Page 284 - 360.revista de Alta Velocidad - Nº 6

Pérez del Caño García, Silvia.

housing prices to rise six times faster than wages and the CPI, and that an overvaluation of this
kind of assets was accepted by all actors naturally.
During this period, the official appraisals increased each year the expected incomings of these
railway plots, increasing prospect gains that allowed to dream with greater scope infrastructu‐
1
res planned .
The second one occurred when considerably increased budgets were throwed by developing
Construction Projects. Some of them were offset by higher contributions from the devoted Ad‐
ministrations; others were diluted in the higher income estimations.

The third was the global financial crisis, which meant for Spain the end of the Real Estate bu‐
bble and the banking crisis of 2012. The drastic decrease of credit meant a speed worsening
conditions for the Societies to be financed.
As a result of this tricky financial situation, the Spanish Constitution was reformed in 2011
with the objective of guaranteeing budgetary stability and spending ceilings for Public Adminis‐
trations were stabilized, limiting indebtedness capacity of the Societies (SIF)

The crisis became in unemployment increasing and rising of social movements and politic for‐
mations with ideas of economic‐productive model change and questioning of the current
political system. From this movement comes up the last aspect arose to shake the foundations
of the model and the landscape.
Since May 2015, these new formations have won many of the main Spanish City Councils (Bar‐
celona, Madrid, Valladolid, Zaragoza, Alicante, Valencia, Cartagena ...) changing the political
panorama Integration Societies Boards of Directors and modifying investment priorities and
urban development models.
6. What is being done in the rest of the world?

The complex coexistence of railway and city is by no means an exclusive problem of Spain, not
even of Europe. It is a situation that has already been faced by many cities of the world solving
it through different proposals for integration that we could call hard and soft.
A soft solution in which the city adapts itself to the railroad while maintaining the railway
infrastructure over land, but executing environmental and landscape treatments to the infras‐
tructure that improve and upgrade its coexistence with the urban net. Footbridges, underpas‐
ses for pedestrian and cars, anti‐noise screens ... This is a solution commonly used in European
cities and also valid and used in many of Spanish cities.
But in many other cases a much more drastic solution has been chosen, in which it´s the rai‐
lroad which transform itself (variants, relocations out from the city, undergrounding ...) to
redevelop its lands in vibrant urban spaces, new centralities of the city with great value. Value
used to finance the expensive necessary infrastructures for that makeover.
Today, there are many cities in the developed world that have embarked on these complex Rail‐
Urban operations for transforming their railway soils. There are examples of successful
Projects that have already been carried out in Milan (Porta Nuova), New York (Hudson Yards),

Perth (Perth City Link), London (Kings Cross), Stuttgart (Stuttgart 21), Frankfurt (Europavier‐
tel), San Francisco (TransBay), Berlin (EuropaCity). Other Projects are now beginning to take
place, following the success of its neighboring cities Sydney (Central to Eveleigh)

All Projects, with the same vision of Urban Regeneration and self‐financing basis, has approach

1 The appraisals were based, on actual market sales at that time. In 2007, the Zaragoza Society offer its first parcel on the
market, selling it almost twice the bid price.

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