Given its unpredictable nature, urban sprawl in the Mediterranean region is considered an intriguing (and intricate) socioeconomic issue. Since the 1970s, urban dispersion advanced rapidly in southern Europe-irrespective of a city's size and morphology-with urbanization rates growing faster than population. A comparison between the metropolitan areas of Barcelona, Rome and Athens reveals how sprawl has occurred in different ways in the three cities, highlighting peculiar relationships between urbanization, land-use and economic structures. Sharing common drivers of change related to population dynamics, socio-spatial structure and deregulated urban expansion, sprawl has adapted to the local economic, cultural and environmental context. Barcelona shows a dispersion pattern towards a more spatially-balanced morphology, with expanding sub-centres distributed around the central city, Rome appears to be mostly scattered around the historical city with fragmented
OPEN ACCESSEconomies 2015, 3 238 urban fabric and heterogeneous economic functions, Athens is denser, with polarized economic spaces and social segregation. Understanding how place-specific factors influence processes of settlement dispersion in Mediterranean contexts may inform policies of urban containment and land-use management.
Heterogeneous definitions of urban areas and poorly homogenized forest data at the country scale have hampered the comparative assessment of peri-urban forest structure in developed countries. The present study investigates selected landscape characteristics of peri-urban forests in 283 metropolitan areas in Europe controlling for the role of the local context and regional suburbanization trends. Using landscape metrics derived from Urban Atlas maps (a Copernicus/GMES initiative providing a comprehensive land-use assessment of European cities >100,000 inhabitants), significant differences in peri-urban forest structure were detected under five European regions. Specific class metrics (percent forest area, mean patch size, perimeter-to-area ratio) were correlated with urban morphology, landscape and territorial indicators. On average, forest cover is larger in northern and southern European metropolitan areas. Forest patch size increases from western to eastern Europe, with more regular patch shapes in central and eastern regions and less regular shapes in the rest of Europe. Forest class area increases with the area of discontinuous, medium-density settlements. Forest patch size increases with the average patch size of discontinuous dense urban fabric. Our evidence outlines a ‘sprawl model' shaping fringe landscapes characterized by discontinuous urban settlements mixed with fragmented – but possibly well protected – forest patches
Urban expansion causes socioeconomic and environmental changes with unpredictable impacts on peri-urban land, especially in ecologically-fragile areas. The present study assesses the impact of dense and, respectively, discontinuous urban expansion on high-quality land consumption in 76 metropolitan regions of Mediterranean Europe. Land quality indicators and land-use maps were considered together with the aim to analyze urban growth and land take processes in Portugal, Spain, southern France, Italy and Greece. Differences in the rate of selective land take (high quality vs low quality soils) were observed at the city scale depending on the size of metropolitan regions and the percentage of built-up areas and cropland in the total landscape. Dispersed settlements were more frequently developed on high-quality land in respect to dense settlements. Urban expansion consumed high-quality land especially in Spain and Greece. The approach presented in this paper may inform joint policies for urban containment and the preservation of high-quality soils in periurban areas.
The present study assesses how urban growth impacted landscape composition, structure and diversity in peri-urban Rome, central Italy, during the last 60 years (1949–2008). The spatial distribution and fragmentation of nine land-use classes derived from comparable digital maps covering the whole study area (1500 km2) were assessed by computing a total of 27 metrics using a relational approach based on exploratory data analysis. Landscape transformations were explored through hierarchical clustering applied on the selected landscape metrics. Our results indicate the increased fragmentation of peri-urban landscape over the study interval. Especially vineyards, arable land and pastures underwent patch fragmentation. This process was reflected into smaller ‘core’ areas compared with the remaining non-urban uses of land (woodland, olive groves). A negative relation between class area and patchiness was observed for all classes with the exception of forests and olive groves. Policies aimed at contrasting fragmentation and simplification of the relict landscape on the fringe of large cities are finally discussed
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