EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Functions follow structures? The long-term evolution of economic dynamics, social transformations, and landscape morphology in a Mediterranean metropolis

Gianluca Egidi, Enrico Maria Mosconi, Rosario Turco and Luca Salvati

Land Use Policy, 2023, vol. 129, issue C

Abstract: Identification of the intrinsic properties regulating complex systems’ development contributes to a refined comprehension of their inherent transformations over time. Seen as a local context undergoing non-linear changes as a response to socioeconomic dynamics, landscape evolution over time provides a paradigmatic issue when examining the key property of ‘rapidity-of-change’ characteristic of any complex system. The present study introduces an exploratory approach grounded on mathematical morphology to investigate ‘rapidity-of-change’ of a landscape system evolving in response to external stimuli over 70 years (1948–2018). This framework was applied to a real case (metropolitan Athens, Greece) assessing structural changes in built-up settlements reflected in seven landscape types derived from mathematical morphology. A Multi-way Factor Analysis (MFA) quantified the evolution of landscape types from diachronic land-use maps. A standardized metric of ‘rapidity-of-change’ was calculated from MFA outcomes over six sub-periods and confronted with the background socioeconomic context. Taken as an intrinsic attribute of complex systems, ‘rapidity-of-change’ in Athens’ landscape was largely heterogeneous over time, being more intense during the last economic expansion (2000–2006) under the impulse of the Olympic Games. Intermediate values of ‘rapidity-of-change’ were associated with population growth and intense social transformations. The lowest level of ‘rapidity-of-change’ was finally recorded in correspondence with 2007 recession. Reflecting the intrinsic pressure of socioeconomic growth in contemporary cities, ‘rapidity-of-change’ in landscape systems demonstrated to be a honest proxy of metropolitan cycles, economic downtowns, and socio-demographic dynamics. Delineating long-term transformations in the ‘form-function’ relationship allows evaluation of (direct or indirect) planning impacts on metropolitan development.

Keywords: Settlement form; Mathematical morphology; Urban Cycle; Socioeconomic functions; Southern Europe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837723001254
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:129:y:2023:i:c:s0264837723001254

DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2023.106659

Access Statistics for this article

Land Use Policy is currently edited by Jaap Zevenbergen

More articles in Land Use Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joice Jiang (repec@elsevier.com).

 
Page updated 2024-12-28
Handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:129:y:2023:i:c:s0264837723001254