Starting in the second half of the century, the colonial process and the consequent opening of new worlds expanded the economic geography of Europe and gave rise to a new way of understanding business activity. It is now necessary to put new technological means, new conditions of accessibility and, above all, a new distribution of space at the service of production.[5]​ The entry into the scene of electric energy favors the emergence of the peripheral crowns of cities, whose vacant land is occupied by new industrial and labor settlements, giving rise to a new conception of spatial separation between production and management.

The urban population is distributed forming more or less wide arcs around the urban core, in a centrifugal movement. In the outer arch are the growing residential masses, made up of the new immigrant labor force for the industry. They are the “working class neighborhoods”, typical of the outskirts of large cities, densely populated, with few services and generally with few living conditions. The workforce is concentrated in these neighborhoods, sharing the periphery with the large and unhealthy industrial facilities.

Until the arrival of the Industrial Revolution, the intervention of public powers in the urban planning field had been very limited, for the most part these were measures aimed at health and the regulation of buildings located in monumental complexes or in central areas of the city. Now, the new network of interests born under the protection of "industrial development" will turn urban planning into a social and political framework,[6]​ where public powers will have to intervene to reduce the tensions that are generated in this increasingly conflictive field.

These elements were what caused a profound change in everything related to the urban morphology of cities, creating spaces that led to the search for reform solutions within the framework of the political theories of utilitarianism that would provide a concern in the urban planning of cities. [7] Essential elements were thus born in industrial cities: A sewage disposal system, one for the distribution of drinking water, and another for transportation within the same city.

In 1898 Ebenezer Howard published his theories about the garden city, which would powerfully influence urban planning in the United States. The model proposed by Howard aims to bring together all the advantages of the countryside with those of the city, avoiding the disadvantages of both. It is a city in balance, where agricultural and industrial activities are compatible in a cared for environment that favors intellectual study and healthy living.

In the United Kingdom, movements in favor of urban parks had seen the light during the second half of the century, public initiative neighborhoods had been created, extensive legislation on health and housing reform already existed, forms of control of the growth of industrial cities, the quality of buildings, standards on aesthetics, volumes, etc. had been established. The garden city is considered not only as an advantageous investment on a social level, but also as a financially profitable project.

In Spain, where urban planning activity has been much scarcer, the figure of Arturo Soria emerges. This author proposed his idea of ​​a linear city and gave rise to the creation of an urban planning movement with wide influence in Europe. This movement was brought together around the Magazine La Ciudad Lineal directed by Soria himself and whose publication began in 1897. The linear city can grow as much as it wants in a longitudinal sense, from Cádiz to Saint Petersburg, said its author, it is the width that delimits the growth, in order to ensure an adequate and constant distance from any point of the strip, to the dorsal axis of communications.

In short, it is in the century when urban planning becomes not only a current of scientific thought"), but, and above all, a technique for the distribution of public and private spaces, and the uses or activities that can be developed in them. These techniques had to end up having a legal content in order to be imposed, so their evolution gave rise to Urban Planning Law, composed of legal norms and planning figures that regulate the exercise of property rights and discipline the urban planning and building activity on the ground.

Contenido

Las ciudades del mundo antiguo respondían a una concepción simbólica del espacio, propia del pensamiento mágico y del pensamiento religioso. El ordenamiento del espacio debía ser coherente con la cosmogonía y la orientación astrológica de cada cultura.

En Sumeria se trata de “ciudades-estado”, regidas por valores de tipo religioso y militar, donde se aprecia un orden arquitectónico geométrico y una diferenciación por ciudades; destacaban los grandes templos y palacios orientados hacia la salida del sol. En Mesopotamia, por su parte, las ciudades son pequeñas y amuralladas; tenían un trazado irregular, el cual se fue haciendo reticular con el paso del tiempo. Se construían alrededor del templo, las casas tenían un patio y alrededor de éste se localizaban las habitaciones; eran casas cerradas debido al clima y a la defensa. Las construcciones son de barro cocido y adobe, por lo que quedan pocos restos.

