Mediterranean Europe, a Fragile Landscape: Metropolitan Growth and Urban Sprawl

In addition to having a high degree of freedom and self-organization, the Mediterranean city has been outlined as the place where a high degree of spatial, cultural, but also institutional disorder is achieved. The city is sometimes read in its many components as represented by a “difficult order to understand”. Therefore, in this chapter, we try to define and describe the main aspects and issues of this fragile landscape. We will discuss the difference between the formation of the metropolis and the settlement disorder, paying attention to some examples from Easter Mediterranean, Italy, Spain, Southern France or Greece. Moreover, the socio-economic structure of Barcelona, ​​Rome and Athens will be used as an example to explain the metropolitan growth and urban sprawl. They appear very different, although they are all located in the Mediterranean basin. Each one has a unique and different territorial configuration and the phenomenon of urban sprawl has adapted differently, following the economic and social connotations of the countries under investigation.