Since 2008, a housing crisis has stopped almost all construction activity in the metropolitan peripheries of Spain, leaving many neighbourhoods unfinished. Firstly, the article explains the mechanisms of the crisis and how it is experienced by the Spaniards. Then, it analyses the social perception of a large urban project located southeast of Madrid, El Quiñon Seseña, which was transformed into a national symbol of the failure of a development model. Therefore, the article proposes an interpretation of the concept of urban associated with a fantastical vision of the incompleteness associated with a fantastical vision of the crisis. This vision is based on the idea of a very recent and prosperous past, but nevertheless gone and now inaccessible.