The planning dialectic of continuity and change: The evolution of metropolitan planning in Madrid 1

City planning deals with designing and managing institutions that affect the future quality of urban places. The research reported in this article is on the evolution of urban planning in Madrid from 1857 to 1995. In Madrid, important aspects of planning have changed over this period, while others have remained almost unaltered. The tension between forces supporting continuity or struggling for change provided an animating dialectic that explains the evolution of urban planning and its institutions in Spain's capital. This dialectic of continuity and change is inherent in the nature of planning institutions themselves, as we argue in the conclusion, and has important implications for planning theory.