Hidden City: The Footprint of Illegal Urbanisation in Spain

The spread of urban areas throughout the country, as well as the sprawl processes that it involves, have been a recurring theme in the growth of most Spanish cities over the last few decades. These phenomena have been studied extensively from various perspectives and disciplines, though this has generally been carried out without a detailed analysis of the origins of the settlements that comprise them. It is this aspect, in this case, based on its connection to the planned/unplanned origin of new urban developments connected to this city growth model that can become a key element for isolating the various related processes and helping us to understand their different dimensions. In certain cases, the surface area of the urban developments that arise without planning is so large that they manage to compete in significance with the established city. This phenomenon has been called the formation of the hidden city. The main aim of this study is to describe and analyse the problem of the illegal urban developments that have been carried out in Spain since the 1960s and 1970s. This will be carried out considering that it is connected to urban sprawl and suburbanisation processes that characterised the growth of cities in this spatial context during that time period. Secondly, we will show the effects of this illegal urban development on the territorial structures of the municipality of Cordoba, one of the most affected by this type of process.