Informal centralities against Fascism: The case of Madrid

Centrality is often conceived as a functional and topological condition characterized by a zero-sum balance: agglomeration processes condense centrality in specific places to the detriment of others which become subordinated as peripheries. But what if centrality is fundamentally a political relation, an inexhaustible substance that can be expanded and multiplied through the explosion of urban potentialities? And what if those spaces traditionally understood as quintessential peripheries – self-built, periurban settlements inhabited by displaced, marginalized populations – are in fact an engine of political centrality and social change and therefore a critical feature of urbanization? This chapter draws on Henri Lefebvre’s work to examine forms of spontaneous, self-produced centrality in a case of ‘popular’ urbanization. Following the Spanish Civil War and for over three decades the southern outskirts of Madrid developed as a belt of informal settlements containing some 30,000 households. The so-called ‘problem of the suburbs’ challenged hegemonic ideas of the urban and the Fascist state’s modernization project, revealing the limitations of official housing and planning policies. During the 1960s and 1970s the growing political organization of these communities became an important element of clandestine struggles against the dictatorship, and later informed the agenda of a new generation of planners in the transition to democracy. The chapter examines these forms of insurgent centrality by focusing on three overlapping and interdependent moments of functional, social, and political autonomy, tracing the connections between the settlements’ spatial configuration, everyday life, and political mobilization in the shanty town.

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