En el Egipto Antiguo, el espacio urbano se estructuraba teniendo en cuenta la orientación de los puntos cardinales en dos ejes, Norte-Sur (paralelo al Nilo) y Este-Oeste (el trayecto solar). La ciudad egipcia plantea una organización espacial con arreglo a un orden jerárquico, situando en el centro urbano los templos y palacios. Las calles y los barrios se disponen dentro de una red ortogonal donde el agua adquiere un especial protagonismo dentro de la escena urbana.

Al Este del Nilo la ciudad presentaba su mayor actividad. Los egipcios interpretaban, en su cosmovisión, el trayecto del sol como una metáfora del ciclo de la vida. El amanecer, y toda la tierra al Este del Nilo representan al nacimiento, a la vida. El atardecer, y las tierras al oeste del río, al ocaso de la vida, la muerte. La necrópolis, las pirámides, el valle de los reyes, todos se encuentran al oeste.

En la antigua Grecia, la cultura se decanta por el pensamiento racional, por la autonomía racional del hombre. Para los sofistas como Protágoras, “El hombre es la medida de todas las cosas”, por tanto, la ciudad debe de estar también a la medida del hombre. El racionalismo impregna tanto al pensamiento político griego como al filosófico que, en cuanto tal, se inicia en ese momento. El inicio del pensamiento urbano se suele situar por los estudiosos en las ciudades ideales de Platón y Aristóteles. La ciudad es, para Platón, un espacio para la vida social") y la vida espiritual y debe estar encaminada a elevar a los hombres a la virtud. Platón diseña hasta tres modelos de ciudades teóricas o ciudades ideales, siendo su característica común la planta circular "Planta (arquitectura)") que muchos autores atribuyen a influencias indoarias en el pensamiento platónico; en concreto, al símbolo mandálico del círculo utilizado por la mitología hindú para expresar la forma del macrocosmos y del microcosmos.

Junto al ágora, destacan en la ciudad griega la relevancia de sus templos, palacios, museos, gimnasios, teatros, parques urbanos, bibliotecas. Todo ello constituye un conjunto que responde a la geometría espacial de la época. Otro elemento importante que aparece en el urbanismo griego es la vía principal") de la ciudad, sobre la que se alinean las edificaciones más importantes.

Las ciudades romanas fueron herederas del urbanismo griego; de sus criterios de racionalidad, funcionalidad, armonía y orden. Recogieron también la tendencia griega al cercamiento de los espacios y el valor de la perspectiva o visión de conjunto. En la ciudad romana destaca en primer lugar el foro "Foro (arquitectura)"), después los templos y palacios, las termas, los anfiteatros y los circos, así como el arte urbano, que es en Roma más psicológico y extrovertido que el griego, más estético e interiorista.

Pero la aportación romana más original se halla en los campamentos militares, como corresponde al sentido práctico de esta civilización. Hay que distinguir entonces entre la ciudad de Roma propiamente dicha y las ciudades incorporadas al imperio romano, es para estas ciudades que el plan castrense desarrolla una estructura urbana, especialmente pensada para controlar militarmente la ciudad tomada. Estas ciudades sometidas al yugo romano deberán ceder su propia tradición urbana a las condicionantes impuestas por el urbanismo romano, donde se encuentra de forma característica el desarrollo de las dos calles principales, ortogonales con orientación este-oeste (decumano) y norte-sur (cardo "Cardo (calle)")) permitiendo el desarrollo del Foro como ensanchamiento del punto de cruce de ambas calles. Estas ciudades se amurallaban y las dos calles en cruz remataban sus extremos exteriores en cuatro puertas de entrada y control a la ciudad. Otro elemento importante en el desarrollo de la ciudad lo constituye el Acueducto, pieza de ingeniería hidráulica que confiere a cada ciudad un desarrollo particular en su morfología y paisaje dependiendo de su acceso, recorrido, necesidades de altura, así como del desarrollo de las pilas o bancos de agua limpia que se repartían por la ciudad para proveer del líquido a la población.

