European Cities and Regions Dataset 1960-2005: Methods and Sources (original) (raw)

Re-urbanizing the European City: A Multivariate Analysis of Population Dynamics During Expansion and Recession Times

European Journal of Population, 2019

After a long phase of suburbanization promoting economic decentral-ization and uneven expansion of urban rings, re-urbanization has been observed inan increasing number of European cities. However, a comprehensive analysis of demographic dynamics underlying spatial patterns—and factors—of re-urbanizationis still lacking for the European continent. This study contributes to fill thisknowledge gap by proposing a comparative analysis of population dynamics at twospatial scales (‘inner cities’ and ‘large urban zones’) in 129 European metropolitanregions under economic expansion (2000–2007) and recession (2008–2014). Non-parametric correlations, principal component analysis, and stepwise multipleregressions were used to identify different spatial patterns of population growth atcontinental and regional scale in Europe. The number of cities studied that showed atrend towards re-urbanization increased from 36 in 2000–2007 to 47% in2008–2014. Positive rates of population growth in inner cities were found to beassociated with high levels of disposable per capita income at the metropolitanscale. During recession, spatial differences in population growth rates were sug-gestive of a moderate rearrangement towards re-urbanization in northern and central Europe and less polarized metropolitan regions, with declining population in innercities of southern and eastern Europe. Based on peculiar demographic dynamicsfound in the study area, the analysis performed brings useful insights to the debateabout the future development of European cities.

City-regions in Europe: The potentials and the realities

Town Planning Review, 2007

In recent debates about future urban development challenges the city-region area gets growing attention as this is considered as being very important from the point of view of economic competitiveness and environmental and social sustainability aspects of urban development, as well. The aim of the paper is to discuss the city-region issue with some conclusions to be drawn from the perspective of housing markets and housing policies.

Uncovering Demographic Trends and Recent Urban Expansion in Metropolitan Regions: A Paradigmatic Case Study

Sustainability

While urbanization trends have been characterized for a long time by deconcentration of inner cities with expansion of low-density settlements, economic repolarization leading to re-urbanization and recovery of central districts are now counterbalancing population shrinkage in compact urban areas and slowing down suburban growth. In this context, the recent demographic evolution of a large metropolis such as Athens (Greece)—following expansion, crisis, and a more subtle economic recovery—may reveal original relationships between form and functions at the base of recent urban growth. Based on an exploratory analysis of demographic indicators on a metropolitan and urban scale, the present study provides an updated and integrated knowledge framework that confirms and integrates the most recent urban trends in southern Europe. Documenting the emergence of more individualized paths of urban expansion at the local scale (recovery of the historic center, shrinkage of semicentral neighborho...

An approach for researching urban and metropolitan areas under the conditions of dynamic changes

2013

Big cities, or their metropolitan areas, represent an important arena for research of spatial and socio-economic changes, with implications in a wider (national) framework. Urban dynamics, mainly from the aspect of land-use and distribution of population, is theoretically analysed following the sustainable development paradigm. Recently, with the growing influence of factors of uncertainty and vulnerability, that are exhibited also in the network of settlements, ideas such as ―renewal‖,―transformation‖ and ―reorganisation‖ gain a new significance. This paper makes an overview of the short period in which the transformations of land-use as well as some demographic and socio-economic changes of population took place and have been observed on the metropolitan areas of Belgrade and Novi Sad. Some potential directions of future changes in the selected metropolitan areas have been determined, with the goal of achieving a more successful urban areas’ steering through constant cycles of tra...

The Evolution of Urban and Metropolitan Areas: An Essay

The Bureau of the Census first defined Metropolitan Districts and set the current minimum for an area and its population to be considered urban in 1910. The 1950 census saw the first reporting of data for Standard Metropolitan Areas and Urbanized Areas, the latter being the denser, built-up portions of metropolitan areas. The definitions of these areas evolved during the remainder of the last century with the names for the metropolitan areas changing, but the basic approach remained constant. Major changes to the definitions were made around 2000. The use of small areas rather than the entire areas of cities constituted a significant improvement for Urbanized Areas. However, the rules put in place to identify separate Urbanized Areas caused fragmentation of some areas and, because of the way in which the new Metropolitan Statistical Areas were now being defined, caused the splitting up of numbers of areas that had been unified under the previous definition. The problem was compounded by the decision for 2010 to freeze Urbanized Area divisions, ending the possible combination of both those areas and the Metropolitan Statistical Areas that has occurred in the past in response to the growth and evolution of metropolitan regions.

Spatial trends of towns in Europe: the performance of regions with low degree of urbanisation

The paper contributes to the understanding of socio-spatial trends and urban systems in Europe, with a specific focus on smaller settlements. Firstly, a morphological delimitation of urban settlements as geographical base is used to identify the different settlement structures that characterise regions across Europe. Secondly, an analysis of population and GDP performances of NUTS3 regions for the 29 countries of the European space (growth rates in 2001-2011) provides evidence of the variety of territorial phenomena that characterise smaller-settlement regions across Europe. Finally, the paper highlights the diversity and complexity of urbanisation structures in Europe and how general trends observed at larger scale are articulated locally according to prevailing structures of urbanisation. It shows the character of 'embeddedness' of smaller settlements within urban systems and territorial structures and how the socioeconomic performances of smaller-settlement regions are defined by a combination of macro trends, national contextualisation, local dynamics and regional path dependency.