valencia more fully to the Mediterranean: spatially and symbolically. Photo by David Prytherch. 112 D.L. Prytherch, J.V. Boira Maiques / Cities 26 (2009) 103–115 20% of the population, particularly in those inner-ring neighborhoods consolidated in the 1960s and 1970s. The population of Els Orriols, for example, is 26% immigrant. In Russafa new immigrants (particularly from Latin America, but also North Africa, eastern Europe, and Asia) have contributed to a ‘‘multicultural” Valencia, that challenges traditional notions of conviviència (coexistance) (Torres Pérez, 2007). But difficulties of social integration are evident in the recent emergence of gated residential communities, a form of privatized urban development largely unknown in Valencia before the 1990s. As Valencia’s center has become a destination for tourists and expatriates, its streetscapes are increasingly marked by transnational fast food and fashion chains. Meanwhile, adjoining neighborhoods abound with new retail and services oriented to immigrant populations. But these rapid changes are not without accompanying tensions. The new waterfront: Mediterranean sports and recreation Valencia’s transformation into a global tourism destination was perhaps fully consolidated with the recent hosting of the 32nd America’s Cup sailing race. Redevelopment investment focused on the traditional docks and warehouses of the Port’s dársena interior (Figure 10). When nearby port improvements made the old docks obsolete in the 1990s (Boira Maiques, 2007), the port and municipal, regional, and the central governments agreed to create a commercial and recreational complex called Balcón al Mar (Sp: Balcony to the Sea). With the selection of Valencia as the seat of 32nd America’s Cup sailing race in November of 2003, 444 million Euros were budgeted for remaking the traditional port, including the construction of a marquee building Veles i Vents (sails and breezes), designed by British architect David Chipperfield and Spanish Fermín Vázquez, and opening of a new recreational channel to the sea. Today the port is among the city’s most important attractions and object of major architectural design and redevelopment projects. International architectural competitions have been sponsored to design the Marina Real Juan Carlos I (Sp: Juan Carlos I Royal Marina), including nautical facilities and 1.3 million square of adjoining neighborhoods. Most recently the port has been designated as the site of Formula 1 European Grand Prix races to be held between 2008 and 2015, part of a public-private accord that will transform the port area into a race-car circuit similar to Monte Carlo, over objections by neighboring residents. These transformations represent the relatively late entry of Valencia’s port into the Mediterranean leisure circuit, modeled on the success of Barcelona and other cities. If late, however, the creation of a cosmopolitan recreational space has been rapid. But integrating the newly redesigned port with the city center and adjoining neighborhoods remains a challenge. Key urban challenges and debates The forces of change and the dynamic landscapes embodying them discussed above pose significant challenges to public leadership in Valencia. Below we discuss briefly the debates surrounding these changes, attempting to convey both the locally specific debates and general outline of the ideologies and histories in which they’re rooted. In general, underlying planning controversies are animated by deeper questions Valencians ask themselves through public debate. Qui som? (Who are we?) On anem? (Where are we going?). Governance in Valencia often works these and other questions out through the cultural landscape itself. It remains to be seen how local government will confront these questions, but insights may be found in the ongoing revision of Valencia’s General Plan and emerging critiques. What kind of regionalism? Modernity, tradition, and regionalist landscapes The meaning of urban change is a particularly salient question in Spain, where identity discourses frame local policy and planning debates, particularly in Catalan regions where landscape and regionalism/nationalism are inextricable (Nogue and Vicente, 2001). Totems to Valencian modernity like the Ciutat de les Ciències have displaced traditional regionalist landscapes. But because Valencian processes of self-definition have long been rooted in local urban and rural landscapes and landmarks (Fuster, 1962; Piqueras Infante, 1996), a host of