The role of foreign-owned businesses in the revitalisation of historic centres in three Catalan towns

Pau Serra Del Pozo

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2017, vol. 31, issue 4, 534-556

Abstract: Some derelict historical neighbourhoods in Barcelona, in Lleida and in Tortosa experienced the foreclosures of many native-owned small businesses in the early 1990s. The same areas witnessed a rather sudden upsurge of foreign immigrant-owned businesses since the late 1990s. Using scarce but valuable unpublished retail censuses data of the historic centres of the three towns, this paper contends that foreign entrepreneurs do contribute to urban regeneration there, through the creation of new small retail and service businesses. The paper concentrates on el Raval, a neighbourhood in the historical centre of Barcelona, where recently created foreign-owned businesses were keeping up with retail and services in the midst of the Spanish economic crisis. These types of businesses are not panacea, since many could still break out of its limited mode. Yet urban planners from the Government of Catalonia and from local governments could rely more on the stamina of foreign entrepreneurs.

Keywords: Catalan towns; foreign-owned businesses; urban revitalisation; historic neighbourhoods. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=85430 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijesbu:v:31:y:2017:i:4:p:534-556

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().