Latent Exurban Development: City Expansion Along the Rural-To-Urban Gradient in Growing and Declining Regions of Southern Europe

Abstract

This paper quantifies the extent of exurban development in Mediterranean Europe. The assessment was carried out by studying changes in the urban-to-rural population density gradient between the years 1950 and 2010. Three of the six urban regions in this study have experienced population growth and moderate urban concentration, while two regions appear to be shifting toward population decline and urban de-concentration after having experienced compact expansion. A phase of recent re-urbanization has been observed in one region. Altogether, these findings indicate a common path of urban expansion among representative Mediterranean regions between 1950 and 1980 while, in the following period, the cities experienced distinct development phases. From this study, we conclude that exurban development is mainly the product of a shift from compact and dense to semi-compact and intermediate-density settlements. [Key words: semi-dense urban growth, density-distance curve, Mediterranean Europe].

Notes

1 Urban Atlas (UA) is the major initiative dealing with low-resolution land use monitoring in Europe and represents an informative tool for both assessment and policy analysis (European Environment Agency, 2010). The UA project was undertaken by the European Environment Agency within the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) framework. The selected UA regions also correspond to the “Large Urban Zones” defined in the framework of the “Urban Audit” program, which is the main project undertaken by Eurostat with the aim of collecting statistical data (and providing thematic indicators) at local and regional scales for the majority of European urban areas. In the Urban Audit program, the rationale was to have an area from a significant share of the resident commuting into the city (Eurostat, 2004).

2 Data for the 2010–2011 census wave should be considered as provisional. However, according to projections from the previous decade (2000–2001), absolute population figures are expected to be relatively stable compared with the final census data that will be published in 2013/2014