Mandatory services in population settlements in local government and urban planning laws and in the Census of Places

Abstract

Spanish and Catalan local government laws and the Catalan urban planning law requiret own councils to provide certain services to “population settlements” (“núcleos de población”), a quite indefined concept; its brief definition in the urban planning law does not even coincide with the articulated definition in the Spanish Census of Places (Nomenclátor). There is also no coincidence in the categories of the public services that must be provided in a mandatory manner: for the local regime laws, these are “minimum” services, where as for the urban planning law there are certain “basic urban planning” services. On the other hand, the Census of Places is left in the hands of the good judgement of the town councils, which provokes that the delimitation of the “population settlements” and of the “disseminated areas” follow heterogeneous criteria. The heterogeneity of concepts and the disorganization of territorial data and cartography do not help in the task of identifying the public services provided in population settlements, a vital aspect for the vibrancy of our municipalities.