Regional residential mobility, migrations and spatial balance in the Community of Madrid during the economic crisis

At present, the internal regional balance of the Community of Madrid basically depends on flows of mobility. This paper analyzes regional residential mobility and migrations as related to processes of population concentration and deconcentration. To this end, we focus our attention on the evolution of mobility throughout the economic crisis and on the differences in mobility between native and non-native populations. Population and mobility data from various sources (Census, Register and Residential Variation Statistics) are used for three areas (the central city, the metropolitan belt and the peripheral areas), and four types of mobility processes are defined: centralization, metropolization, peripheral decentralization and internal mobility. The results indicate that, during the crisis, the reduction in the volume of mobility did not mean a reversal of the increasing mobility initiated at the end of the 1990s. Temporary effects of foreign immigration («false» centralization, distribution) tend to be reduced, while the tendency towards metropolitan deconcentration become in dispute with a growing trend of centralization. Mobility of stablished non-native population begins to converge with the mobility of the native population.