Economic Growth, Regional Disparities, and Urban Sprawl: The Mediterranean Experience

This book gives a unique description of urban geography of Europe and specifically, Southern Europe, and provides a fine guide to urban complexity and resilience in the light of metropolitan sustainability. Sprawl is a multifaceted phenomenon that needs to be quantified with distinct measures and during an enough long observation period. Landscape change is recognized to be a relevant topic when studying the impact of urban growth and sprawl on peri-urban land. In the kaleidoscopic panorama of urban Europe, Mediterranean cities represent an element that breaks with the stereotypes of the 'old continent' urbanities. Originally developed according to a purely mono-centric structure, which grew radio-centrically with the progressive addition of satellite urban areas, Mediterranean cities have more recently oriented their growth path towards dispersed settlement models. This resulted in a high consumption of land, in contrast with the 'judicious compactness' that characterized the tumultuous development of the cities at least in the first three decades after World War II. This book tells, through narratives, photographs, qualitative-quantitative descriptions of landscapes, maps and indicators, the transition from a compact model—`judiciously mono-centric' and `land saving'—to contemporary sprawl, with practical implications in economic geography. The environmental, social and economic implications of this phenomenon, far from being a unique characteristic of the European Mediterranean region, have been also discussed, and the planning and policy implications addressed with respect to the individual ecological problems faced from time to time.