Urban Development and Transformation: A Historical and Contemporary Perspective
Urban Development and Transformation
Construction and Definition of a City
Construction: Progressive concentration of population in cities.
City: A densely populated urban area with a complex economic, demographic, and sociological structure. It’s formed by the merger of individuals engaged in non-agricultural activities. Statistically, in Spain, a city is typically defined as having more than ten thousand inhabitants. This quantitative criterion varies by country (e.g., Sweden: 200; Canada: 1,000; United States: 2,500).
Key Urban Concepts
Urbanization Rate: Indicator of the level of urbanization.
Site: The specific physical location on which a city sits.
Situation: The general conditions and wider environment of the city, including large regional units and physical and economic contexts.
Urban Morphology: The city’s physical structure, resulting from the evolution of three landscape elements: the plan, buildings, and land use.
Urban Functions: The activities of a city, which can be commercial, industrial, economic, administrative, etc.
Urban Policy: A set of objectives that various administrations aim for to control and monitor urban dynamics (e.g., urban standards, land laws, urban planning).
Factors Involved in Urbanization
- Growth of Economic Activities: Industries with a strong attraction for labor.
- Industrialization: A major factor in urban development, initially concentrated in regions like Cantabria, Basque Country, and Catalonia.
- Tourism: Caused rapid urbanization, even in smaller areas. Many Mediterranean towns have transformed into residential structures specializing in the service sector (e.g., Lloret de Mar, Salou, Gandía, Benidorm, Roquetas de Mar, Torremolinos, Fuengirola, Marbella, Estepona).
- Influence of Large Cities: A large city’s presence accelerates the urbanization of nearby towns and cities (e.g., Madrid).
- Transformation of Agricultural Practices: Led to a surplus of rural workforce, forcing migration to cities.
- Development of Specialized Agriculture and Irrigation: Particularly impactful in areas like the Ebro Valley, Valencia, Alicante, Murcia, Almería, and the Canary Islands.
Consequences of Urbanization
- Territorial: Rural depopulation and population concentration in larger cities. The population in municipalities with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants has decreased significantly since 1950.
- Demographic: Changes in the age composition of urban populations, with an increase in young people and a decline in fertility.
- Environmental: Increased consumption of energy and resources, degradation of landscapes and natural environments, and air, water, and soil pollution.
Historical City Development
The Christian City
, its population lived on livestock and rainfed agriculture, industrial and commercial activity was very low. The cities were a military and strategic function, were small walled, with narrow streets lined with porticoes or porches. In the center, plaza, used as a market place, there stood the Church. Cities are made up of parishes as dedicated was named the neighborhoods
The cities of this age respond to three types of plans: the radiocentric, the grid plan and the plan illegal.
b) Much of the Muslim cities were founded on previous populations. In strategic places by being defensive (Granada, Almería, Loja, Antequera, Lorca, Toledo) or next to rivers and ravines, which could serve as a natural defense, but other cities were located in flat areas (Valencia, Sevilla, Córdoba. , Ecija).
The landscape of the Islamic city was characterized by a tight set of buildings surrounded and protected by a wall that separated radically from the outside. His plane, it highlights a few cross streets or radial winding route that connected with the inputs or gates of the city, the streets were narrow, broken and twisted. The town was organized in slums that worked independently, each surrounded by fences, the center of the city’s medina
. Developing new forms of growth
Development of new forms of growth in the first half of the century: the city garden and the linear city.
. Neighbourhoods garden cities (Vitoria, Almería, Málaga, Granada ….) Idea of bringing nature to the city so as to ease the ills that suffering. The main feature of these homes is the presence of a small orchard or garden. In Spain, the initiative was in the hands of municipalities, which prompted the creation of these districts to provide housing for government officials.
. The linear city project, inspired by similar ideas to the garden city. Designed by Spanish Arturo Soria (1844-1922; Ciudad Lineal, Madrid), had a huge international projection, it represented a new model for city growth. Advocated by urban growth around the main roads between towns, trying to keep the relationship between urban and rural
But the most widespread forms of urban growth in the period sites were located in residential areas close to the consolidated city and any new subdivisions on rural land located in the suburbs or urban suburbs (with the free block with a high density residential housing rate of little size and quality of construction in some urban areas lacking social facilities. is finished erasing the boundaries between urban and rural area, to absorb the large cities to rural municipalities close (metropolization phenomenon Madrid, Barcelona and Bilbao).
. The years of greatest urban growth in the twentieth century, decades 50 and 60, are also characterized by the appearance in the peripheral areas of the bars of self or slums. Phenomenon particularly intense in cities cone Madrid or Barcelona, but in almost all cities. Inferior materials, poor sanitation, water supply, electricity … the a970 still accounted for 112 000 housing self-construction, in which resided a total of 558 000 people. Only after many years, these neighborhoods will join the city: Palomeras, Pozo de Tio Raimundo and Orcasitas in Madrid, Les Plans and Boot Camp in Barcelona.
Urban rehabilitation policy in Andalusia
The rehabilitation of housing policy in Andalusia hosts, among others, the following programs:
. Slum transformation program (rehabilitation works, urbanization and social work).
. Regional rehabilitation program. Provides support for families with limited resources for conservation and improvement of housing, which must have a minimum of 24 m2 and a length of more than ten years, in addition to being located in a municipality declared autonomous municipality of rehabilitation.
. Unique rehabilitation program: rehabilitation of public assets, endowments and facilities improvements in buildings, etc.
The Andalusian conducts policy reform through two instruments:
. Concerted rehabilitation Areas: The objective is to improve the housing conditions of the population living in urban centers, acting on the social, architectural and urban. Among the 27 areas declared as Historic Site areas of Cadiz, Granada Albaicin, the Historic Center of Baeza (Jaén) or the historic center of Alcalá de Guadaíra (Sevilla).