New wine in old bottles: The (changing) socioeconomic attributes of sprawl during building boom and stagnation

European cities have shifted since decades to a more scattered urban model with relevant changes in the local socioeconomic context. This study compares the socioeconomic profile of discontinuous and continuous settlements along the urban gradient in Rome, Italy, during building boom (early-1970s) and stagnation (late-2000s) with the aim to identify suburbanization drivers associated with different urban patterns. Non-parametric correlation statistics and multivariate techniques were used to assess the spatio-temporal evolution of 24 socioeconomic indicators (population, settlement, labor market, economic structure) and 14 landscape/territorial indicators at the local scale (urban districts and municipalities). The socioeconomic context characterizing discontinuous settlements in the early 1970s was significantly different from what observed in the late 2000s, prefiguring distinct sprawl models. Economic structure and labor market variables discriminated discontinuous settlements from continuous settlements in the early 1970s. Demographic variables and a mixed composition of the natural landscape surrounding discontinuous settlements were more relevant in the late 2000s. Policies oriented to urban sustainability and sprawl containment may benefit from an in-depth understanding of the different socioeconomic contexts associated with scattered settlements in expansion and recession times.