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Urban area growth (%)
40
30
20
10
0
15
1990–2000
2000–2006
10 5 0 5 10 15 40 20 0 20 40 60 80 100
Population growth (%) Growth in GDP (%)
(a) (b)
Figure 6. (a) Growth of urban land area and population change (1990–2006) of EU member states and
(b) growth of urban land area and change in GDP at constant prices (1990–2006, GDP at 2000 prices)
of EU member states (data source: CORINE Land Cover and AMECO database).
of urban development, sometimes referred to as ‘sprawl without growth’ (see Nuissl and
Rink, 2005; Schmidt, 2011) is a somewhat new phenomenon in the developed world and it
is still not well understood. Only in some countries, like Ireland or Spain, does population
growth seem to be an important driver of urban growth. Furthermore, our data shows that
economic growth cannot fully explain the variability in land-consumption dynamics either
[ gure 6(b)]. Obviously, some countries were able to manage the impact of economic
growth on land consumption (eg, Estonia/Lithuania, Poland) with a surprisingly low
amount of urban expansion while others experienced relatively low GDP growth rates but
high levels of urban growth (eg, Portugal in the 2000s).
Second, we assume that—at least to some extent—the national urban system can
explain variations in spatial patterns of urban growth across countries. In countries that are
demographically and economically dominated by their capital city or a few large cities urban
growth occurred mainly clustered in central areas. This applies to countries like Austria,
Ireland, Latvia, and the United Kingdom. In contrast, countries with a rather polycentric
urban system such as Denmark, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands experienced a more
evenly distributed pattern of urban expansion. Closely corresponding to that, we also found
different trends towards concentration and deconcentration of urban growth over time. In the
majority of East European countries the legacy of socialistic housing policies is still visible
in the form of above-average urban densities and a concentration of urban functions. Our
data show that urban sprawl in these countries occurs around a few concentrated islands and
axes of growth, which is in line with recent studies that report growing regional disparities
in income levels and economic growth for most of the new member states of the European
Union (Landesmann and Römisch, 2006; Molle, 2007). The opposite can be attributed to
many West European countries where suburbanisation and counterurbanisation processes
(Champion, 2001) resulted in a more decentralised and land-consuming pattern of urban
growth.
Third, the administrative system and the public control over land-use change might be
another potential causative factor explaining the spatial pattern of urban growth. As mentioned
in section 2, many scholars claim that the institutional fragmentation of responsibilities for
land-use planning favours urban sprawl. Germany’s spatial planning system—for example,
is characterised by decentralised land-use governance with numerous local authorities
controlling urban land use. This is likely to promote urban sprawl as it increases the number
of jurisdictions seeking extrabudgetary revenue through land conversion to urban uses.
The size of local government units may also be important in other ways—larger entities
may be less reliant on any one particular investor or project, and less vulnerable to the in uence
of individual landowners. In Germany and in countries with similar land-management systems,