The neighbourhoods with the highest average net annual income per inhabitant (2020 data) were El Viso (€40,815/year), Recoletos (€37,067) and Castellana (€36,660), all three in Madrid, according to the 'Urban Indicators 2023' report published by the Spanish Statistics Institute (INE).
There are also significant inequalities within cities, according to the INE, so the statistics also collect data for levels below the city level called the 'Sub-City District' (SCD). In many cases, these levels coincide with the existing division into administrative districts or neighbourhoods.
The current list of 'SCD neighbourhoods' includes 17 cities: Alicante, Barcelona, Bilbao, Cordoba, Gijon, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Madrid, Malaga, Murcia, Palma de Mallorca, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Seville, Valencia, Valladolid, Vigo, Vitoria and Zaragoza. In total, 523 'SCD neighbourhoods' are included in the statistics.
Of the 10 neighbourhoods with the highest income, seven are in Madrid and three in Barcelona. Those already mentioned are joined by Piovera (€36,045/year), Nueva España (€34,317), Almagro (€33,101) and the Aravaca-Plantio-Valdemarin area (€30,073). In between, are the Catalan neighbourhoods Les Tres Torres (€32,958), Pedralbes (€32,462), and Sant Gervasi- Galvany oest (€30,407).
Most of these neighbourhoods have the most expensive housing prices in their cities, and in the whole of Spain, although not in the same order according to income. Some of the most expensive housing districts do not even appear at the top of the INE's income ranking.
According to idealista's used home sales price data for April, the Recoletos neighbourhood is by far the most expensive, at €9,053/m2, reaching its highest price in the history of the southern European real estate marketplace.
The district with the highest income does not appear until the sixth position between the two capitals. El Viso (€6,756/m2) is also behind Castellana (€8,136/m2) or Almagro (€7,143/m2), and even neighbourhoods such as Jeronimos or Diagonal Mar i el Front Maritim del Poblenou, in Barcelona, which do not appear in the INE's top 10.
Behind this block of used property sales prices are the Barcelona neighbourhoods of Pedralbes (€6,351/m2) and Les Tres Torres (€6,127/m2), ahead in price, but not in income, of the Madrid neighbourhoods of Nueva España (€6,068/m2) and Conde Orgaz-Piovera, different to the INE's SCD neighbourhood with €4,620/m2.
By contrast, the lowest incomes were in Seville, in the Poligono Sur neighbourhood of the Sur district (€5,816) and the Los Pajaritos and Amate neighbourhoods of the Cerro-Amate district, with €6,043, and in the Juan XXIII neighbourhood of Alicante (€6,503).
The urban areas of San Sebastian, Bilbao and Madrid account for the highest income
The report includes data for Functional Urban Areas (FUAs). Each FUA consists of a city and the municipalities that comprise its labour influence. There are 70 functional urban areas defined for the whole of Spain.
A municipality belongs to the FUA of a city if 15% or more of its employed population commutes to that city for work. In 2022, the FUAs with the largest populations were Madrid (with 6.98 million people), Barcelona (5.09 million) and Valencia (1.78 million).
The FUA of Donostia/San Sebastian topped the average annual net income per inhabitant in 2020, with €16,836, followed by Bilbao (€15,436) and Madrid (€15,407). Torrevieja (€8,441), Lorca (€9,402) and Marbella (€9,721) were the Functional Urban Areas with the lowest incomes.
Sant Cugat del Vallés (Barcelona) and Pozuelo (Madrid), the municipalities with the lowest unemployment rates
Sant Cugat del Valles, in Barcelona, is the municipality in Spain with the lowest unemployment rate, with an estimated average unemployment rate for 2022 of 5.2%. It is followed by Pozuelo de Alarcon (Madrid), with 5.8%. In third place is the Basque municipality of San Sebastian with 6.5%, followed by Las Rozas de Madrid (6.7%) and the Madrid municipality of Majadahonda (6.7%).
In contrast, the municipality of La Linea de la Concepcion in Cadiz is the one with the highest unemployment rate, with an estimated rate of 29.3% in 2022, followed by Ceuta (28%), the municipality of Linares in Jaen (25.9%) and the municipalities of Jerez de la Frontera (Cadiz) and Granada, both with an unemployment rate of 24.2%. Of the 15 municipalities with the highest estimated average unemployment rates for 2022, most are in Andalusia.
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