La Comunidad Autónoma de Andalucía, en su afán por conseguir una adecuada vertebración y cohesión territorial, desplegó un sinfín de políticas urbanísticas y territoriales en el marco de la transferencia competencial con la descentralización autonómica, generando en apenas unas décadas un complejísimo marco legislativo e instrumental en el planeamiento urbanístico y la ordenación del territorio de la región (Hildenbrand, 2011; Cruz, 2018).
Sin embargo, a lo largo de los años, con la consolidación del sistema legal y normativo en su ordenamiento jurídico, el planeamiento territorial ha ido sucumbiendo frente al urbanístico, refrendando tendencias cortoplacistas y conformistas, consolidando así una evidente disfuncionalidad en la aplicación de ambos marcos de acción en la comunidad (Zoido, 2010, Fustegueras, 2017; Rando, 2019).
Así, este trabajo analiza el escenario planificador desarrollado en la comunidad andaluza en materia de urbanismo y ordenación del territorio, ejemplificado en las disfuncionalidades presentes entre ambos marcos normativos en las ciudades medias, como eslabón fundamental en el sistema de asentamientos de la región para conseguir el equilibrio territorial. Siendo por tanto, el objetivo principal del texto reconocer, desde una perspectiva multidisciplinar, las tendencias y conflictos que en su desarrollo se han venido produciendo en ambas disciplinas, identificando y valorando su despliegue competencial, el marco legal de referencia y los instrumentos con los que cuenta cada una de ellas.
Tras el reconocimiento del marco legislativo, urbanístico y conceptual en Andalucía, e integrando un análisis de la dimensión actual del fenómeno de la ciudad media, se superponen escalas y dimensiones en el diagnóstico para identificar las disfunciones producidas entre ambas materiasen su despliegue práctico, así como el impacto que este panorama ocasiona en la gestión territorial y urbana sostenible.
Finalmente, los datos de la investigación arrojan una realidad marcada por el ineficaz funcionamiento del marco legislativo del urbanismo y la ordenación del territorio en la comunidad autónoma, saturado por continuos solapamientos mal resueltos, y víctima de una deficiente gestión territorial por la falta de compromiso o inacción de los gestores públicos de la región. Algo que ocurre, pese a la hiperactividad normativa y reguladora de la comunidad andaluza en esta materia, especialmente en el periodo postcrisis en que intentaron que los preceptos de la planificación territorial fuesen un freno evidente al descontrol urbanístico presente en la región. Abstract: In order to achieve the autonomous community's main objective of internal territorial cohesion and an effective connection with the exterior, the authorities deployed planning policies based on the precepts of modernity, recognition of diversity and favoring decentralized decisions, especially in terms of urban planning and spatial planning. In only a few decades, this generated a complete and novel framework for action (Cruz, 2018; Rando, 2019). However, over the years and through the consolidation of the system in its current characteristics, this legislative and planning panorama has evolved towards policies of a marked conformist nature, legitimizing previous trends in the territory and reinforcing centralism in decisions and investments (Martín & Jurado, 2018). Along with this and with the course of the political legislatures, there has been an evident distance between the theoretical proposal of the law and it's inevitable reality, in addition to multiplying the cases of dysfunctionality in the application of both frameworks of action (Zoido, 1998; Górgolas, 2019). The hypothesis of this research stems from the idea that it is possible to recognize the dysfunctions in the application of urban planning and spatial planning policies in Andalusia by analyzing their practice and performance in the case of mid-sized cities. The lessons learned from this analysis can be extrapolated to the set of policies that influence territorial planning and management, and help to generate more sustainable and smart management alternatives. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to recognize, from a multidisciplinary analytical perspective, the trends and conflicts that have taken place throughout the development of the autonomous community of Andalusia, from the perspective of the disciplines of land use planning and urban planning. First, by identifying and evaluating the deployment of competences, their legal framework of reference and the instruments that each discipline had. This will allow for the establishment of an evolutionary and comparative analysis between the trajectories of both disciplines and their legislative results, from which the tools generated from each focus of territorial intervention and their participation in achieving a sustainable territorial model for the community are analyzed. The focus of this study is not carried out exclusively on the theoretical plane, but rather concentrates on a case study of mid-sized cities, a genuinely Mediterranean urban phenomenon that, due to its massive presence and specific weight in the regional