How Spanish Urbanism Lost its Leading Edge

Could modern Spain's era of monumental urban projects finally be over? After a decades-long spurt of massive, influential development plans, Spain’s cities are now littered with half-built grand schemes that never happened. Madrid is currently missing a planned convention center (still a hole in the ground), a grandiosely titled arts center called the Coliseum of the Three Cultures (still two empty lots), a new stadium to replace one razed in 2006 and the long-promised, almost traffic-free Paseo Del Arte, a parkland promenade linking the city's main museums.

Spain's third city, Valencia, is faring no better. Here a new residential neighborhood’s construction has stalled, an extension of the metro system is on hold and no work has occurred on its half-built new stadium since 2009. These plans were hatched in the wake of a long list of successful cultural and urban regeneration schemes in recent decades, but with Spain’s property bubble long-since popped and cash for development blown away by austerity, their development is no longer viable. For a country whose bold urban schemes were once aped across the world, this is an abrupt and painful turnaround.