Revisiting “Southern” Sprawl: Urban Growth, Socio-Spatial Structure and the Influence of Local Economic Contexts

Ilaria Tombolini, Ilaria Zambon, Achille Ippolito, Stathis Grigoriadis, Pere Serra and Luca Salvati
Additional contact information
Ilaria Tombolini: Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA), Via della Navicella 2-4, I-00184 Rome, Italy
Ilaria Zambon: Department of Agriculture, Forest, Nature and Energy (DAFNE), University of Tuscia, Via S. Camillo de Lellis, I-01100 Viterbo, Italy
Achille Ippolito: Department of Architecture and Planning, “Sapienza” University of Rome, Via Flaminia 369, I-00196 Rome, Italy
Stathis Grigoriadis: Department of Architecture and Planning, “Sapienza” University of Rome, Via Flaminia 369, I-00196 Rome, Italy
Pere Serra: Grumets Research Group, Department of Geografia, Edifici B, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, EL-08193 Bellaterra, Spain
Luca Salvati: Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA), Via della Navicella 2-4, I-00184 Rome, Italy

Economies, 2015, vol. 3, issue 4, 1-23

Abstract: Given its unpredictable nature, urban sprawl in the Mediterranean region is considered an intriguing (and intricate) socioeconomic issue. Since the 1970s, urban dispersion advanced rapidly in southern Europe—irrespective of a city’s size and morphology—with urbanization rates growing faster than population. A comparison between the metropolitan areas of Barcelona, Rome and Athens reveals how sprawl has occurred in different ways in the three cities, highlighting peculiar relationships between urbanization, land-use and economic structures. Sharing common drivers of change related to population dynamics, socio-spatial structure and deregulated urban expansion, sprawl has adapted to the local economic, cultural and environmental context. Barcelona shows a dispersion pattern towards a more spatially-balanced morphology, with expanding sub-centres distributed around the central city, Rome appears to be mostly scattered around the historical city with fragmented urban fabric and heterogeneous economic functions, Athens is denser, with polarized economic spaces and social segregation. Understanding how place-specific factors influence processes of settlement dispersion in Mediterranean contexts may inform policies of urban containment and land-use management.

Keywords: mediterranean city; urban form; land consumption; economic structure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E F I J O Q (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jecomi:v:3:y:2015:i:4:p:237-259:d:60986

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