**1. Introduction**

Over the last decade, citizen–administration relations in Spain have worsened. The austerity policies implemented in the wake of the 2007 financial crisis have resulted not only in political and institutional disaffection but also in a social and cultural crisis that has affected a high percentage of citizens. From the closing of companies and high unemployment rates (especially among young people) and eviction processes, the budget cutbacks (especially in personnel and basic services [1,2] and the privatization or externalization by subcontracting of some of them) have led to a notable worsening in citizens' living conditions [3–5]. The result has been an increase in the dynamics of social exclusion that have deteriorated the social cohesion of cities, leaving families and individuals in precarious conditions and in situations of vulnerability. According to the Eighth Report on Poverty in Spain [6], 8% of the population suffer from cold at home (in 2009, it was 7.2%), a quarter of those over 25 years old do not have their own income or earn less than 535 Euros a month, and 10% of workers continue to lose 25% of their income each year due to precarious job conditions. Additionally, regarding the housing problem and according to judiciary statistics, evictions continue, with a total of 368,591 recorded since 2013, of which 58.9% were for non-payment of rent and 41.1% for non-payment of mortgages [7].

In this context, it is not surprising that more and more cities and neighborhoods are immersed in a deep and long-lasting decline [8–12]. They are vulnerable neighborhoods where degradation and neglect have been noted in the urban frame [13]. Numerous researchers have echoed the situation, analyzing the impact of the processes of negotiation of disposition [14], how austerity policies affect citizens' rights [15,16], and how gentrification and tourism affect the aggravation of the population's vulnerability, limiting access to housing due to the increase in purchase and rental prices [7,17,18]. Likewise, the central government has tried to analyze the problem by creating a vulnerability observatory published by the Atlas of Urban Vulnerability and the Atlas of Vulnerable Neighborhoods. Thanks to them, an overview of the problem is available, but viable policies and initiatives that mitigate this vulnerability are still lacking.

Since 2011, civil society has organized itself in different movements, platforms, and associations to demand the stoppage of austerity policies and cuts and demand that access to basic social services be guaranteed. However, due the inability and inefficiency of administrations to carry out improvement actions, it is the neighborhood action itself that carries out a series of resilient social innovations to reverse neighborhood dynamics. To analyze them in this article we will focus on the Canido neighborhood in Ferrol, a city in the northwest of Spain. Canido is a traditional neighborhood affected by a high degree of physical and social deterioration, from which a cultural initiative has managed to reverse this deterioration, improving its physical aspect and energizing it from an economic, social, and cultural point of view. With its study, a double objective is pursued: first, to analyze to what extent the citizen movements of the neighborhood and their actions are the architects in the recovery of the neighborhoods and the reduction of their vulnerability, and also to study the degree of impact that these types of actions have in the neighborhood from a physical, economic, and social point of view and to what extent local administrations view them as a solution to the state of crisis in which they are still immersed.

To do this, we will first approach the urban policies that have been developed in Spain since the 1990s. We will check which urban sectors have been most interested in local administrations to make improvements and project an image of a concrete city. Later, we will study to what extent the social movements and their proposals for social innovation are helping to recover the quality of life in the neighborhoods. We will analyze some of them and consider if the administrations have supported them. Finally, we will analyze how the street art initiative *Las Meninas de Canido* has become the most attractive neighborhood in the city and has achieved international recognition.

### **2. Objectives and Method**

To analyze the impact that the artistic experience of Las Meninas de Canido has had on the neighborhood, an eminently qualitative investigation that aims to accomplish the following objectives has been carried out:


To this end, an important review of the current literature on new models of urban governance, urban renewal and social innovation, social justice, neighborhood movements, and resilience and urban innovation initiatives (urban gardens, art in public space, etc.) was first carried out. The result was a theoretical approach to the issue.

Second, numerous websites and blogs have been consulted on Las Meninas de Canido, as well as the official websites of the municipality of Ferrol and neighborhood associations, to have some initial information on the projects that have been carried out in the neighborhood and thus be able to organize and design the questionnaire that laid the basis for the semi-structured interviews.

The questions were organized into two large blocks (Table 1): one related to the Meninas event with questions that allowed the origin of the event to be known and to assess the degree of impact in the neighborhood, physically, socially, and economically; and another related to the neighborhood, to evaluate the sectors that were most degraded and see to what extent they were acting on them.


**Table 1.** Questions for interviews.

The people/institutions interviewed were Eduardo Hermida, the person who, in an act of protest against the state of ruin and degradation in which the Canido neighborhood had become, went out and painted the first Menina, thus becoming the promoter of the cultural event of Las Meninas de Canido. Jorge Suárez Fernández, Mayor of the city from 2015–2019 and the person who assessed the degree of involvement that the city council had with the event; the association of Neighbors of Canido, the cultural association O Muiño, hoteliers, and merchants. All of them were allowed to give their opinion on the event of Las Meninas in order to evaluate to what extent the neighborhood has been transformed for them in recent years, to know what aspects they value as positive and negative, in relation to both the event itself, and the situation in which the neighborhood is, and to know its future expectations.

