New neighborhoods arrive late

• Four in ten new dwellings, in the quintile with the least proximity

  Of the 97,475 dwellings built from 2016 to August 2026 in sections with an index, 42.7% are in quintile 1, where 20.0% of the population lives; quintile 5 received 9.1%. Per thousand residents, quintile 1 added 26.0 new dwellings and quintile 5, 5.6. It happens in all six cities: in Zaragoza, 52.6% with 25.6% of the population; in Barcelona, 18.2% with 6.0%.

• The newer the housing, the farther everything is

  If each dwelling takes the index of its section, those built before 1940 average 58.9 points and those built since 2020, 35.8. Across the six cities, each decade falls below the one before. Barcelona falls the least (from 63.4 to 50.7) and Madrid the most (from 59.0 to 35.8).

• Twenty years have not been enough

  The 459 sections where half or more of the dwellings date from 2000 onward are home to 910,646 people, 11.4% of the total. Their index is 36.2, compared with 51.8 in the consolidated city, and 46.1% of their residents live in quintile 1 (16.6% in the consolidated city). New neighborhoods from 2000 to 2004, by the median year of their dwellings, score 38.4; those from 2015 onward, 29.1.

• The shop is missing, not the park

  Compared with the consolidated city, new neighborhoods score 23.5 points lower in culture, 22.0 in food, 18.4 in health, 17.7 in education and 13.9 in transit. In parks and recreation they score 1.8 higher: they have green space nearby; what they lack is food retail, culture, health facilities and schools.

• Where building goes today

  Since 2020 the Cadastre has recorded 65,915 new dwellings in the six cities; of those in sections with an index, 44.6% fall in quintile 1. In Madrid, El Cañaveral accounts for 7,368 of 27,719, with an index of 35.6; in Zaragoza, Arcosur (7.4) and Parque Venecia (26.3) lead; in Valencia, Turianova adds 1,367 in a single section with an index of 3.5.

• More concentrated than in Bogotá

  With the same measure as in Bogotá, floor area of all uses built from 2016 to 2026, quintile 1 concentrates 55.0% with 20.0% of the population, 2.8 times its weight. In Bogotá it was 24.3% and 14.7%, 1.7 times. Each country has its own index: only the concentration is compared.

• Logistics, also far away

  98.8% of the industrial floor area built since 2016 is in quintile 1. That is why this note measures with dwellings, not square meters.

• It is not inevitable

  Sevilla Este, whose median dwelling dates from 2010, scores 52.8, above consolidated Seville (42.5); Las Tablas (46.4) is 3.8 points from consolidated Madrid. At the other end, Arcosur scores 7.4, Turianova 3.5 and Sociópolis 1.0.

Set a timeline of facilities for each development tied to the handover of the housing (health center, school, library) and reserve ground floors in new blocks for neighborhood retail, starting with the developments in southeastern Madrid, which still have time.

Housing arrives before everyday life and, in twenty years, has not caught up with it.