La mercantilización del paisaje litoral del mediterráneo andaluz: El caso paradigmático de la Costa del Sol y los campos de golf

RESUMEN: El proceso de urbanización posee en el paisaje un importante factor explicativo, sobre todo en los espacios turísticos. Determinados elementos escénicos son incorporados a los productos inmobiliarios y condicionan en cierta medida las morfologías y la distribución de las áreas urbanas. El objetivo de este trabajo es interpretar el papel que han jugado los recursos visuales en la confi guración actual de la trama urbanizada en los tres escalones mediterráneos: las planas litorales, la sierra litoral y el traspaís costero. La parte occidental de la provincia de Málaga ha resultado paradigmática para concretar dicho objetivo y conforma el ámbito de estudio. De manera concreta se investigan los campos de golf como perfectos ejemplos en la mercantilización del paisaje y como las piezas clave en la ascensión del proceso urbanizador desde la costa hacia el interior. Finalmente se valora la pérdida de los paisajes agrarios que dominaban estos territorios hasta la segunda mitad del siglo XX. ABSTRACT: The role of landscape in scientifi c literature relating to urban expansion has focused on the concept of landscape impact, related to the effects caused by the latter on the former. This article attempts to view the process from a different perspective. This involves looking at the landscape as a direct cause for the size and shape of the urbanisation process and not as the mere object of its impact. The aim of this work is to detect and study certain phenomena relating to commercialisation of the coastal landscape, associated with the expansion of residential tourism. The west of the province of Málaga forms a paradigmatic space to analyse the phenomenon. Geological quirks have placed the Bética mountains close to the Mediterranean, endowing this stretch of coastline in Andalucía with a number of benefi ts for contemporary models of hedonic urbanisation. It involves interpreting the role of landscape in the current confi guration of the urbanised plot on the three Mediterranean steps, from the fl ood planes near the sea to the viewing balcony of the coastal mountains and, fi nally, the basins and valleys set back from the coast. Different sources were used to achieve the proposed aim. In order to empirically compare the observed phenomenon on the process of urbanisation along Andalucías coastline, a geographic database (geodatabase) was used (depicts the expansion of urban land from 1956 to 2007). The use of GIS, however, is conditioned by observations made by the authors and the study of different literature. Running the database on the development of urbanisation has shed light on the interpretation of the phenomenon. It has shown that, in tourist towns and cities, the logic of centrality loses importance and highlights other elements such as sea views or the landscape. If this industry is also based on anthropogenic activities on the land and the multiplication of housing, having access to certain views and visual resources becomes crucial in directing the process of tourism urbanisation. This study fi nds that landscape is commercialised in different ways along the three steps of the Mediterranean coast: The dense coastal conurbation highlights access to the sea as the main driving force for coastal leisure, but competition between properties for ocean views also plays a signifi cant role. In Málaga, the degree of urban saturation on its seafront, as well as the balcony effect of the mountains behind it have boosted real estate development at higher altitudes. The role of the sea as a landscape resource changes dramatically: from a recreational amenity it becomes a purely perceptual resource, which also becomes marketable by means of an integral visual product (the sea, coastal conurbation, the mountain and, generally, a golf course). Meanwhile, the increasing accessibility of the whole of Andalucía, sometimes caused by the growth of infrastructure, has caused a signifi cant reduction in the distance between certain inland rural areas and the coastal corridor. This has opened up the map of possibilities for property developers and promoters of tourism who, in addition to accessibility, sell exclusive products based on the contemplation and tranquillity of those rural landscapes. The basins or valleys which are set back from Málagas coastline are gradually beginning to import residential and tourist projects and products reminiscent of the Costa del Sol. The article studies the role of golf courses: Along the coastline, these spaces form another visual epicentre which developers have generated intense processes of urbanisation around. Additionally, golf has been the main vehicle transporting the residential tourism model from the coastline further inland. The landscape of Andalulcías coastline has lost value in recent years at the expense of increasing its market price. The loss in value is the result of a widespread banal urban planning model, irrelevant to the local culture and characterised by the consumption, not of a place, but of the image of that place (recreated in recent decades from its prominence on the international tourist map). The loss of certain natural and agricultural landscapes and their territorial logics depicts a certain nostalgia for the past, the number of empty houses and ghost estates which have mushroomed irreversibly in those empty spaces, are a challenge on Geography. Against this background, knowledge and good government of the territory offer the only hope against the relentless logic of the market.