Participative Urban Planning and Civil Society: Project for a Slum Area in Madrid, Spain

Abstract

The slum area of Cañada Real Galiana is an ancient road which has been traditionally used for transport of livestock. Authorizing sectorial use of the traditional cattle routes as vegetable gardens in 1974, La Cañada was segregated for the first time for fundamentally agricultural purposes. While official urban planning pressures and land-use interests have been favoured over the rights of the inhabitants, this paper presents the “The Plan Cañada” that opens doors to dialogue with administration and promotes micro-interventions, self-construction processes and collaborative learning as tools for participatory urban transformations. It is essential for finding an appropriate solution to continue in the same spirit, form a self-organized civil society which can put forward alternatives and articulate a process of the mobilization of the neighbours together with political will.