The six Spain’s richest neighborhoods are already concentrated in Madrid in the face of Barcelona’s loss of position. In 2019, Barcelona had two of the neighborhoods with the highest average annual income per inhabitant, sharing the ‘top 6’ with the capital of the country. However, the Urban Indicators report of the National Statistics Institute (INE), published this Monday with data from 2020, reveals that now they are all concentrated in Madrid.
Specifically, in 2019 the Barcelona neighborhoods of Pedralbes and Las Tres Torres ranked fifth and sixth on the list of neighborhoods with the highest per capita income in Spain, with 34,522 and 33,948 euros on average. However, now they have dropped to eighth and seventh place, respectively; when the average annual net income of its inhabitants falls between 2,060 and 990 euros, respectively.
In their place have entered the Madrid Nueva España (where the average income has risen by 1,316 euros) and Almagro (+666 euros). Thus, the list is headed by six neighborhoods in Madrid: El Viso (with an average annual income per inhabitant of 40,815 euros), Recoletos (37,067 euros), Castellana (36,660 euros), Piovera (36,045 euros), Nueva España (34,317 euros). ) and Almagro (sixth with 33,101 euros).
According to this study, which adapts the content of the European Urban Audit project to the national level, whose objective is to provide information on living conditions in major EU cities and the candidate countries, 10 of the 15 richest neighborhoods in Spain are in Madrid, four in Barcelona and one in Vitoria-Gasteiz.
The aforementioned Madrid neighborhoods are -after El Viso, Recoletos and Castellana, Piovera, Nueva España and Almagro-Aravaca-El Plantío-Valdemarín (tenth with 30,073 euros), Palomas (eleventh with 29,573 euros), Niño Jesús-Los Jerónimos (twelfth with 28,864 euros) and Hispanoamérica (13th with 28,417 euros).
The Barcelonans are Les Tres Torres (seventh with 32,958 euros), Pedralbes (eighth with 32,462), Sant Gervasi-Galvany oest (ninth with 30,407 euros) and Sant Gervasi-la Bonanova (fourteenth with 28,284 euros) and the man from Vitoria is Armentía (fifteenth with 27,499 euros).
In addition, the three richest neighborhoods in Madrid (El Viso, Recoletos and Castellana) multiply by seven the lowest incomes, located in Seville, specifically in Polígono Sur (5,816 euros) and Los Pajaritos and Amate (6,043 euros). Of the fifteen with the lowest income, six are in Seville, three in Córdoba, two in Alicante, two in Madrid, one in Málaga and another in Murcia.
The richest municipality, also in Madrid
The 15 neighborhoods with the highest average annual income per inhabitant exceed to the municipalities that year after year, also this one, appear at the head of this indicator: Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid), with 26,009 euros; Sant Cugat del Vallès (Barcelona) with 21,304 euros; Majadahonda (Madrid), with 20,672 euros; Las Rozas (Madrid), with 20,605 euros; Getxo (Bizkaia), with 20,292 euros, and Alcobendas (Madrid), with 18,684 euros.
In this classification, the city of Madrid ranks eighth, with 17,059 euros, just after Donostia/San Sebastián, with 18,569 euros, and before Barcelona, with 16,750 euros, and Bilbao, which closes the list of the ten municipalities with the highest income, with 16,026 euros. Grouped by conurbations, Madrid and its surroundings, first with 16,178 euros, are followed by those of Bilbao, with 15,519 euros; Barcelona, with 15,029 euros; Pamplona, with 14,131 euros; and Valencia, with 12,858 euros.
The urban indicators of the INE provide, among many others, data on unemployment or life expectancy, which appear to be directly related to income level. So, the lowest unemployment rates (in this case with data from 2022) correspond to Sant Cugat del Vallès (5.2%), Pozuelo de Alarcón (5.8%), Donostia/San Sebastián (6.5%) and Las Rozas de Madrid (6.7%), while the highest are located in La Línea de la Concepción (29.3%), Ceuta (28%), Linares ( 25.9%), Jerez de la Frontera and Granada (both with 24.2%).
Refering to life expectancy, led by the Madrid municipalities of Majadahonda (85.4 years), Las Rozas and Pozuelo de Alarcón (both 85.3 years) and Rivas-Vaciamadrid (85 years) -which is the one with the highest activity rate in Spain (69.8%).
