Marbella: From a Luxury Tourist Destination to Socio-spatial Segregation

Abstract

Marbella is a city and municipality on the Mediterranean coast, with spatial tensions characteristic of places subject to touristification. One of the municipality's main features is its high ratio of foreigners, who live there for residential or employment purposes. For this study, a spatial analysis was made of socioeconomic and urban-planning variables, taking census sections as the scale. The research hypothesis is that a process of urban fragmentation has taken place, giving rise to a quartered city due to socioeconomic and residential disparities. The results show that ghettos have formed in the urban centres of Marbella and San Pedro, in addition to quarters in the far east of the municipality and exclusionary enclaves in some census sections in the western half. A real estate analysis shows that high property prices foster processes of urban, social and residential fragmentation in the municipality.