The industrial corridor Valladolid-Palencia: emerging conurbation between two consolidated urban poles

Abstract

The geographical constraints imposed by the Pisuerga Valley, between Palencia and Valladolid,
generate a Corridor defined by the two cities proximity and their dynamism, their solid links and the
nature itself of this combined transport axis. The historical evolution of this territory, and specially
the Canal of Castille construction, allows the creation of a first hypothesis about transport and
settlements correspondence. The singular consolidation of this Corridor, the linear parallelism of
their three ways –Canal, Railway and Highway—, boosts the transition from a triangulated and
homogeneous territory, rooted in the cereal agriculture, towards a territory polarized in the urban
centers. Very different among them, Valladolid and Palencia share strategic issues, as the University
or the Renault factory, and they are the poles of a more and more complex urban archipelago with
its guideline in the Corridor and a clear industrial profile. This emergent, linear and conurbated,
system lives together with the centrality of every city and with the current urban growth of their
respective outskirts. The accessibility offered by the Corridor promotes the industry in its environs,
but not only, It also provides new centralities location —Ikea/Río Shopping, industrial poles,
logistic centers…— and other facilities, but always respecting the two cities polarity, with their
particular logic and increasingly closer today thanks to the railway evolution.