cultural and political tensions surround urbanization and its symbolic new landscapes. Planning decisions that imply the loss of l’Horta, in particular, have provoked public resistance (Cabrejas and Garcia, 1997). Emblematic are the left-leaning neighborhood movements known collectively as the Salvem that have emerged across the city to combine resistance to speculative development with a nationalist defense of traditional landscapes. Starting as local neighborhood movements in opposition to development plans, their resistance often draws from larger networks and discourses, including nationalism, environmentalism, and anti-globalization resistance. This has particularly been the case with l’Horta, as groups like Salvem la Punta resist local port expansion in broader terms as regional patrimony under threat, mobilizing a larger movement that culminated in a city-wide referendum for a moratorium on growth. Although such movements are a visible expression of reluctance about growth, there exists a wider and deeper Valencian imaginary that enshrines L’Horta, generating political consensus that such symbolic landscapes have public value and merit protection. In its revision of Valencia General Plan city planners acknowledge ‘‘the landscape constitutes a common patrimony of all citizens and is a fundamental element for their quality of life that must be preserved, improved, and managed adequately” (Ajuntament de Valencia, 2008). In June 2008 regional government finally launched a new territorial action plan to protect 12,000 ha the landscape of L’Horta (32,000 ha total). Despite this consensus, however, the draft General Plan has targeted zones of croplands in La Punta, Campanar, and Benimàmet for 34,000 new housing units, eliciting criticism not only from Salvem groups but even from the Generalitat’s environmental ministry (Velart, 20 April 2008). While Mayor Barberá suggests these 278 ha are degraded and of lesser landscape value, the Socialist opposition argues existing housing demand does not justify rezoning agricultural land, suggesting ‘‘We don’t want Valencia to grow at the expense of our environment” (Velart, 12 April 2008). In a context where urban development and change are inextricably bound with local and regional identities, however, planning new symbolic landscapes has become a way of redefining Valencian identity itself. The Ciutat de les Arts i de les Ciències, for example, was conceived, planned, and marketed not merely as tourism destination, but as a symbol of a new and modern Valencia. Modernity has become a consistent theme in regional political rhetoric. In a recent survey residents of the capital were asked to name five places in the city that spontaneously came to mind. It is perhaps telling that the most common response was the Ciutat de les Arts i de les Ciències (Boira Maiques, 2005). What kind of governance? Neoliberalism and real estate boom (and bust) As Valencia has pursued an economic development model defined by urban entrepreneurialism and rapid growth, it has witnessed an unprecedented construction and real estate boom. Speculative growth has been explosive, attributable to a range of factors including the wider integration of European financial and D.L. Prytherch, J.V. Boira Maiques / Cities 26 (2009) 103–115 labor markets, as well as the local entrepreneurialism of Mayor Rita Barberá, whose Partido Popular has governed the city since 1991 with absolute majorities in 1995, 1999, 2003, and 2007 (with 57.4% of the votes). With these victories the P.P. has promoted leisure-oriented urban redevelopment, an emphasis on inter-urban competition and place marketing, a privileged role for the business community, rapid urban development on the urban fringe, and experiments with private development of public lands. More than 70,000 residences were constructed in the city between 1990 and 2005 under the planning laws passed in the 1990s. These masterplanned developments or PAIs have occurred largely at the periphery, displacing traditional agrarian landscapes. Meanwhile, such neoliberal, entrepreneurial policies have helped the city attract major events like the America’s Cup in 2007, promoting Valencia’s standing as a European destination and associated growth in the tourism and real estate/construction sectors, while maintaining day-to-day governing. Such a focus is not without critics. A range of groups has criticized the emphasis on urban speculation and high-profile cultural events, to the detriment of longer-term social