**5. Conclusions**

It is a fact that major urban projects located within cities' central areas are fundamental in conveying an image of status and power of the economic and political elites, but it is likewise true that they become elements that contribute to increasing social inequalities, reinforce urban segregation processes and contribute to deepening the centre–periphery rift.

Similarly, it is confirmed that these actions are identified with neoliberal urban policies and may sideline democratic decision-making mechanisms. This line of action is corroborated when public powers create an institutional framework, presumed to fully guarantee free market practices, and speed up the implementation of major urban interventions by means of public–private collaboration strategies with the aim of concentrating economic profits into a few hands rather than disseminating them throughout the urban setting.

We believe that this study is an empirical contribution to knowledge since Madrid presents one of the most elaborate versions of the neoliberal model embraced by urban policies since the final decade of the 20th century. It demonstrates an urban planning model based on collaboration among public agents—represented by the central, regional or local governments—and private entrepreneurs. It exemplifies an urban policy that places the economic profitability of private interests before the general good, favouring speculative practices in enclaves that ensure highly profitable real estate benefits to investors, while at the same time propitiating an institutional framework to support the necessary instruments and mechanisms to serve private interests. In essence, it is a model that adds the political opportunities of the former to the business advantages of the latter.

The article likewise recounts the attempts made by the progressive local government in 2015 to change the model, and the inherited obstacles making it impossible to bring in new, more equitable and citizen-oriented forms of governing the city. It also unveils how the return of a conservative government in 2019 reproduced the previous neoliberal principles, disregarding the growing social inequality.

The findings of this study confirm the suitability of the documentary sources consulted in monitoring the process for interpreting the postulates and development of urban projects and of the role played by the various players involved. In this sense, the aim of this paper, i.e., to confirm the correspondence between counterposed urban policies for city development and the projects proposed for the central area of Madrid over recent years, has been accomplished. Lastly, it goes without saying that the invariable modus operandi of neoliberal urban agendas and their contribution to the centre–periphery divide are likewise evinced.

Having shown the urbanistic-speculative nature of these undertakings that tend to deepen inequality in the city and having regard to their imminent execution, it would be advisable to call on the public powers to, at least, consider redirecting the capital gains generated in the operation towards covering the needs of citizens in general.

To finish, we quote the words addressed by architect Enrique Bardají to experts in urban planning practices, deeming them very appropriate for the managers and politicians who, to all effects and purposes, carry the greatest responsibility for the state in which we suffer in our cities:

When public opinion still views urban planning as a set of highly complex and obscure processes, there is something that we urban planning professionals are doing wrong. We should strive somehow toward achieving that the transformation of the city is viewed as a normal process, a NOBLE activity resulting from wisdom and reflection, the criteria of democratically chosen majorities, respectful of minorities, comprehensible laws and total procedural transparency [49] (p. 28).

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Data Availability Statement:** Data available in a publicly accessible repository.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.
