• Elena Moncho: “The information we receive from the Chair allows us to face future challenges with certainty”
• Joan del Alcázar: “The economic and social observatory is a space of analysis and reflection that wants to contribute to Gandia’s and the Safor region’s progress”
Gandía, 4 June 2025. The Chair for Territorial Thinking Joan Noguera of the Universitat de València has published its second issue of the Observatori Territorial de Gandia’s Newsletter, a technical and informational tool that firmly analyses the social-economic, territorial and demographic evolution of the city.
This second instalment offers an updated and detailed in-depth study about the key aspects of the local development. It is particularly highlighted the analysis of the social ageing and the increase of the dependence rate, a crucial challenge for the future planning of Gandía’s social services. According to the collected data, the dependence rate has gone from the 45 % in 2001 to the 50 % in 2024, proving a sustained growth tendency of the population above 64 years old, and a birth rate decline.
Economically, the Newsletter focuses on the evolution of women’s labour market. In spite of a slight improvement in the membership data to Social Security, a significant gender gap is still present both in unemployment and in the temporality and partiality of labour contracts.
In terms of territorial field, the document analyses the situation of the urban planning of Gandía, highlighting the maturity of the compact city model. The development of the different urban sectors and modifications of the General Plan are reviewed, as well as the challenges linked to housing demand and undeveloped soil conservation, particularly in areas like the Auir or Marxuquera. Additionally, the urban aspects of the city of Gandía will be completed in future studies that the Chair will conduct.
Besides the analytical articles, the Newsletter includes a wide set of indicators structured in social, economic and environmental blocs, with disaggregated data at local level and comparisons to the regional and autonomic environment.
With this publication, the Chair for Territorial Thinking Joan Noguera reassures its commitment to the applied knowledge and local governance, offering relevant information for public people in charge, municipal technicians, social and economic agents, as well as the citizenship interested in the sustainable development of Gandía.
In this sense, the city councilwoman of Economy, Business and Employment; Trade, Market and Consumption of Gandía’s city council, Elena Moncho, has emphasised that this second edition comes to confirm “some aspects that we already sensed, but now, thanks to the Chair’s study, allow us to know the situation in more detail. With all this information, we will be able, as a government, to make decisions that will let us face future challenges with certainty”.
For his part, the director of the Chair, Joan del Alcázar, has reminded that the Newsletter is the result of the economic and social Observatory, a space for analysis and reflection that wants to contribute to Gandía’s and the Safor region’s progress. Along these lines, it meets the objectives of the research university and knowledge transfer, which in this case can be quite useful for local administration.
The Newsletter can be consulted and freely downloaded through the official channels of the Chair.
