The city of Cuevas from 1880, a pioneer in Spanish urban planning

Abstract

The expansion plan was the tool set up by the Spanish legislation in 1864 in order to regulate the orderly and properly planned expansion of Spanish cities. The inner town-ring reform and expansion plans for Cuevas del Almanzora, formulated in 1880 by Ricardo de Arizcum, engineer for Almería City Council, is a tool framed within the development of the so called minor cities of the end of the 19th century and its formulation came as a response to the continuous increase in population fostered by the mining activities carried out in Sierra Almagrera. This study focuses on its documental content and on the town model proposed and advocates for the inclusion of the plan in the field of 19th century town planning studies, in which it has not been considered or assessed yet.