ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the detailed pattern of housing growth and decline in a traditionally slow growth area of Spain, the Autonomous Community of Galicia, and shows the mechanisms that have led to the changes. The Urban Atlantic Axis occupies only 7,000 of the 30,000 square kilometers of the province, its major centres account for a third of the population and the majority of the businesses. The external change has had particular problems for the Spanish housing market, since a significant part of the demand for houses has come from tourists or migrants from other European countries. Given its tourist tradition that led to many houses being built to house holiday makers and new migrants, the Mediterranean coast has been hardest hit by the housing bubble. The booms in housing growth in both Spain and in Galicia were helped by four main factors, related to demand, new societal conditions, planning failures and the removal of old spatial constraints in mobility.
