land Article How to Define a New Metropolitan Area? The Case of Quito, Ecuador, and Contributions for Urban Planning Esthela Salazar 1,2,* , Cristián Henríquez 2,3 , Gustavo Durán 4, Jorge Qüense 2 and Fernando Puente-Sotomayor 5,6 1 Departamento de Ciencias de la Tierra y la Construcción, Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas-ESPE, Sangolquí 171103, Ecuador 2 Instituto de Geografía, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Av. Vicuña Mackenna 4860, Macul, Santiago 7820244, Chile;
[email protected] (C.H.);
[email protected] (J.Q.) 3 Researcher, Center for Sustainable Urban Development CEDEUS, El Comendador 1916, Providencia, Santiago 7820244, Chile 4 Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, FLACSO, Diego de Almagro, Quito 170201, Ecuador; gduran@flacso.edu.ec 5 Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo, Universidad Central del Ecuador, Quito 170521, Ecuador;
[email protected] 6 LEMA, Urban and Environmental Engineering Department, Liège University, 4000 Liège, Belgium * Correspondence:
[email protected] Abstract: The Metropolitan Area of Quito has experienced exponential growth in recent decades, especially in peri-urban sectors. The literature has described this process as “urban sprawl”, a phenomenon that is changing the landscape by increasing land consumption and forming conurba- tions with the nearest populated centers. This article proposes a new, broader and more complex metropolitan structure for the metropolis of Quito, the linking of neighboring and conurbed areas to the form a new metropolitan area based on the case study of the Metropolitan District of Quito Citation: Salazar, E.; Henríquez, C.; Durán, G.; Qüense, J.; Puente- (DMQ). This new metropolitan area identification considers the interpretation of satellite images Sotomayor, F.