ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the development of urban planning and city growth in Spain in a roughly chronological fashion, from the early eighteenth-century attempts at planned development up to the 1980s. For several reasons, Madrid and Barcelona feature as the major illustrative examples throughout the chapter. They have been Spain's two foremost cities since medieval times and have today populations three and four times greater, respectively, than Bilbao, the next largest city[l]. Further they have been the major arenas within the country for the development and application of new planning concepts and they have exhibited, more than any other city, the problems associated with rapid urban growth. Concentration on Madrid and Barcelona has also facilitated a certain degree of continuity which would not otherwise have been possible if examples from other cities such as Valencia and Bilbao[2] had been included.
