Urbanism as an essay
Introduction
A linear city is a model of city organization devised by the Spanish geometer, urban planner and theosophist Arturo Soria,[1] following the motto "in the Linear City, for each family a house, in each house an orchard and a garden."[2] Presented in 1885 and developed in its first phase at the end of the century and the beginning of the century, the linear model proposed an alternative to decongest traditional core cities and recover an urbanism based on dignity, individualism and contact with nature. In essence, it was an elongated city built on both sides of a 40-meter-wide central street or avenue, with homes on the sides. Plans from the time show the blocks extending 200 meters on each side of the central avenue, separated by 100 meters of forest from the crop fields.[2].
The final objective, although perhaps utopian, was that linear cities such as the one designed by Soria to bypass the capital of Spain would progressively unite different urban centers by means of a main avenue with urbanized plots on both sides.[3].
Origin of the model
The urban philosophy of Arturo Soria
Born from observation and the desire to improve human coexistence,[4] Soria proposed a "planned" rather than "improvised" city,[5] a humanized city in which workers' housing did not have to be limited and condemned to basements, attics or neighborhoods exclusively for workers, in a hypocritical pious maneuver to keep them away from the abundance that could only generate misfortune, hatred, disease and misery.[1] Responding to all this, Soria offered the possibility that the poor and the rich could live in proximity, sharing the advantages of the countryside, the city, and a hygienic life.[1][6].
The great inconvenience that separated the dream from reality was, even then, the speculation on the price of developable land that dominated the market and the urban spirit of the traditional "radioconcentric city."[8] The approach and creation of a new city model made possible thanks to new means of transportation that, like the railway-tram, could stop where necessary, and would allow the possibility of extending the city along an axis, became essential. That axis that would give the opportunity to level the price of land, distinguishing two economic levels marked by proximity to the transportation route. In this way, Soria understood that the price of the lots would decrease as they were located further from the lanes, a formula that would nevertheless make it possible for "each family to have a home, an orchard and a garden." A solution so that the powerful in his palace and the poor in his cabin could coexist in a non-vertical space, that is, "not superimposed." Soria also offered a study "based on the criterion of personal savings, the poor would become owners of their home."[1] With these ideas of Arturo Soria, the Ciudad Lineal was born.[9].