THE SUBURBS OF CORDUBA

Abstract

Way and beyond ideological mandates that have at any moment in time distinguished legal differences between the area falling within or without the city walls, history shows that ever since it was founded, Cordoba has surpassed the strict limits imposed by its walls to make up a functional unit in which it is impossible to understand the city sensu stricto without its extra moenia area, its suburbia: an ever changing reality whose first sign of transition centers on the network of roads. This in turn becomes a guarantee for access to a second outlying strip (lacking in urban functions but easily accessible and the area favoured by its inhabitants for their daily activities), and finally to the land on which the city’s economy, political power and prestige depended. The suburbs served as a mirror for the city.