La España de las piscinas

During the years of the real estate boom, five million homes were built in Spain. Most follow the American suburb model. They are green islands -because of the common areas- and blue -because of the swimming pools- located on the outskirts of the cities and where a good part of the so-called aspirational middle class of our country resides. Young families with young children. The children and grandchildren of empty Spain. These newly created neighborhoods make up what Jorge Dioni López calls "the Spain of swimming pools". A world made up of villas, housing estates, mortgages, alarms, subsidized schools, multiple cars per family unit, shopping centers, online consumption, private health insurance, etc. A world that favors individualism and social disconnection and whose political importance is fundamental today, since the evolution of the political map depends on it, especially the conservative vote. The debate on housing and territory tends to focus on issues such as gentrification, the price of rents or rural emptying. The Spain of swimming pools puts another essential question on the table: the analysis of our main urban development model and how it has transformed the way of understanding the world, the aspirations and the ideology of millions of Spaniards.