In Spain we are developing a new culture in Landscape Planning and in Ecological Planning applied into new tools of regional level. We are working in one of this new planning tools, the Directrices de Ordenación del Territorio de Segovia y Entorno –DOTSE-. This document is in its approval process by the Consejería de Fomento of the Autonomous Regional Government of Castilla y León, in the terms established by the Regional Planning Law 10/1998 for the Directrices -Land Planning Guidelines- with sub-regional scope.

Castilla y León is a Spanish Region with 2,5 million people on 94.000 Km2. This Region has lost population during the three last decades and today has a medium density of 25 hab./Km² –Spain has 78,1 hab/Km², in Castilla y León the 6,6% of the Spanish people lives in the 18,76% of the total Country territory. This is one of the most important conditions in a Region where the city system is very weak: about the 30% of the people lives in towns or villages smaller than 2000 hab.

Segovia is a medium –54.000 people- historical city, UNESCO World Heritage place, with a great landscape close the Madrid metropolitan area. The attraction of Segovia is clear for leisure and holiday housing, but also in the future for the location of some activities from Madrid. The improvement of the road network, the fostering of an integrated transport system as well as the building of the infrastructure associated to the High Speed Train (AVE) from Madrid, will considerably affect the articulation of future projects in Segovia. However, today there are a lot of problems about the suburban growth in the little villages around the city. Close to Segovia, the town of La Granja –very known for the royal palace and gardens- is the other pole of action.

The complexity of the Segovia relief and climate give rise to a variety of landscapes, from the mountains and piedmonts to the low-lying fertile areas near rivers and from the extensive plains of the large inland plateau. Wide expanses of low population density and the transformation of rural zones make the natural potential of large areas of land more and more evident. We work in the identity of places. The DOTSE foster a multinuclear development and establish intermediate centres and interactive corridors.

The landscape potential could be here the key of a complementary structural item for creating new rural landscapes: greenways networks, founded in historical network, like the Cañadas, regional park systems, related with publics forest and with the rivers and mountains, natural areas protected, etc.

The Guidelines form a complex document which interprets the towns –Segovia and La Granja- and its region by combining two basic criteria for a sustainable development: firstly, the preservation and enhancement of outstanding areas, locations and landscapes and, secondly, the search for the greatest possible efficiency in the urban-regional system; a capacity which is related to the creation of competitive advantages. Valuable areas must be preserved since they have certain features that support the global quality of the system, whereas the urban developments should efficiently provide all infrastructures and facilities.

The suburban process stays with the increase of consumption of land, always increasing for new urban uses but without demographic growth. In the Segovia countryside, some rural areas have a great vitality and economical development, but the main part of the rural realm is in decay. Some villages are waiting the way of becoming resource the rural tourism and the cultural heritage. There is a great cultural and natural richness, but the development associated goes slowly.

Our work is founded in the municipalities character and in the physiographycal conditions. The concept of City–Region is useful here. It is possible to consolidate the local identity –historic, cultural and landscape assets– and the belonging sense in people. To manage private and publics lands to strike a balance between economic growth, social equity and environmental suitability is only possible involving the government regulatory power in the land use conditions to achieve physical, functional, social, environmental and economic goals.

The DOTSE fully meets the enhancement of the strategies defined in the European Territorial Strategy: multi-centrism, protection of the rural and agrarian areas with a close relation between town and countryside, promotion of an efficient public transport, constitution of dynamic and attractive urban regions, conservation of the historical and natural heritage, etc. Two "new" themes are always in the current debate: the compactness and the mixture of uses and activities in the urban frame –the diversity. This reflection on urban density leads to a clear bet on public transport. We can see the new experiences in Transport Oriented Development strategies.

The current emergent model, the widespread city –"città diffusa" or "métapolis"-, implies in the practice several risks The austerity and safeguard concepts flows from the social comprehension of a rooted city life: the economic value of long-dated built city, the strategies of reusing, and also the criticism to the reductive functionalism. We can not permit ourselves to destroy systematically the existing places. We thought the public space as the basis of a "droit à la ville", a public realm. The question was not only to choose the suitable location, to establish "constraints" for the urban growth or to evaluate the social cost at long-term. The question was to elaborate a work mentality. Sustainability is not a quality of few spaces, privileged by capital or by public institutions.. Sustainability affects to every corner of regional system, and for everyone, even in its backyards, a wise, conscious and committed knowledge about our city culture must be present.

The Directrices is a group of related strategies and tools for this, a way to establish an region future model, no rigid, structural reference in the territory arrangement. Their main scope is to introduce a coordinate planning to manage future growth, founding decisions in some strategical actions and in the environmental protection. The GIS analysis will permit the data integration, a comprehensive vision useful for planning. The DOTSE drafts, after an important territorial inventory and a methodological effort, are oriented to resolve the main structural questions and to understand the region as a related landscape.

We have defined three local systems, very related:

• General transport and mobility system, defining the accessibility in intensive use zones.

• Basic facilities system, founded in the existing towns system, where the public investment is linked with spatial conditions. The new local centrality resolves the county needs.

• Natural system of protected spaces and a green-ways network, structuring the recreational opportunities in correspondence with landscape protection.

The suburban phenomenon can be reoriented in more compact solutions with growth management concepts: landscape values; growth limits; subdivisions controls; performance standars; infrastructure conditions –water supply, water pollution and sewer system, waste processing and energy rationality–, controlling access to public facilities and requiring new facilities; the control of accessibility in natural spaces and critical areas; and tax balance between municipalities, linked with expenses in public services. We are also working in the idea that landscape structure –natural and cultural- must regulate the change in urban and rural areas, managing its constraints to managing the infrastructure layout and the urban density in an adaptative way. We work with the municipalities structure and with landscape units. The supra-municipal character of work justifies an urban model as a global services giving system. Looking for the quality of life, the DOTSE establish more rationality to manage the services related with mobility, water, wastes and pollution. It is an opportunity to relate lands uses to the adequate places and to manage the urban change in commitment with landscape values.

-Avance de Directrices de Ordenación Territorial de Valladolid y Entorno (1997). Documento del Instituto de Urbanística de la Universidad de Valladolid.

-François Ascher, "Métapolis ou l’avenir des villes", Ed. Odile Jacob, Paris 1995.

-Jonathan Barnett; "The fractured Metropolis", Westview Press, New York 1995.

-Peter Calthorpe & William Furton, "The Regional City. Planning for the end of sprawl", Island Press, Washington 2001.

-Francesco Indovina (ed.) "La città diffusa", Daest, Venezia 1990.

-McHarg, Ian L., "Proyectar con la naturaleza", Gustavo Gili, Barcelona 2000.

-S. Tjallingii, "Ecopolis", Backhuys Publisher, Leiden 1995.

-Hildebrand Frey, "Designing the city. Towards a more sustainable urban form", E & FN Spon, London 1999.

-G.F.Thompson y F.R.Steiner (eds.), "Ecological Design and Planning", John Wiley & Sons, New York 1997.