Extremadura’s Urban System and its Impact on Rural Development

Abstract

We are informed that subjects such as cohesion and disparities in spatial development cause deep concern
at the very heart of the EU. In this context cities, as factors in the conception of a polycentric territorial model
of complementary effects and cooperation as within a network and here now play a signal role thanks to
the efforts made by the Ministers of Spatial Planning throughout the decade of the nineties, which lead on
to the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP). On a practical level, this document is felt to have
lacked any practical outcomes as yet in either Spain or most of the other Communities. The urban system
of Estremadura is here examined under a Multivariate Analysis to uncover its urban groundworkings and
ranking system along with a questionnaire —much like that employed by Professor Casas Torres in 1967—
so as to establish areas of influence, and analyse their evolution during the last third of the twentieth century.
Once said urban system has been come at, the influence that these cities may have had in rural development
as to population stabilizing during the last decade will be sought after and, happily, determined.