Land mismatches, urban growth and spatial planning: A contribution to metropolitan sustainability

The unequal growth of population and buildings in metropolitan regions reflects dispersed urban expansion. This study illustrates an operational framework grounded on a diachronic analysis of urbanization processes in advanced economies that provides a comprehensive evaluation of the mismatch between resident population and building stock. Studying the urban cycle of a European city (Athens, Greece), a mismatch indicator was derived at the municipal level as the elasticity rate of resident population and total building stock changes over 7 time intervals between 1920 and 2010. Results indicate that divergences in population and building stock growth rates increased since the early 1980s. The population-buildings mismatch displays an increasingly asymmetric spatial distribution, evidencing more or less accelerated paths toward dispersed settlements that may outline unsustainable forms of land management. Municipalities with a compact morphology at the beginning of the study period showed a higher rate of self-contained urban expansion than municipalities with more dispersed settlements. A comparative analysis of the impact of town planning on enlarging population-settlement mismatches was finally proposed as a basic knowledge to sustainable land management in (rapidly expanding) metropolitan regions.