First- and Second-Tier Cities in Regional Agglomeration Models

Abstract

This work has the purpose of inquiring into the presence of an urban hierarchy within second-tier city areas and alternative agglomeration models differing in their self-propelling ability and territorial sustainability. To this aim we confront regional polycentric areas, by going inside the traditional agglomeration and variety economies and the land settlement model of small–medium urban poles. In particular, the present work compares four Italian regions characterized by a territorial development driven by second-tier cities. The first two sections of the paper evaluate the functional pattern of the different urban systems and subsequently measure their rank in terms of extra-regional attractiveness on demand, which is expressed by rare services (Sections 2 and 3). Sections 4 and 5 tackle the issue of sustainability of settlements by taking into account land consumption and the degree of territorial fragmentation caused by different urbanization models. We discovered good urban performances and settlement sustainability of the second-tier cities agglomeration model in Italian regions, which is stronger when based on the co-presence of specialized small cities (which can assure a minimum amount of local demand for advanced services) and a multifunctional medium urban centre (which can ensure rarer functions). These findings bring strong recommendations on urban policies.

Notes

1 The definition adopted is functional to the national territory, where it identifies the present local communities (whether it is districts, cities and metropolitan areas) starting from commuters' daily travels correlated to the organization of labour markets. The basic idea, on which studies leading to the definition of an LLS (ISTAT-IRPET, 1986) are grounded, is that daily movements take place where economic and social relationships are more dense, in a space that corresponds to the community to which people belong. Although the calculation method used by ISTAT to identify daily commuting basins is not exempt from critics, and can certainly be refined (cf. Compagnucci, 2009), the idea that a good approximation for a territorial community is given by the places of daily attendance is certainly a sound concept.

2 The data on employees were drawn from the ISTAT archive Archivio Statistico Imprese Attive of business local units, 2009. Given that the public tertiary sector, especially with a high level of qualification, plays a key role in the cities, we decided to complement this archive with the data concerning the employees of universities (Source: Ministry of Education, Universities and Research) and hospitals (Source: Ministry of Health).

3 Jacobs defines a city as “a settlement that consistently generates its economic growth from its own local economy” (Jacobs, 1969, p. 262) where, in particular “much new work is added to older work and […] this new work multiplies and diversifies a city's division of labour” (Jacobs, 1969, p. 122).

4 The other occurrences observed for the whole of Italy are the Milan area (overall population of 5,200,000 inhab.), Bergamo (875,000 inhab.) and Brescia (530,000 inhab.) for Lombardy; the Naples area (3,005,000 inhab.) for Campania; Palermo (950,000 inhab.) and Catania (697,000 inhab.) for Sicily.

5 It is reasonable to assume that the quality of health services is influenced by the pattern of the urban structure, as it implies the attainment of a minimum demand level and the activation of an array of accessory services (university research, administrative services, public transport, and so on). The ability to attract patients from outside regions, however, cannot be simply explained with the demographic size of the region or with that of the region's urban pole. In fact, among less attractive areas, we find some densely populated and typically monocentric Southern regions (Campania, Sicily), while among the more attractive we notice regions with an average population density and a polycentric urban pattern (Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany).

6 The data take into account the participation to exhibitions, conferences, business meetings, training and refresher courses, as well as the involvement in activities of sales, installation and maintenance services and teaching.

7 To this end, we must resort to the data supplied in the Corine project. As is well know, this sort of survey presents some critical points in what concerns its scale (a module corresponds to an area of 25 ha). Nevertheless, except for the initial and still incomplete figures produced by the Italian National Observatory on Land Consumption, Corine is still today the only source available for this kind of investigation.

8 Actually, the estimate of desirable building areas should take into account not so much altimetry but steepness. Since this information is not available for all the Italian regions, we used proxy indicators, referring to the ISTAT classification of territory according to altimetry, that is hill, plain and mountain.

9 The results of a research carried out by the Planning Department of the Tuscany Region on the growth forecasts made in all of the territorial planning tools that were in force in 1987 in Tuscany, provide the following synthetic profile: 81,781,900 m³ is the residential volume established in Tuscany's city plans; so, assuming the parameter of 120 m³ per inhabitant, these plans are expecting to have an increase in resident population for 680,500 units, which once added to the existing 3,570,000 units make an overall population of about 4,250,000 people.

10 The urbanized areas accounted for in the index calculation are those comprised in the items 1.1.1, 1.1.2 and 1.2.1 of the Corine legend, which respectively correspond to: continuous urban fabric, discontinuous urban fabric and industrial or commercial units.

11 Urbanized cores are computed through the survey of centroids.

12 The Tuscan system undoubtedly presents a weakness since it has a smaller functional variety, or—better to say, as already noticed in previous studies carried out by IRPET—an under-endowment of manufacturing activities and related highly specialized services. The tertiary function of the city seems therefore to be unbalanced, as its services are lowly qualified and ascribable to a “banal” tertiary. Besides, being supported by a network of small–medium cities, the urban competitiveness of the Tuscan urban system is on the whole weaker than it might be expected.