# Neighborhoods - Where do local Spanish families live in Costa del Sol?



## dadmom4kids (Mar 14, 2012)

Hello! New to the forums 

My wife and I and 4 kids (11, 8, 6, 4) are looking to move to southern Spain from California (for the weather, location, lifestyle...). 

We all speak Spanish (except the youngest two). We are looking for a more Spanish experience than some that we have read about in the forums. Don't get me wrong - I like the idea of havin global expats around! but we want to immerse ourselves also in the local culture, put our kids in state schools, etc. 

So my question is: where do the Spanish families live in costa del sol? More specifically, where do upper-middle-class Spanish families with kids live? (we would like to live in a nice, newer, spacious place ( - I work from home.) I have seen the "urbanizaciones" in Madrid that have "zona comunal" with shared courtyards, tennis, pools, and kids running around everywhere! We'd love something like that - mix of Spanish and expat is great, just don't want english-speaking only.) 

I appreciate any and all help - thanks!!


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

dadmom4kids said:


> Hello! New to the forums
> 
> My wife and I and 4 kids (11, 8, 6, 4) are looking to move to southern Spain from California (for the weather, location, lifestyle...).
> 
> ...


:welcome:

these_ urbanizaciones_ are all over Spain - I live on one on the Costa Blanca. Our urb is predominantly Spanish residents, but others in the town are more holiday homes with few residents.

I can't specifically help with the area you are looking at, though


your profile indicates that you are US citizens? 

if that is the case the first thing you need to sort out is what visa you need - resident visas to Spain for US citizens are notoriously hard to get


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

Lets not forget that the Costa del Solis a vast area spreading along most of the southern coast of Spain. There are many, many urbanizaciones. Good ones, bad ones, upper class ones, lower class ones..... There are some which are predominantly Spanish, predominantly British, German, a mixture of many nationalities...... but you have to really go to Spain and seek them out. If you're looking at renting, then the nationalities of the residents will change. The costa del Sol is a mixing pot and there are many different nationalities everywhere, there are also many second/third generation expats, who are now Spanish, so IMO it is predominantly Spanish these days

Jo xxx


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

I find your question slightly odd......Spanish families, of all 'classes', live in every village, town and city in Spain..Just as in the US of A.
Without resurrecting a tedious old argument, I would merely point out that wherever you decide to settle will be Spain, but again just as in the US of A a different variety of experience of the country.
New York and some remote settlement in say Oregon are both unmistakeably 'American' but each has its own character. 
So it is with Spain.
It is a mistake to imagine that places such as Benidorm, to choose an example with a high immigrant population, has been totally denuded of Spanish people or that it has somehow lost its specifically 'Spanish culture'. It has like many towns world-wide merely assimilated and adapted to a different kind of culture.
You will also find colonies of Northern European immigrants in the remotest of rural areas. We get everywhere, especially we Brits.
As for seeking an 'upper-middle-class area'....Spain, thankfully, does not have the outdated class distinctions still regrettably commonplace in the English-speaking world. People are much more mixed socially which a) is how life should be and b) makes life more interesting, in my opinion anyway.
You will find expensive villas inhabited by monied people with no culture and small whitewashed village houses lived in by sensitive, intelligent people with little academic knowledge but a deep understanding of the world.
In my middle-class, fairly expensive street in a small village, my next-door neighbours are a retired truck driver and his primary school teacher wife and an architect and his stay-at-home wife. The truck driver built his house with help from his family. The architect bought his.
Leaving often imaginary class distinctions behind with the dreadful decline in public manners and public culture (which seem to rule out any real idea of 'class') was one of the best things about leaving UK plc.


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