Building Boom and Political Corruption in Spain

As evidenced by the countless scandals of recent years, town planning has become a very serious source of political corruption in Spain. As will be analysed in this article, corruption was caused by the confluence of three major factors: the singularities of the Spanish town-planning model, defective oversight mechanisms for municipalities, and the extraordinary growth of housing construction during the last ten years. Finally, the new law on the subject is reviewed and solutions are suggested.