Urban Planning and City Types: Definitions and Characteristics
Urban Catchment Area
Urban Catchment Area: A zone structured around a city, on which this area plays a different role.
Historical Center
Historical Center: The part of the current city ranging from its origins to the industrial age. Usually surrounded by a wall, its layout is anarchic, with closed plots, low altitudes, and different land uses.
Urban Center
Urban Center: An urban area where the main tertiary activities are found, characterized by their accessibility, the height of buildings, and a small residential population. The center is usually located in the old town, extending to the expansion.
Shantytowns
Shantytowns: A form of habitat typical of large urban areas attracting immigrants. They are characterized by substandard housing or slums that have emerged on illegal land, with large gaps in foundation and materials, and lack basic services.
Bedroom Community
Bedroom Community: Peri-urban areas characterized by being a place of residence for those who commute daily to work in the central city.
Garden City
Garden City: An urban model characterized by an open urban area, composed of houses with gardens, isolated, detached, or paired.
Primary City
Primary City: A city specializing in primary sector activities.
Satellite City
Satellite City: Peri-urban areas independent of the central city, providing jobs, goods, and services for the population.
Average Cities
Average Cities: Provincial capitals not included in the hierarchy of cities (250,000 to 50,000 inhabitants). They have tertiary functions that are less specialized than specialized cities.
Small Cities
Small Cities: Cities with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants, with a catchment area district.
Secondary Cities
Secondary Cities: Cities specialized in the secondary sector.
Tertiary Cities
Tertiary Cities: Cities specializing in tertiary services, which are the activities that define the range and influence of a city.
Conurbation
Conurbation: A continuous urban area formed by the parallel growth of two or more cities until they join. The cities maintain administrative independence.
Discontinuous Urban Growth
Discontinuous Urban Growth: Urban growth in jumps.
Density
Density: The relationship between the population of an area and its extension. It is expressed in inhabitants per km2.
Disentailment
Disentailment: A legal process held in Spain in 1837 to sell property owned by the church, nobility, and municipalities, both rural and urban.
Location
Location: The space on which a population center sits. It depends on the characteristics of the physical environment and the role for which the settlement was created.
Widening
Widening: An area for the expansion of a city between the mid-19th century and the first third of the 20th century. The upsurge is due to the development of industrial and tertiary activities.
City Block
City Block: An urban fabric type characterized by houses arranged around a central courtyard.
National Metropolis
National Metropolis: Cities with more than three million people, with high outsourcing, closely linked to other global metropolises.
Regional Cities
Regional Cities: Cities with 1.5 million to 500,000 inhabitants, influencing both regional and national cities.
Sub-regional Metropolis
Sub-regional Metropolis: Second-order cities (500,000 – 250,000 inhabitants) with specialized services and centers.
Metropolis
Metropolis: Cities with more than 250,000 inhabitants. They are cities with specialized functions related to higher tertiary and industrial sectors.
Urban Morphology
Urban Morphology: The external appearance of a city. It is the result of the combination of design, construction, and land use.
Bedroom Village
Bedroom Village: An urban area whose main function is to be a place of residence for people who commute daily to other areas to work.
Urban Fringe
Urban Fringe: An area on the outer limits of the city, imprecise, where land uses and lifestyles specific to the countryside and city mix.
Peri-urban Area
Peri-urban Area: An area located on the urban periphery. A transition between city and country.
General Urban Plan
General Urban Plan: A basic instrument for comprehensive urban planning of a municipality. The Plan sets out the territorial model, allocation of land uses, soil classification, construction, highway maintenance, equipment, and environmental protection measures.
Orthogonal Planes
Orthogonal Planes: The provision of building space and free space of the city, characterized by the presence of streets laid out perpendicularly.
Radiocentric Plan
Radiocentric Plan: The provision of urban space in radial and concentric streets from the center, facilitating communications between the center and the periphery.
Urban Region
Urban Region: An area composed of dispersed cities, discontinuous but dense enough so that every territory has urban characteristics.
Urban Rehabilitation
Urban Rehabilitation: An urban policy aimed at the conservation, recovery, and revitalization of the traditional morphology of the city, both in regard to the plan, the building, and land uses.
Secondary Residence
Secondary Residence: Housing that is not habitual and is used for short periods. They have proliferated in Spain since 1980 due to car use and increasing living standards.
Rururbanization
Rururbanization: The extension of the city through a space located on the urban periphery, a transition between city and countryside, where land uses and lifestyles specific to the country and city are mixed.
Urban System
Urban System: An assembly consisting of the cities of a geographical space and the relations established between them.
Urban Situation
Urban Situation: The relative position of the city in a landscape.
Suburb
Suburb: A peri-urban area distinct from the low quality of its residences.
Developable Land
Developable Land: Jointly, urban land to be urbanized. This type of soil is determined by each municipality in the General Urban Plan.
Urbanization
Urbanization: The percentage of the urban population in relation to the total population.
Social Housing
Social Housing: Houses that are addressed to more disadvantaged social groups, who benefit from special conditions for their acquisition.