Likewise, the field work carried out in May 2019 in the Canido neighborhood allowed us to check the state of deterioration, the humanization actions carried out through European funds through urban projects and to map the location of the existing Meninas paintings in the neighborhood.

### **3. The Paradigm Shift in Urban Policies**

In each city, there is a trajectory that indicates the balances between the role of public authorities, the business world, social fabric, or citizens in the processes that have combined urban transformation, the construction of a city model, and the dynamics of urban governance [19]. If we review the period from the mid-1980s to the present, we can see that the 2007 crisis was a turning point, both in relation to the desired city model, and therefore, of urban policies and outbreaks of interest to be addressed, including the agents involved and the expected results. For two decades, local administrations opted to create competitive cities within the global and modern market, in which urban megaprojects—often linked to international events—were the protagonists and placed the city on the map [20]. Examples include the Olympic city of Barcelona, the equipment and facilities built in Seville and Zaragoza with the universal exhibitions, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the city of arts and sciences of Valencia, or the city of culture in Santiago de Compostela. With the exception of Bilbao, the viability of these projects has been questioned since their inception. However, they have always defended themselves from the political spheres under the pretext of the economic profitability that they would bring to the city and the improvement that they would provide at an urban level. From the administrations, a neoliberal growth model was chosen, in which the market and the real estate developers marked the growth of the city, and there was a liberalization of the land and a total deregulation of urban growth. The creation of new infrastructure was considered to improve the positioning of cities in the urban hierarchy, and investment in housing was understood as a safe and highly profitable asset. The city looked like a business, and therefore, getting the maximum benefit was the key objective. Throughout this process, financial institutions played a key role, offering loans with generous conditions, both for real estate developers and for citizens, who were encouraged to apply for a mortgage to purchase their homes [21–23]. The result was unprecedented urban growth, in which the traditional city lost its meaning in the face of urban sprawl processes and in which the city was considered a consumer product, where all aspects that had to do with the social welfare and quality of life of citizens were relegated to the background. In this regard, it should be noted that while comprehensive development strategies have been implemented in Spanish cities since 1994, through initiatives funded with European funds. These include URBAN and URBAN II initiatives, Urban Innovative Actions (URBACT), and Integrated and Sustainable Urban Development Strategy (ISUDS). In relation to the former, its objective was to combat urban degradation and promote the regeneration of degraded neighborhoods. With them, it was possible to introduce in Spain a series of concepts that were not yet discussed. These include the concept of an integrated approach, the need to address the problems of cities based on collaboration between institutions, the need to involve the population and local actors through participatory processes and the introduction of a vision of urban regeneration based on the concept of sustainable urban development. In the period 1990–1994, there were 29 URBAN projects that involved an investment of €16,748,739; while with Urban II (2000–2007), only 10 were counted [24]. On the other hand, the URBACT initiatives (2014–2020) were aimed at promoting sustainable development in 28 Spanish cities, with an investment of €351,820 [25]; at the same time that for the Integrated and Sustainable Urban Development Strategy (ISUDS), more than one billion euros were allocated to improve the environment, promote social inclusion and the fight against poverty, improve access to ICTs and improve environmental quality [26]. Nevertheless, there are few studies on the impact that these have had when solving specific problems of a social, environmental, and economic nature in the sectors involved. In some cases, these funds were used to improve some sectors of downtown areas of cities, historic centers, or neighborhoods with degraded buildings, but they continued to be small urban acupuncture interventions [27]. The problem was that most of the municipal investments made were destined for actions that could attract a greater number of visitors or tourists; leaving the neighborhoods in practically the same state of degradation and vulnerability in which they started.

In 2007, the urban development model changed completely, because:


From then on, talk about local government gave way to talk about urban governance, in which both the policies and the actors involved in them mattered. Among them were the citizens, who had become increasingly empowered. The interest of these policies focused on neighborhoods, especially those that were the most vulnerable and where there was greater unemployment and more evictions. It was based on the premise that the city should be a space to live and a place for citizens and that the administration had to be the one to guide the strategies that needed to be developed, with the help of citizens through real participation, in a way that decisions were not imposed but worked from the bottom up; transparency departments were created, and municipal budgets were redistributed by increasing the budget of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods to promote social rental housing, promote educational and cultural activities, and serve the most disadvantaged groups (youth, long-term unemployed, women, single parents) to improve their quality of life (Table 2).


**Table 2.** Keys of urban policies changes during the post-crisis period.

However, after four years since the arrival of these political parties, the interviews with policy makers in cities such as Madrid, Cádiz, Valencia, A Coruña, and Ferrol have revealed that the expected

results have not been obtained. Among the causes is the budget deficit, the difficulty of changing work synergies established for decades in local administrations, excessive bureaucratization, and even reluctance on the part of the opposition parties when implementing some initiatives, such as those that favor the creation of public housing for social rent. Consequently, citizens continue to be the protagonist when it comes to implementing social innovation actions that mitigate the situation of degradation and vulnerability that still exists in neighborhoods.
