Planning And Urban Growth In Southern Europe Edited By

First published in 1984, this book addresses key questions about the pattern of urban development in Southern Europe and the mechanisms employed to control and regulate this development in individual countries. It examines five countries – Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey – that have experienced different scales and rates of urbanization and industrialization. It identifies common problems arising from these processes, as well as the successes and failures of the planning policies employed to regulate development. This book will be of great value to geographers interested in Southern Europe and urban and regional planners interested in comparative patterns of development.

First published in 1984, this book addresses key questions about the pattern of urban development in Southern Europe and the mechanisms employed to control and regulate this development in individual countries. It examines five countries – Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey – that have experienced different scales and rates of urbanization and industrialization. It identifies common problems arising from these processes, as well as the successes and failures of the planning policies employed to regulate development. This book will be of great value to geographers interested in Southern Europe and urban and regional planners interested in comparative patterns of development.

Processes driving urban growth are inherently related to multiple socio-economic factors, making the analysis of urban form and functions a challenging and complicated endeavour. Several fundamental factors and contextual indicators contribute to identify the main determinants of urban growth, that include economic and demographic variables, the socio-spatial structure, territorial patterns, institutional, religious and cultural attributes. Understanding spatio-temporal patterns of economic resilience can support the adoption of explicit developmental policies addressing specificities and local weaknesses of regional contexts.Thirty years after the seminal work entitled 'The Mediterranean City in Transition' by Lila Leontidou, the present contribution re-formulates a narrative framework interpreting the medium-term evolution of Southern European cities and generalises this frame to the analysis of other metropolitan areas with similar morphological and functional characteristics worldwide. Going beyond traditional Mediterranean discourses grounded on economic backwardness, social secularism, and demographic mix, an original interpretation of Mediterranean urbanities is proposed related to the local governance, real estate bubbles, land-use mix, and deregulation in urban expansion. Focusing on socioeconomic development processes in the Northern Mediterranean, the lost opportunity to reduce regional disparities and to give value to scenic and cultural values of the cities and the surrounding countryside are additional issues considered in this vision. Basing on a narrative analysis of ecologically fragile and socially fragmented Mediterranean contexts, the pervasiveness of a structural crisis - affecting regional and country economic systems, while infiltrating in the institutions, local governance systems, and the society, is finally debated as a contribution to a better understanding of complex urbanities worldwide.

This book discusses the future and present regional challenges of southern Europe, adopting a multidisciplinary perspective concerning planning, regional development, the role of innovation and sustainability of cities. It offers as such an insight into the current status quo of regional development and territorial dynamics of a region of growing world-interest. Southern Europe has significantly changed over the last decades. At a regional level, key issues such as local and regional governance, sustainability, and preservation of heritage have presided as prime directives within the umbrella of the European Union. The recession had devastating consequences on the perception and the economies of southern Europe. However, the resilience and capacity of southern Europe to reinvent itself have been shown over the last decade. Southern Europe has since antiquity been a cradle of invention, innovation, and regional development, that under adequate and visionary governance may bring a growing engine towards sustainability.

Urban sprawl is one of the key planning issues today. This book compares Western Europe and the USA, focusing on anti-sprawl policies. The USA is known for its settlement patterns that emphasize low-density suburban development and extreme automobile dependence, whereas European countries emphasize higher densities, pro-transit policies and more compact urban growth. Yet, on closer inspection, the differences are not as wide as first appears. A key feature of the book is the attention given to France; its experience is little known in the English-speaking world. The book concludes that both continents can offer each other useful insights and perhaps policy guidance.

The concept of governance has evolved into one of the most important but also controversial concepts in urban politics. While it encourages co-operation, participation and collective construction, at the same time, it has brought about new forms of public demission, oligarchic regimes and less local democracy. The dilemmas accompanying these changes are particularly relevant when observing the cities of Southern Europe, whose socio-cultural specificities very much structure local political and policy materialisations. Bringing together a team of leading scholars from across the social sciences, this volume examines the issues of urban governance in the Southern European context. Illustrated by case studies of several main cities and metropoles on the North Mediterranean coast, it introduces and critically analyses the latest theories and approaches to urban governance. It questions how the 'real' or socio-cultural notion of city seems to have been separated from that of the 'political' city and explores how more integrated socio-political forms might be developed. It looks at current structures, dynamics and cultures of governance in urban development and questions whether they are well adapted to new realities and challenges or whether there are significant imbalances causing limited or fragmented political-administrative visions. By considering both the long Mediterranean history along with the recent but enduring global economic and political developments, this book argues that Southern European cities will have to depend greatly upon its own socio-cultural networks, dynamics and cosmopolitan evolution, making the most of the region's characteristic urban strengths, as trading hubs, with rich hinterlands and large and varied population.

This book examines the plans for sixteen important capital cities around the world, each with its own fully illustrated chapter written by an expert on the urban development of that city