In-Between Sprawl and Neo-Rurality: Sparse Settlements and the Evolution of Socio-Demographic Local Context in a Mediterranean Region

Rosanna Salvia, Pere Serra, Ilaria Zambon, Massimo Cecchini and Luca Salvati
Additional contact information
Rosanna Salvia: Department of Mathematics, Computer Science and Economics, University of Basilicata, Via dell’Ateneo Lucano, I-85100 Potenza, Italy
Pere Serra: Department of Geography, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Building B, Campus UAB, ES-08193 Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Vallès), Barcelona, Spain
Ilaria Zambon: Department of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences (DAFNE), Tuscia University, Via San Camillo de Lellis, 5, I-01100 Viterbo, Italy
Massimo Cecchini: Department of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences (DAFNE), Tuscia University, Via San Camillo de Lellis, 5, I-01100 Viterbo, Italy
Luca Salvati: Council of Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA), Research Centre for Forestry and Wood, Viale S. Margherita 80, I-52100 Arezzo, Italy

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 10, 1-14

Abstract: Dispersed urbanization during the last half century has transformed metropolitan regions into well-connected, low-density residential areas. However, this kind of urbanization has changed irreversibly the traditional rural landscape around cities, leading to a new definition of ‘rurality’. The present work discusses the intimate relationship between urban sprawl and new forms of rurality. Considering economic downturns and the possible impact on landscape transformations, our study focuses on a representative Mediterranean case of urban sprawl (the metropolitan region of Athens, Greece). In this area, urban settlements expanded rapidly into fringe land, producing relevant socio-demographic transformations that have determined uneven changes in rural landscapes. A spatially-explicit investigation of local-scale dynamics that characterize population residing in sparse settlements over a long time period (1961–2011)—encompassing distinct phases of urban growth and rural development—is relevant for analysis of local changes in the relationship between sprawl and new forms of rurality. A new concept of ‘rurality’—adapting to rapidly-evolving, mixed rural/peri-urban contexts—require reframing the relationship between rural landscapes, scattered settlements, economic cycles and socio-demographic aspects, in the light of a truly sustainable development of local territories.

Keywords: landscape; olive; metropolitan area; sustainable land management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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