3.2.1. How Did the Economic Crisis Transfer to the Urban Crisis?

The economic crisis became the urban crisis with the multiplication of ghost housing estates, which spread all over the map of Spain, and the bursting of the real estate bubble. The urbanistic excesses that accompanied it left traces that are difficult to erase: unfinished housing developments, almost completely unoccupied blocks of flats and, around them, the desolation of streets, streetlights, litter bins, and new, unopened playgrounds. In the words of Markel Redondo, the photographer who has traveled all over Spain taking snapshots of some of the many urbanizations and ghost complexes that the brick bubble left all over the country: "To be in those places is strange, you get the feeling of being the last human being on earth, contemplating the ruins" [30]. For the *Málaga Hoy* newspaper, these urbanistic excesses on the Costa del Sol left "a coastline of real estate corpses" [31].

As we all know, the Mediterranean was the area with the greatest volume of flats built, especially Murcia, the Valencian Community and Andalusia, which accumulated the newest empty flats in relation to the total housing stock, and which, in 2017, were still the autonomous communities with the greatest difference between completed homes and new home sales since 2004. In Spain as a whole, even though for several years more new housing was bought than was built, there were still almost half a million unsold homes in 2018, according to data from the Bank of Spain [32].

On the other hand, in Ireland and the USA, after the bursting of the real estate bubble, many buildings were demolished to reduce the supply and because conserving them was more expensive than tearing them down. In Spain, although experts believed that unfinished and badly situated works would be demolished, the Sociedad de Gestión de Activos Procedentes de la Reestructuración Bancaria (SAREB) (Company for the Management of Assets from Bank Restructuring) has not undertaken a clear demolition plan, despite allocating a significant amount to the maintenance of buildings and to works in progress in empty urbanizations. Thus, the ghost developments in the urban peripheries of many Spanish cities have been waiting for someone to decide if the cranes will return, showing the scars of the crisis following the real estate bubble.
