Origin and Evolution of Spanish Cities: Three Stages of Urban Development

Origin and Evolution of Spanish Cities

To study the origin and evolution of Spanish cities, it is convenient to divide their history into three major stages:

1. Pre-industrial urbanization: from the earliest times until the early nineteenth century. Its evolution in Spain can be subdivided into a series of periods:
   • The old town: the origins of many Spanish cities date back to the Phoenician and Greek colonization.
   • The Roman city: many deposits, monuments and remains of Roman design are still preserved (for example, in Zaragoza).
   • The Muslim town: surrounded by walls, it also frequently included arrabales (suburbs). It had an intricate, labyrinthine interior layout.
   • The medieval Christian city: small Christian settlements were established, often with the repopulation of the town. The existence of a segregated internal space, the judería and the morería, was frequent.
   • Urbanization during the modern age: Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassical extensions, including the planning of new districts.
2. Industrial urbanization: characterized by the most generalized growth of cities, especially in provincial capitals. As a consequence of this growth, the old city walls had to be demolished. In this process, the ensanches (urban extensions) were laid out on an orthogonal grid plan, as in Madrid, although in smaller measure some ensanches also followed a flat radial pattern. This expansion of the urban fabric also created a greater need for transport and infrastructure, and led to the remodeling of the interior urban spaces, such as arrabales and new garden cities.
3. Post-industrial urbanization: after the Civil War, the growth of cities benefited from a new urban development. The expansion of industry and the economic boom of the 1960s favored both the creation of residential polygons on the periphery and the tertiarization of the historic city centers, which began to suffer neglect as a result of the processes affecting their surroundings. The metropolitan interior space saw during this period the growth of industrial areas, while collective services and facilities also increased. From the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, the first signs of an urban crisis appeared, due to various causes, especially as industry lost its prominence as a factor of urbanization.

The current urban system is the first in which urbanization is characterized by dispersed or diffuse patterns, with features that stand out, such as a high level of energy consumption, which causes the largest emission of polluting waste, and the lowest density of occupation of space.