Urban Concepts: Metropolitan Areas, City Planning, and Urban Forms
Metropolitan Area
A highly urbanized area including a central city and its surrounding peripheral zone, incorporating satellite towns. It’s characterized by interconnected urban functions and daily commuting. Examples include Madrid, Seville, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao, Zaragoza, and Malaga.
Peri-urban Area
The area immediately surrounding cities, with a mix of rural and urban uses. It houses a growing number of commuters and results from urban expansion, typically extending 15-50 km from the city.
Arrabal
Neighborhoods located beyond the historical city walls, typical of medieval and modern cities.
Historical Center
The oldest part of the city, often with rich cultural heritage. It features irregular street patterns, compact urban layouts, and low-rise buildings.
City
An urban area with high population density, dominated by industry and services. Its definition varies by population, density, or legal status.
Bedroom City
A city primarily serving residential purposes, emerging near larger cities to meet housing demands from rural-urban migration and immigration. Residents typically commute to the central city for work.
Garden City
Small towns on city outskirts, inspired by Howard’s British concepts, emphasizing natural values and rural planning. They feature detached houses, green areas, and local services, with good connections to urban centers.
Satellite City
A medium-sized urban center with functional autonomy on the fringe of a larger city. It is economically and sometimes administratively dependent on the central city, often serving as a residential area.
Conurbation
A group of independent towns and cities that merge spatially to form a continuous urban agglomeration, maintaining administrative independence. Connections often follow transportation routes and natural features. A large conurbation can form a megalopolis.
Location
The physical space where a city is situated: a plain, hill, coast, meander, etc.
Ensanche City
Planned urban areas developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, typically following a grid pattern.
Hinterland
A city’s sphere of influence, ranging from the immediate environment to regional, national, or global levels. It can overlap with other cities’ hinterlands, creating competition and complementarity.
Megalopolis
A large urban area formed by the union of several metropolitan areas with strong interconnections and functional dependencies. Examples include Boston-Washington and the European Rhine area. Spain lacks a true megalopolis.
Swings
Commuting back and forth for work, school, etc.
General Plan
The General Urban Plan, defined in Spanish planning legislation, is a tool for integrated land management. It classifies land, determines applicable rules, and defines key infrastructure elements. Planning powers are now exclusive to Autonomous Communities. General Urban Plans were introduced by the Land Law of 1956.
Urban Planning
A set of technical and policy instruments to regulate land use, development conditions, conservation, and prevent imbalances from spontaneous urbanization.
Orthogonal Planes
Street patterns where streets intersect at right angles, a result of planning.
Radiocentric Plan
A city layout with concentric rings, resulting from urban growth expanding from a central point.
Regular Plan
A planned street pattern with streets intersecting at right angles.
Urban Plan
A variable influencing the urban landscape’s shape.
Suburb
The peripheral area extending from the city, where urban and rural areas meet. It may include single-family housing, large buildings, and shacks. Suburbanization is the residential growth process boosted by the automobile, also encompassing commercial and industrial areas.