Urban Rural Interaction: Processes and Changes in the <i>Marina Oriental</i> of Cantabria (Spain)

Abstract

Since the middle of the last century, especially since the seventies, processes have been generated and consolidated that have changed the image of certain rural environments in Spain, especially coastal, with new forms of organization and territorialities that break the traditional model. The Cantabrian territory, like other areas of the Spanish coast, has seen its territories and landscapes altered in terms of its demographic, economic, and urban structures. The variation over the easternmost area of the Autonomous Community of Cantabria is significant, affected by various growth processes of both cities in the region, as well as others adjacent and connected, such as the urban agglomeration of Bilbao, influencing this space that we call Marina Oriental de Cantabria. The justification and objectives are to know how the coastal geographical situation, good communications, and proximity to Bilbao have configured this space to become a functional part of the metropolitan agglomeration that is generated around this city. An investigation focused on the analysis of the intensification and the effects of the urbanization process of a rural and rururban area, from an integrative, transversal, and multiscale approach, supported by inductive and hybrid methodology, with quantitative and qualitative methods. Through this study, the evolution and problems of these spaces will be known, to analyze the processes that have occurred and continue to occur and, thus, propose measures to reduce the negative effects. The main results and conclusions of the research are manifested in transformations on a legacy space, which has been productively redefined, being one of the most changed since the middle of the last century.

Keywords

• rural–urban interaction
• deagrarianisation
• economic tertiarization
• urban expansion
• land use