Joan AMENÓS ÁLAMO, The legal myth of compact cities, UAB Publishing Services, Barcelona, December 2015

Abstract

In the same way that in the USA a clear case of suburban sprawl took place many decades ago, this phenomenon remained relatively unknown in Spain until thirty years ago, when this process began to be imitated here. Because of all this, many legal instruments have been created in Spain, instruments whose target is precisely to make Spanish cities more compact, therefore creating in some way the legal myth of the compact city.

However, even if the compact city may be a positive model, the fact that the lawmaker tries to impose that model may be discussed, as, sometimes, an overload of regulations may not only fail to finish with the sprawl, but may stimulate this phenomenon, directly or indirectly. Moreover, it may artificially increase home prices.