The Urbanizing Agent, Myth and Reality

Abstract

The author begins by declaring that the contribution to town and country legislation that the Law/6/94 for
the Regulating of Town and Country Planning Activities in the Autonomous Region of Valencia by which
market forces were brought into the private sector process of production to this end within the city has been
that of a revulsive upon Spanish Town and Country Planning Legislation. The figure of the urbanizing
agent as a recognized agent of the public administration, the experience gathered as a consequence of his
exercise of office and the results consequent upon this as within the Community of Valencia have thrown
into relief the advantages and shortcomings of the same and this has led, in turn, to the creation of Public
Opinion on the matter that often marries ill with the facts of the same. The author feels this to be the upshot
of the relative complexity that this novel figure represents as within the planning process at its tendering
phase, the three-fold relations as between the Administration, owners and urbanizing agents, the astonishing
absence of any approval expressed for the progress as within the regulating process that the figure might
have represented over the last ten years and the expansive social and economic and urbanistic dynamics that
have marked this same period. All the foregoing circumstances are thought to have contributed to a distorted
comprehension of this figure’s fact, this at times laudatory to a degree, at others dismissive to the same, but
in neither case to an authentic and objective appraisal as such. The author thus felt in writing this paper
that there was a call for an analysis of this figure grounded upon contrasted and factual data and that this
should seek the greatest objectivity and clarity of explanation possible. Only thus, he argues could a fresh
understanding from a warrantable standpoint of this novel figure be achieved despite the unconscious or wilful
misunderstanding that has been treated with to date.