planning. This has been most acute in those neighborhoods like the port districts most transformed by growth: groups like Salvem CabanyalCanyamelar formed to resist the extension of the Avinguda Blasco Ibáñez have later taken exception to tourism-oriented redevelopment (e.g. Formula 1 racing). And the explosive growth of PAIs at the urban fringe has caused significant concern, particularly in rapidly growing, formerly agricultural districts like Benimaclet. There is much local opposition to this new growth, and the complexity and lack of public participation enshrined in the 1994/2005 laws have attracted international publicity and censure by the European Parliament. And many have questioned the need for new growth while an estimated 65,000 residences sat vacant throughout the city (according to a recent census in 2001), numbers only compounded as an unprecedented real estate burbuja (Sp: bubble) turns quickly to bust. Despite these controversies, opposition parties in Valencia have gained little traction at the polls. In 2007 local elections witnessed unprecedented alliance between Socialist, nationalist, environmentalist, and leftist parties whose campaign themes addressed urban speculation, corruption, and the threat to Valencia’s distinct regional way of life. But the election occurred amidst the America’s Cup race and the Valencian electorate returned the conservative P.P. to power in both municipal and regional government with absolute majorities. But a widening economic crisis may presage political changes. As the economic engine of construction quickly slows and the city’s model of economic productivity changes, however, there may be a greater push to rethink these policies, particularly since local administrations have shown limited ability to plan strategically on the longer term. At the same time, municipal government will need to confront the relatively new challenges and opportunities posed by immigration. These trends are related, since the real estate boom of the past decade attracted and employed many immigrants. The recent ‘‘crisis de ladrillo” (Sp: brick crisis) or construction slow-down, has consequently meant that 70% of newly unemployed people are immigrants (ElPaís: Edición Comunidad Valenciana, 27 March 2008). Although Valencia until recently prospered from tourism and real estate, the vulnerability of these economic engines to downturn may signify a greater need for medium and longer-term strategic planning, and a more diversified economic development model. What kind of urbanity? Urban change and the barris Urban transformations within the City Center and adjoining neighborhoods, including both gentrification and rapid immigration, have created a host of tensions for a city that has been histor- 113 ically provincial in many regards (and where until recently the term foraster or ‘foreigner’ even applied to Spaniards from outside the region). Changes in barris (neighborhoods) are fulfilling some of the basic theoretical principles of the Chicago School and its theories linking upward and outward social mobility with urban change: as Valencians prospered and moved to newly constructed developments on the fringe, much housing has become vacant in central, older neighborhoods like Russafa, which are increasingly occupied by a new immigrant population. Elsewhere, gentrification – by wealthy Valencians and a new class of expatriates – has begun to transform older residential districts, particularly in the Ciutat Vella. As a result Valencia has experienced greater social ‘zoning’ that challenges traditional notions of conviviència. The old center in particular has become a crucible of changing attitudes, people, and activities that approximates a kind of postmodern urban space. Traditional neighborhoods like El Carme remain magnets for particular social groups, and site for continuing struggles around issues of public spaces and quality of life, between tourists and residents, between neighbors and partying youth. A recent survey (Boira Maiques, 2005) shows that Valencians perceive immigration to be a major urban problem along with traffic and litter, when a similar survey in 1990 documented little such concern. With the concurrent trend towards gated residential communities at the urban periphery, planners must integrate newly created urban spaces into well-ordered patterns of growth. Center to these challenges is the question of urban circulation. Under the P.P. a major emphasis has been placed on improving vehicular