Late Antiquity

The crisis of the century is the beginning of the decline of the classical city, in the western half of the Empire. The successive invasions, which became a long-lasting phenomenon "Long duration (historiography)") until the 2nd century, forced costly defensive investments, visible in the walling (a good example is the walls of Lugo). Along with other internal social and political changes in the Late Roman Empire (rebellions such as the Bagaudas), the city declined in importance: urban elites sought to avoid the increase in fiscal pressure and opted for ruralization. Institutions that constituted the heart of urban life such as the collegia of trades (similar to guilds) and the public authorities (ediles), subject to the forced hereditary principle to control the collection of taxes, are no longer seen as an advantageous honor, but as a burden.

It is the time when the villae of the countryside become more luxurious, and are oriented towards self-sufficiency, which breaks the links that connected the countryside with the city and the network of cities with Rome. Cities, with much less population, see the recreational, social, political and religious functions of their great urban landmarks disappear (amphitheatres, baths, temples, basilicas), in favor of new religious functions around the imposition of Christianity, the new official religion since Theodosius. The bishop becomes the main urban authority.

The disappearance of the Empire in the century only reinforced a trend already begun.

Starting in the second half of the century, the colonial process and the consequent opening of new worlds expanded the economic geography of Europe and gave rise to a new way of understanding business activity. It is now necessary to put new technological means, new conditions of accessibility and, above all, a new distribution of space at the service of production.[5]​ The entry into the scene of electric energy favors the emergence of the peripheral crowns of cities, whose vacant land is occupied by new industrial and labor settlements, giving rise to a new conception of spatial separation between production and management.

The urban population is distributed forming more or less wide arcs around the urban core, in a centrifugal movement. In the outer arch are the growing residential masses, made up of the new immigrant labor force for the industry. They are the “working class neighborhoods”, typical of the outskirts of large cities, densely populated, with few services and generally with few living conditions. The workforce is concentrated in these neighborhoods, sharing the periphery with the large and unhealthy industrial facilities.

Until the arrival of the Industrial Revolution, the intervention of public powers in the urban planning field had been very limited, for the most part these were measures aimed at health and the regulation of buildings located in monumental complexes or in central areas of the city. Now, the new network of interests born under the protection of "industrial development" will turn urban planning into a social and political framework,[6]​ where public powers will have to intervene to reduce the tensions that are generated in this increasingly conflictive field.

These elements were what caused a profound change in everything related to the urban morphology of cities, creating spaces that led to the search for reform solutions within the framework of the political theories of utilitarianism that would provide a concern in the urban planning of cities. [7] Essential elements were thus born in industrial cities: A sewage disposal system, one for the distribution of drinking water, and another for transportation within the same city.

In 1898 Ebenezer Howard published his theories about the garden city, which would powerfully influence urban planning in the United States. The model proposed by Howard aims to bring together all the advantages of the countryside with those of the city, avoiding the disadvantages of both. It is a city in balance, where agricultural and industrial activities are compatible in a cared for environment that favors intellectual study and healthy living.

In the United Kingdom, movements in favor of urban parks had seen the light during the second half of the century, public initiative neighborhoods had been created, extensive legislation on health and housing reform already existed, forms of control of the growth of industrial cities, the quality of buildings, standards on aesthetics, volumes, etc. had been established. The garden city is considered not only as an advantageous investment on a social level, but also as a financially profitable project.

In Spain, where urban planning activity has been much scarcer, the figure of Arturo Soria emerges. This author proposed his idea of ​​a linear city and gave rise to the creation of an urban planning movement with wide influence in Europe. This movement was brought together around the Magazine La Ciudad Lineal directed by Soria himself and whose publication began in 1897. The linear city can grow as much as it wants in a longitudinal sense, from Cádiz to Saint Petersburg, said its author, it is the width that delimits the growth, in order to ensure an adequate and constant distance from any point of the strip, to the dorsal axis of communications.

In short, it is in the century when urban planning becomes not only a current of scientific thought"), but, and above all, a technique for the distribution of public and private spaces, and the uses or activities that can be developed in them. These techniques had to end up having a legal content in order to be imposed, so their evolution gave rise to Urban Planning Law, composed of legal norms and planning figures that regulate the exercise of property rights and discipline the urban planning and building activity on the ground.