territorial reality, serves as a preferred setting and thread of the analysis. For this, based on a recognition of the legislative, planning and conceptual framework of reference for the autonomous community, and integrating an analysis of the current dimension of the phenomenon of the mid-sized city in the region, diagnostic scales and dimensions are superimposed that allow the identification of the dysfunctions and interfering factors that take place between both disciplines in their practice and deployment, as well as the impact that this panorama has on sustainable urban and territorial management. All of the above allows us to reach some conclusions that are debated and contextualized in their scientific framework of reference. Observing the results of decades of actions in this field, it is not risky to affirm that, in the case of the autonomous community of Andalusia, the entire territorial planning system has largely lost the direction to follow. This is due to the fact that the main historical motivation has been irretrievably altered, that which was committed to sustainability, territorial balance or to achieving a higher quality of life for its inhabitants through a better managed territory. And in this future there is, unquestionably, a leading actor: the autonomous public administration itself, with its non-compliance, countermeasures and continuous changes in criteria. And this without forgetting, of course, the attitude of local government entities, responsible to undertake a reckless fight against territorial planning in general, and reluctant to any alternative way of practicing urban planning. In short, the data describe a reality marked by the poor operation of the established legislative and planning framework, which, in the particular case of Andalusia, in addition to being saturated with poorly resolved overlaps, is a victim of the lack of ambition and commitment of the autonomous community. All this takes place despite the hyperactivity of the legislation and the successive approvals of large planning packages during some historical periods. Overall, and in view of the great legal and instrumental development that this issue achieves in the current legal system, it is verified that in this case the instrumental and procedural materialization of the legislation, either lacks application, or its functions and motivational principles are executed in a distorted manner, generating a situation marked by the powerlessness of the instruments in charge of executing those precepts and models on reality. In this scenario, spatial planning, which has been proposed since its inception as a comprehensive, transversal and purposeful tool, has been wandering vaguely in its own legal and legislative implementation, until becoming a physical order of land uses, relegating these to the permitted and prohibited activities on non-urbanizable land, and in some typologies, urbanizable. Urban planning, on the contrary, a perennial image of public control and private profit in the exploitation of the land, maintaining its strength and social presence, even exceeding its particular objectives and invading, either due to negligence or for the convenience of responsible supervisors, the function and practice of those disciplines such as spatial planning, which are theoretically designed to accompany their meaning and functionality, and which, from the beginning, were erroneously conceived as threats to their omnipotence. All this prevents, in a correlative way, the main articulating component of the city system -the mid-sized cities-, from becoming empowered and positioned as the leading agent in development processes. These cities, instead of participating in the system assuming their role as urban centers guaranteeing territorial balance, or directly as protagonists of territorial networks to strengthen development processes -a vision advocated by spatial planning-, have done so on the contrary, uncritically accepting a diminished version of this role: they are only medium-sized municipalities concerned with their share of local power consolidated through poorly understood urban planning. For this reason and as previously warned, not all responsibility for the consecration of this scenario should lie with the autonomous administration: the mid-sized cities of Andalusia demonstrate that they have not understood their potential leading role in territorial management. All this supposes, in short, a new setback and an awkward recognition of one of the most genuine patrimonial components of Andalusia: the intermediate segment of the urban system. And, therefore, it is understood as a new lost opportunity in the process of implementing a true and effective territorial cohesion in the region Classification-JEL: R1 Keywords: Ciudades medias de Andalucía, Agencias de desarrollo regional, Planificación, Gestión Territorial, Andalucía, Mid-Sized Cities, Regional development, Development Planning And Policy, Territorial Management, Andalusia Pages: 15-44 Volume: 3 Year: 2022 File-URL: http://www.revistaestudiosregionales.com/documentos/articulos/pdf-articulo-2636.pdf File-Format: Application/pdf Handle: RePEc:rer:articu:v:3:y:2022:p:15-44