mobility, embodied in the newly constructed boulevards circumnavigating the city. And municipal government under Barberá continues to promote the extension of the Avinguda Blasco Ibàñez to the coastline through the neighborhood of Cabanyal, a transportation prospect whose mere spectre continues to blight the neighborhood. Yet traffic and parking congestion has only increased. For many, public transport offers one answer to the challenge of connecting Valencians and their neighborhoods, older districts and newly emerging development, while enhancing quality of life and environment. Recent decades have witnessed the creation and development of a subway network in Valencia, which inaugurated underground service in 1988 and today has five lines, part of an urban and metropolitan network with 64.5 million passengers in 2006. But safety and congestion remains a major local issue, particularly in the wake of a 2006 Metro accident that killed 43 people. The efficiency of the city’s circulation/communication networks is a major focus of General Plan revisions (Ajuntament de Valencia, 2008). Nonetheless experts criticize the plan for still lacking a sufficient commitment to urban mobility and metropolitan-scale planning (ElPaís: Edición Comunidad Valenciana, 24 May 2008). And where investments have occurred, they have focused on linking the airport to the city center and America’s Cup Port, and thus are geared primarily to visitors, while poor and peripheral neighborhoods lag behind. Reconciling growth and quality of life remains a major challenge for any new General Plan. What kind of territory? Globalization, Euroregionalism, and the Mediterranean Arc A central challenge facing Valencia is to ensure its strategic situation and connection within Spain and a wider network of European cities. Valencia is said to occupy a strategic position in the economic macro-region or Euro-region the Arc Mediterrani or ‘Mediterranean Arc’. It is close to Mediterranean shipping routes and well connected with Madrid (to the west) and Barcelona (to the north). Infrastructure improvements remain important to this Euro-regional project. While high velocity trains are projected to connect Valencia and Madrid in 2010, a wide coalition of political and economic forces in Valencia advocate a similar freight and 114 D.L. Prytherch, J.V. Boira Maiques / Cities 26 (2009) 103–115 passenger rail link through Barcelona to Europe. These ideas reflect growing efforts to organize a network of cities and territories as a macro-region that would help the northwest Mediterranean adapt to globalization’s challenges. These efforts recognize that Valencia economy is no longer agricultural or industrial, but increasingly tertiary: since 1991 the city has lost 20,000 jobs in industry and gained 90,000 in the service sector. These changes are plainly evident in the urban landscape itself (Teixidor de Otto and López García, 2003). Thus a key objective in General Plan revisions remains ensuring Valencia’s institutional character as capital – cap i casal (‘‘head and manor house”) – of the Comunitat Valenciana and its privileged position in the Mediterranean Arc (Ajuntament de Valencia, 2008). Competitiveness in a global trade and services economy are central to planning agendas at local and regional levels. Such proposals are subject to considerable debate, however. For many in the Valencian right, for whom regionalism means defense of Valencian difference against wider Catalan cultural integration, cooperating with Barcelona signifies capitulation. For some on the nationalist left, focus on economic collaboration is a retreat from the Catalanist project of political–linguistic unification. But a consensus is emerging that political tensions between Valencia and Barcelona obstruct natural economic complementarity, and ‘‘cooperating to compete” is a sensible strategy in an integrating European and global economy. Future developments? Valencia is a Mediterranean city transformed by two decades of rapid change. A half-century ago Valencia was largely a provincial city rooted economically and culturally in the surrounding croplands of l’Horta. Today Valencia is the capital of a fast growing autonomous region, and an increasingly prominent destination for tourists, trade, and foreign investment. These changes are both product of changing global contexts and local government planning, which for 25 years has worked to strategically position Valencia within concurrent processes of Spanish decentralization, economic