The bulding of the “bourgeois city” in the towns of Asturias. The examples of Llanes and Ribadesella

Abstract

The Spanish cities started to suffer a big transformation since the middle of the 19th Century as a result of the emergence of the earliest industrial manifestations and the building of the liberal state. This alteration appeared in the adaptation of the inherited centers to the new tastes and needs with internal reform and urban extension projects. In Asturias, like in other regions, the process was not only exclusive of the big towns but other smaller villages also were involved in this renewal, like the entities of population located in the mining areas or the former medieval seaside towns. That was the case of the coastal towns of Llanes and Ribadesella, where, thanks to the returning emigrants from America, there was a significant modernization of the urban structure according to the principles of the new bourgeois urbanism.