Madrid: A City for Consumption and Investment

The debate on the image and urban reality of Madrid has not stopped intensifying in recent times. On the one hand, the capital of Spain projects itself through neoliberal policies and as an emblem of an entrepreneurial city. On the other hand, inequalities have deepened and a major crisis is perceived in certain public services aimed at the population as a whole. In this scenario, the city of Madrid has developed explicit policies of commercial freedom, real estate deregulation and low taxes, which have encouraged numerous consumers and collective capital funds to buy, to direct their investments to this great metropolitan centre and to speculate with processes of land revaluation. All this is analysed in the chapter. In parallel, Madrid has strengthened itself as an icon of urban tourism with differentiated characteristics. Its streets, museums, restaurants and palaces are objects of immediate consumption; a consumed city that also tries to be systematized. In short, the capital of Spain constitutes a paradigm of the city of current capitalism, hedonic, mobile and animated by quick profits. A paradigm that has been defended as a model of freedom, while its urban and metropolitan policies are criticized by important segments of the population.