Censo viviendas INE: el 14% de las viviendas en España están vacías

The article highlights a significant methodological shift in Spain’s 2021 census, which replaced traditional door-to-door surveys with integrated administrative records and electrical consumption data. This innovation allows for a precise, real-time assessment of housing usage, distinguishing between primary residences, sporadic use, and genuinely empty homes based on energy patterns rather than mere registration. This data-driven approach reveals that approximately 14% of Spanish housing stock is vacant, offering a more accurate reflection of the actual availability and utilization of housing resources. The findings underscore a stark demographic and structural imbalance, as vacancies are heavily concentrated in small municipalities rather than large urban centers. With nearly half of empty homes located in towns under 10,000 inhabitants, the data illustrates rural depopulation dynamics and a surplus of housing in areas with declining populations. Conversely, major cities show significantly lower vacancy rates, suggesting that housing shortages or availability issues are not primarily driven by unused stock in rural areas, but rather by specific urban demand pressures and secondary residence markets. This study is highly relevant to the open data movement as it exemplifies the power of linking disparate datasets—such as energy, cadastral, and census records—to generate rich, actionable public insights. By demonstrating how granular utility data can solve complex social problems like housing identification and demographic tracking, it sets a precedent for using open administrative sources to enhance transparency, improve policy-making, and understand socio-economic trends without invasive surveys.

Source: rtve.es
Published on 2023-07-01

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