 Organizing against organized crime: The entanglement of drug trafficking, housing financialization, and urban renewal in BarcelonaGuillaume Dumont ()
Post-Print from HAL Abstract: Current analysis of organized crime in the urban space focuses either on its social or spatial embeddedness. As an alternative, this article develops a socio-spatial perspective that recognizes and situates the lived experience of organized crime within urban transformation processes. I developed this perspective by building on ethnographic data about drug trafficking in Barcelona's El Raval, which I examine through the lens of the residents. I focus specifically on the interpretative framework of the "narco-especulació" which links the expansion of the narcopisos phenomenon to rampant speculative practices of real-estate-investors and city-led urban regeneration processes. I argue that this framework articulates a critique of urban governance, underscoring the dispossession of residents' social control, a weakened sense of place, and the fragmentation of community relationships. I also show how this framework can foster collective resistance strategies that express community agency against organized crime while disrupting the ongoing process of urban transformation and public management. Keywords: Community organizing; Housing financialization; Resistance strategies; Urban renewal (search for similar items in EconPapers) Published in Cities, 2026, 179, pp.11. ⟨10.1016/j.cities.2026.107569⟩ There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05766404 DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2026.107569 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Post-Print from HAL |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.