The Cerdà effect on city modernisation.

With his plan for the ensanche, or extension, of Barcelona, Cerdà presented a practical way of shaping the new city, with a healthy density and uniform accessibility that he advocated. This marked a new phase for cities, throwing them wide open to the future. Cerdà expressed his ideas with such authority that the concept of ensanche came to be accepted enthusiastically in many other cities facing similar problems at the time, and the construction of ensanches became widespread. At the start of the twenty-first century, these ensanches, now important urban areas in the cities they helped to develop, viewed as a representative sample, present a reality that continues to stimulate open reflection about the arguments of the fluctuating foundations underlying the art of constructing cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]