globalization, and European integration. If this transformation was initially guided by territorial planning under Socialist administrations, in the past decade the process has accelerated within the free-market entrepreneurialism of the Partido Popular. This shift has produced a clear and characteristically postmodern model of transformation, in which creative change is unrestrained by laws to structure it. Unlike Barcelona, change in Valencia has not been guided under a social-democratic but a neoliberal regime. But a more constrained economic context raises questions about continued growth, particularly as Valencians struggle to reconcile their pride in their city’s modernity with their defense of cultural, historical difference. After two decades of aggressive entrepreneurialism and dizzying urban change, Valencia may be slowing down to digest its growth. The ongoing update of the city’s General Plan reflects less ambitious projections for demographic and physical expansion, and focuses on maintaining the city’s compact geographical structure. Within 15 years it speaks of a population scarcely larger than today’s. It also proposes moderate urban growth: 240 new hectares of urban lands in addition to the 6,000 already consolidated, just 4% growth of additional development and the protection of 8000 ha of croplands of high agricultural and landscape value. Tourism and construction will likely remain central to Valencia’s economic development, but others increasingly argue for more balanced growth modeled less on Florida and more on California (Romero and Alberola, 2007). But many challenges remain for Valencia. Just a few include the integration of the city’s rapidly growing immigrant population, the planning of the city’s maritime façade, the development of advanced public services, articulating more strategic visions of Valencia’s place in urban networks of supra-local scale, metropolitan governance, and the planning and promotion of high-profile events against the backdrop of changing European and global conditions. Emblematic of this challenge is how to reconcile continuing expansion of Valencia’s commercial port (recently projected to occupy 12% of the city’s zoned land) with surrounding neighborhoods and croplands. Here and elsewhere Valencian politicians and planners must negotiate tensions between globalization and localism, modernity and tradition, in civic discourse and urban space. It remains to be seen if a neoliberal urban regime can continue to effectively confront these challenges with its limited set of policy instruments, or if new techniques will be necessary. These questions become more acute today as global economic turmoil threatens these bases upon which Valencia has been governed and developed for a decade: real estate speculation, tourism, and global trade. Valencia will remain an interesting and perhaps emblematic case study of Mediterranean urban change, how European places distinguished by unique landscapes and regional identities navigate the complexities of the global economy, and can remake themselves in the process. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive critique, and the City Profiles Editor for helpful editorial guidance. All errors and omissions are our own. References Ajuntament de València (1984) La Ciudad que Queremos. Ajuntament de València, València. Ajuntament de València (1987) La València de los Noventa: una Ciudad con Futuro. Ajuntament de València, València. Ajuntament de Valencia (2008) Memoria: Informe de Sostenibilidad: Revisión del Plan General de Valencia. Ajuntament de Valencia, Valencia. Boira Maiques, J V (2005) Informe sobre una encuesta de percepción urbana y comparación con los datos de 1991. CEYD-Ayuntamiento de Valencia. Boira Maiques, J V (2006) València i Barcelona: Retorn al Futur. Edicions Tres i Quatre, Valencia. Boira Maiques, J V (2007) ‘‘La dársena histórica del puerto: transformaciones” and ‘‘El.puerto en el siglo XX y XXI”. En Historia del Puerto de Valencia, Universitat de València. Boira Maiques, J V, Desfilis, A (1994) El Grau de València: la construcció d’un espaiurbà. Edicions Alfons El Magnànim, Valencia. Burriel de Orueta, E (1971) La Huerta de Valencia: Zona sur: Estudio de Geografía Agraria (doctoral dissertation). Institución Alfonso el Magnánimo, Valencia. Cabrejas, M, and Garcia, E (1997) València, L’Albufera, L’Horta: Medi Ambient i Conflicte Social. Universitat de València, Valencia. Company, R (2007) El Levante Festero i la reinvenció