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
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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]).
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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