Tag: Urban Sprawl

URBAN SPRAWL IN THE MEDITERRANEAN: EVIDENCE FROM COASTAL MEDIUM-SIZED CITIES

Apostolos LAGARIAS

Postdoc Researcher, School of Rural and Surveying Engineering, National Technical University of Athens (NTUA)

lagarias@iacm.forth.gr

John SAYAS

Associate Professor, School of Rural and Surveying Engineering, National Technical University of Athens (NTUA)

isayas@central.ntua.gr

Abstract

Urban sprawl processes taking place in European cities constitute an important problem opposing sustainable growth and environmental protection. This is particularly evident in the Mediterranean, where intense tourism development and coastalization continuously impose urban land pressures on agricultural areas and natural land. In the present study a set of 14 coastal medium-sized cities of Spain, Italy, Greece, Mediterranean France and Malta is used to explore recent urban sprawl trends and to analyze different typologies of urban form and structure. Based on recent data from European databases (Urban Atlas, Corine Land Cover and the Imperviousness-Soil Sealing Degree dataset), soil sealing degree profiles are estimated and the distribution of different urban land uses is analyzed for year 2006 using a set of spatial metrics. Urban growth between 1990 and 2014 is estimated based on data from the Global Human Settlement Layer (GHSL). Results reveal important differences between the cities in terms of urban form and structure. Geomorphology, different levels of population growth and tourism development, differences in the historical and socioeconomic context constitute among others, the reasons for this differentiation.

Keywords: Urban sprawl, Urban form, Coastalization, Medium-sized cities, Soil sealing, Land use

JEL classification: R110, R140

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DOES CBD THEORY SURVIVE THE TEST OF SMALL CITIES? CITY-SIZE AND SPRAWL IN ITALY

Gianni GUASTELLA

Università Cattolica, Dep of Mathematics and Physics, 41Via Musei, 25121, Brescia (IT)
giovanni.guastella@unicatt.it
Corresponding author

Stefano PAREGLIO

Università Cattolica, Dep of Mathematics and Physics, 41Via Musei, 25121, Brescia (IT)
stefano.pareglio@unicatt.it

Abstract

Economic theory predicts that the equilibrium of different economic forces explains the spatial scale of a city more than the uncontrolled take of agricultural land, which is considered instead as urban sprawl. A wide range of empirical results based on US data for large urban areas supports this hypothesis, showing that the socio-economic and environmental forces explain a vast portion of the variation in urbanization across cities. In this paper, we ask whether these socio-economic forces are relevant also in small cities and if they are in a different manner, provided that sprawling phenomena may occur more easily in small areas due to the larger availability of agricultural land. To answer the question, we estimate the relationship between city size and the socio-economic and environmental forces using data for small and large municipalities in the Lombardy region, Italy, and test to what extent this model is apt to explain size variations. We find that the model is adequate also in the case of small cities but differentiating small from large cities suggests that the sprawl hypothesis cannot be ruled out by the empirical evidence as the process of land conversion from agricultural to urban is substantially faster in small and medium-sized cities compared to large ones.

Keywords: Land Use, Urban Sprawl, Central Business District, Spatial Econometrics, Italy

JEL classification: O18, Q15, R14

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