This paper pretends to make some reflections about the urban sprawl process in the metropolitan areas in Spain and Mexico. The use of technologies related to satellite imagery (remote sensing) allows the characterization of the phenomenon of consumption, pathological or not, of land. And this analysis suggests some hypothesis about the plurality of contemporary of urbanization processes. Roughly two models stand out: one based urban development at low densities, where the unsustainable consumption of land is presented as a paradigm of economic development and, another hand, an urban development with a compact city model, where recycling land, and not just increasing the consumption of land, is one of the key objectives of urban policy. The work presented here, suggests that in recent years appears a change in the paradigm towards a more efficient and sustainable use of the territory.

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