| Summary: | The restructuring projects for Bilbao in the last decade are the particular materialisation of broader urban processes in a former heavily industrialised city. Analysing the implications of the strengthening of the tourist appeal as a redevelopment strategy, I argue that aesthetic and entrepreneurial values have been dominant among public institutions when planning the future of the city. My hypothesis is that this ideology of redevelopment, materialised in the tourist industry, has several effects: cultural alienation, spatial fragmentation, labour downgrading and erosion of citizenship. I contrast these features with theoretical conditions of social integration that could be enhanced, challenging the system of (re)production of both material and immaterial inequalities.
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