Towards a Complex Spatial Pattern of Residential Mobility: The Case of the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona

The spatial patterns of residential mobility have experienced deep changes during the last years in the largest Spanish Metropolitan Areas. The new scenario differs from the pattern of demographic deconcentration and territorial suburbanization that had been the predominant one since the 1970s and lasted until the first years of the 21st century.
This article explores the case of Barcelona, where a decrease in the intensity of the suburban movements and an increase of the attractiveness of the urban center towards the metropolitan residents has been observed. Something similar has happened with the centers of the residential sub-systems of the metropolis. Meanwhile, the medium and small municipalities located in suburban areas leave behind the periods in which they grew at an extraordinary positive rate due to the contribution of internal migration. As a result, the origins and the destinations of residential movements are now more diverse and suburbanization and recentralization processes coexist in a more balanced manner, not forgetting the emergence of the movements that have the origin and the destination within the suburban areas. These processes take place in the context of a more mature metropolitan region, where the period of territorial expansion seems to have come to an end, mainly due to the decline in the endogenous demand, a scenario linked to a low net creation of households and changes in the demographic structure of the population.