Residential mobility of foreign population in Barcelona, 2000-2004

Jordi Bayona, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Antonio López, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

In 2006 the foreign population in the city of Barcelona reached 260 thousand residents, approximately 15% of whole population, as a result of the increment and acceleration of international migratory flows during the last years. One decade ago, only 30.000 foreign inhabitants were living in Barcelona, hardly 2% of the whole population. In this context, Barcelona has become an important focal point of attraction for international migration. After a first episode of settlement, the population of foreign nationality joins the urban residential dynamics. The main aim of this paper is to analyse the intensity of residential mobility and its evolution among the foreign population living in Barcelona. With this purpose we analyse the last five years (2000-2004), focusing, firstly, our attention on the demographic profile of people who have changed their residence, with special interest in nationality and the spatial relations that are established between the city and its metropolitan area. Secondly, residential strategies and the behaviour of the main nationalities will be identified and contrasted with the residential patterns of the whole population. Finally, the incidence that foreign residential mobility can exercise upon the global mobility of the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona will be analysed. Our hypothesis is that, far from a substitution process, where the mobility of the foreign population substitutes the Spanish, we observe an intensification of the flow of people leaving the city, with a diversification of the mobility patterns.