Going toward Resilience? Town Planning, Peri-Urban Landscapes, and the Expansion of Athens, Greece

Abstract

The long-term expansion and the evolution of town planning of a contemporary European metropolis (Athens, Greece) has been analysed in this study in order to evaluate how sustainable urban growth has been taken into account in sequential strategic master plans. During the last decades, the mostly unplanned urban growth and massive housing construction have favoured a slow evolution towards a less compact and mono-centric spatial asset, typical of several Mediterranean cities. Despite efforts to guide urban growth, a series of structural challenges have remained: (i) a gap between planning and implementation; (ii) a gap between spatial planning and socio-economic planning; (iii) a relevant pressure on natural environment; (iv) a lack of participatory planning. In order to face these problems, current strategies for the city of Athens try to foster city resilience providing guidelines for more sustainable management of the built and natural landscape. In particular, the Resilience Strategy for 2030 proposes a list of actions to improve the well-being of citizens and to increase sustainability at the urban and territorial levels. A major role was given to the enhancement of the environmental quality of the metropolitan area and to the involvement of inhabitants in the various phases of decision-making.

Mapping Urban Expansions along China–Europe Railway Express with the 30 m Time-Series Global Impervious Surface Area (GISA-2) Data from 2010 to 2019

“…In contrast, the expansion of cities in the OFF-CRE region is relatively limited. The restricted urban sprawl is primarily attributed to their moderate sizes and compact patterns, as well as general infrastructure development, consistent with the findings by Nickayin [48]. Historical factors, such as the city-state tradition, have fostered balanced growth between historical and emerging urban areas.…”

Analysis of New Autonomous Regional Policies in Indonesia

“…c. Completion of regional boundaries. d. The transfer of regional status (administrative/political aspects) and the transfer of capital in the context of creating ideal regional autonomy (Nickayin et al, 2020).…”

Economic Downturns and Land-Use Change: A Spatial Analysis of Urban Transformations in Rome (Italy) Using a Geographically Weighted Principal Component Analysis

“…Over the past decades, rapid demographic, economic, and urban expansions have pushed a massive movement of resources and people, especially in most developed countries [1][2][3][4]. This phenomenon has been widely investigated, demonstrating the strong relationship between urbanization processes and the economic conditions during expansion and recession periods [5][6][7][8].…”