La “ciudad lineal” alternativa al crecimiento imparable de la gran urbe actual

Abstract

The urban concentration has reached the limits of the present city. We can see nowadays its unstoppable growth, becoming, in some regions and countries, megalopolis that absorb up to 80% of its population. It is difficult to predict where the top of its growth will be, given that cities like Buenos Aires take in up to 14 million citizens. Back in 1882, an urbanistic proposal based on a linear growth got ahead the future, trying back then to blend both the rural and the urban life. The linear city would cut across the countryside, linking traditional cities between them and creating a net in the territory. Even though the references to the work of its inventor, Arturo Soria y Mata, are not explicit, his ideas have been taken into account in different urban developments during the last century, and we could nowadays bring them back to debate over the morphology of the present city. The linear city originates an alternative to the housing of all social classes.