Session 1 - Montefiore

The extent of urban sprawl in Europe
Map 5 Urban growth and population development in Europe (1990–2000)
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Canary Is.
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Source: By courtesy of ESPON, 2006; GeoVille Information Systems (based on EEA and Eurostat data).
more rigorously applied the gap between northern
and southern cities will rapidly narrow (Blue Plan,
2005; Munoz, 2003; Dura-Guimera, 2003). Bilbao
lies in a class of its own in respect of density and
compactness, much of which can be attributed to
its location, adjacent to the sea and bordered on
two sides by mountains. Nonetheless it is apparent
that physical constraints cannot provide the entire
explanation of its success, and credit should also be
given to the active local planning regime and its well
developed transport system.
Clusters of compact cities are also evident in the
former socialist countries of central and eastern
Europe. The compact urban form and high densities
mainly reflect the strong centralised planning
regimes and substantial reliance on public transport
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Madeira Is.
Azores Is.
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0 500 1000 1500 Km
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Urban growth and
population development
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> Urban +
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< Urban +
Population +
< Urban ++
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Population –
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Outside data coverage
that prevailed during the communist era (Ott, 2001;
Nuissl and Rink, 2005). Today, these cities are
facing the same threats of rapid urban sprawl as
the southern European cities as the land market is
liberated, housing preferences evolve, improving
economic prospects create new pressures for
low density urban expansion, and less restrictive
planning controls prevail. Dresden is an exception
amongst ex-socialist cities with a much less compact
structure due to the unique circumstances of its
wartime experience and subsequent reconstruction.
In northern Italy, small and medium sized cities
are also special cases as the whole region has
experienced very strong urban sprawl in the past
decades and the process continues. The most
sprawled cities in the study, Udine and Pordenone,
Urban sprawl in Europe 15