What Remains
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What remains is a journey through the process of Spanish rural depopulation; from the overcrowded cities where housing problems are latent to the vast emptiness of the hinterland, where density of population of some regions is as low as in Siberia and Lapland. Rural exodus has left behind 3000 officially empty and abandoned villages, and the number is growing.
The industrialization process in Spain started in mid 20th century, two centuries later than in other West and North European countries. The process created new work opportunities in bigger cities and the largest migration of rural population into cities started during the last decades of Franco’s dictatorship-60s and 70s, causing an unprecedented urban sprawl in big cities.
Despite an increasing number of proposals to stimulate repopulation of rural areas, - including state agencies selling off entire villages at affordable price, rural living is gradually vanishing into the nature, leaving behind only the remains of an important part of Spanish history and culture.