Remaking Madrid is the first full-length study of Madrid's
transformation from the dreary home of the Franco dictatorship into a
modern and vibrant city. It argues that this remarkable transformation
in the 1980s helped secure Spain's fragile transition to democracy and
that the transformation itself was primarily a product of
"regionalism"-even though the capital is typically associated with
"Spanishness" and with "the nation." The official project to distance
Madrid from its dictatorial past included urban renewal and
administrative reform; but, above all, it involved greater cultural
participation, which led the revival of the capital's public festivals
and the development of a modern cultural outpouring known as the movida
madrileña. The book also explains the ultimate failure of regionalism in
the capital by the end of the 1980s and asks whether or not Madrid's
inclusive form of "civic" identity might have served as a model for the
country as a whole.