The Evolution of Spanish Cities: From Preindustrial to Modern
The Preindustrial City: The Old Town
The old town represents the urbanized area of a city from its origin to the beginning of industrialization in the mid-nineteenth century. While it occupies a small area in today’s cities, it holds immense cultural and historical value.
The Legacy of the Pre-industrial Era
The old town typically exhibits several common characteristics:
- Walls: Almost all cities were surrounded by walls for defensive, fiscal, and health purposes.
- Irregular Street Layout: Many ancient and medieval cities, both Muslim and Christian, featured narrow, winding streets. However, some examples of radiocentric, linear, and grid layouts also exist.
- Enclosed Urban Areas: Homes often included patios, yards, and gardens.
- Mixed Land Use: Houses were interspersed with workshops, shops, warehouses, and public buildings.
- Social Hierarchy: While diverse social groups coexisted, a hierarchy existed. The city center, housing the main public buildings and elite residences, held the most importance. Political and religious power was concentrated in this area, while workers resided in the suburbs, and ethnic and religious minorities occupied separate neighborhoods.
The Transformation of the Industrial Age
The preindustrial city underwent significant changes due to industrialization between the mid-nineteenth century and the 1960s. These transformations included:
- Plane Reforms: Internal reforms and renewal policies impacted the most valued areas. Other areas experienced morphological and social deterioration, which persists in some cases.
- Plot Densification: The industrial era saw increased building density. Some disentailed church buildings were repurposed, and single-family homes were replaced by apartment buildings.
- Land Use Changes: The old town’s land uses gradually shifted. Renovated buildings accommodated tertiary activities that required accessibility and architectural prominence and could benefit from high land prices.
- Increased Social Segregation: These changes exacerbated social segregation. Low-income groups in degraded neighborhoods suffered, while higher-income groups settled in renewed districts.
The Industrial City: Widening and Neighborhoods
Between the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, cities with modern industries attracted large rural populations and expanded beyond the preindustrial walls. Smaller cities and towns experienced less growth and remained within their existing boundaries.
Most cities that outgrew their old walls demolished the ramparts, which had become obsolete due to advancements in artillery. Roundabouts or boulevards replaced them, marking the division between the old and new city. Extensions included bourgeois, industrial, and working-class neighborhoods, as well as garden suburbs.
The Periphery and Recent Urban Transformations
The years following the Spanish Civil War were marked by economic depression and low construction activity, partly due to material shortages. Consequently, urban transformation was limited.
However, from the mid-1950s, and particularly in the 1960s, major Spanish cities experienced tremendous growth. This was driven by natural population increase and rural migration, fueled by the industrial boom and the development of services, especially tourism. Cities expanded significantly, creating vast neighborhoods along major transportation routes. These urban areas often merged with neighboring municipalities, forming urban agglomerations.
Currently, large cities have a lower growth rate but continue to expand spatially as their population and economic activity diffuse towards increasingly distant suburbs. This has led to the emergence of the “fuzzy” city, characterized by peri-urban areas with imprecise boundaries, where land uses and lifestyles of the countryside and the city intermingle.
Urban neighborhoods are structured into different areas: residential, industrial, and areas of equipment.
Urban Areas
Some cities have grown to connect with other populations, creating agglomerations of various types: metropolitan areas, conurbations, urban areas, and megacities. Metropolitan areas have experienced the most significant development in Spain.
Spanish Urban System
Spanish cities interact with their surroundings and other cities, forming systems or districts.
Until the 1980s, the Spanish urban system was a legacy of the industrial era. Since then, it has undergone significant changes, which are still ongoing due to the implementation of state autonomy, integration into the European Community, and the global economic system.
The System of Cities and its Changes
The mainland urban system inherited from the industrial stage is characterized by the central location of Madrid, the country’s largest urban agglomeration, surrounded by peripheral urban axes and a sparsely urbanized interior lacking integrated axes.
- Madrid: Spain’s primary urban center, characterized by tertiary functions and connections with major Spanish cities.
- Peripheral Urban Axes: Arranged in a semi-ring around the capital.