dels estereotips sobre els valencians. Com ens veuen d’exòtics. Revista Valenciana d’Etnologia 2, 107–145. Costa, M (1994) La huerta de Valencia como ecosistema. In Seminario International Sobre la Huerta de Valencia, P S Palomo (ed.). Ajuntament de València, Oficina Técnica Plan Verde, Valencia. Courtot, R (1992) Camp i Ciutat a les Hortes Valencianes. Col.lecció Politècnica, Valencia. Cucó, A (1999) El Valencianisme Polític: 1874–1939. Editorial Afers, Catarroja (Valencia). ElPaís: Edición Comunidad Valenciana (27 March, 2008) El 70% de los parados por la crisis de la construcción son inmigrantes: El Consell y las cámaras de Comercio formarán a 1.000 extranjeros. ElPaís: Edición Comunidad Valenciana (24 May, 2008) Los expertos piden un plan de movilidad para Valencia. Fuster, J (1962) Nosaltres els Valencians. Edicions 62, Barcelona. Gaja Díaz, F (1996a) La transformación de Valencia (I): Grandes proyectos urbanísticos. Urbanismo, 28. ´ az, F (1996b) La transformació de Valencia (II): Plan general de 1988: La Gaja Dı última gran propuesta urbanı´stica que ha dibujado el paisaje de la capital levantina. Urbanismo 29, 62–77. Gaja Díaz, F and Boira Maiques, J V (1994) Planeamiento y realidad urbana en la ciudad de Valencia (1939–1989). Cuadernos de Geografía 55, 63–89. García del Moral, J (2/07/1998) Los Reyes inauguran hoy el Palacio de Congresos que Rita Barberá ha convertido en su estandarte. ElPaís. D.L. Prytherch, J.V. Boira Maiques / Cities 26 (2009) 103–115 Glick, T (1970) Irrigation and society in medieval Valencia. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Guia, J (1988) València, 750 Anys de Nació Catalana. Edicions Tres i Quatre, Valencia. Houston, J M (1957) Geografia urbana de Valencia: El desarrollo regional de una ciudad de huerta. Estudios Geograficos 66, 151–166. New York Times (17 September, 2006) Valencia, Spain: A barrio in which reality is enough. Nogue, J and Vicente, J (2001) Landscape and national identity in Catalonia. Political Geography 23, 113–132. Piqueras Haba, J and Sanchis Deusa, C (2003) El tráfico marítimo de contenedores. Valencia en la red portuaria mundial. Cuadernos de Geografía(73/74), 147–182. Piqueras Infante, A (1996) La Identidad Valenciana: La Difícil Construcción de una Identidad Colectiva. Institució Alfons el Magnànim, Valencia. Prytherch, D (2006) Narrating the landscapes of entrepreneurial regionalism: rescaling, ‘new’ regionalism, and the planned remaking of València, Spain. Space and Polity 10, 203–227. Prytherch, D and Huntoon, L (2005) Entrepreneurial regionalist planning in a rescaled Spain: the cases of Bilbao and València. GeoJournal 62, 41–50. Ribera, A, and Jiménez Salvador, J L (2000). Urbanismo y arquitectura de la Valencia romana y visigoda. In Historia de la Ciudad: Recorrido Histórico por la Arquitectura y el Urbanismo de la Ciudad de Valencia, Teberner Pastor, F. (ed.). Colegio de Arquitectos de la Comunidad Valenciana, Valencia. Romero, J, Alberola, M (Eds.) (2007) Los Límites del Territorio: El País Valenciano en la Encrucijada. Universitat de València. Valencia. 115 Sanchis Guarner, M (1972) La Ciutat de València: Síntesi d’Història i de Geografia Urbana. Circulo de Bellas Artes de Valencia. Valencia. Sanz Díaz, B and Felip i Sardà, J M (2006) La Construcció Política de la Comunitat Valenciana. Institució Alfons el Magnànim, Valencia. Sorribes, J (1978) Crecimiento Urbano y Especulación en Valencia. Almudín, Valencia. Sorribes, J (1985) Desarrollo Capitalista y Proceso de Urbanización en el Paı́s Valenciano (1960–1975). Col.leció Politécnica, Valencia. Sorribes, J (1998) La Ciutat Desitjada: València entre el Passat i el Futur. Tàndem Edicions, Valencia. Teixidor de Otto, M J (1982) Valènica, la Construcció d’una Ciutat. Institució Alfons el Magnànim, Valencia. Teixidor de Otto, M J and López García, M J (2003) Evolución de los usos terciarios del suelo en la Ciutat Vella de València (1900–2002). Cuadernos de Geografía(73/ 74), 363–390. Torres Pérez, F (2007) Viure junts: A la València multicultural. Revista Valenciana d’Etnologia 2, 73–90. Velart, S (12 April, 2008) Dos formas de ver la huerta: La pérdida de suelo agrícola enfrenta a Barberá y Alborch. Edición Comunidad Valenciana, El País. Velart, S (20 April, 2008) La Generalitat pone reparos a urbanizar más huerta: Medio Ambiente cuestiona la pretensión de Barberá en el PGOU. Edición Comunidad Valenciana, El País. Viruela Martínez, R (2004) El transport maritim al País Valencià. Cuadernos de Geografía 75, 75–90.