Plenary session 3: The EU Urban Agenda and cities’ role in the creation of growth and jobs

TOWN in EuropeLoris Servillo

ESPON Open Seminar 2014 “Opportunities and threats for territorial cohesion:

Blue Growth and Urban Poverty”

Three items

1. Main territorial trends2. Opportunities and challenges3. Experiences and examples

Morphological analysis DENSITY (inh. / kmq) < 300 300 - 1500 > 1500

POPULATIO

N (inh.)

< 5000 OTHER SETTLEMENTS VST VST

5000 - 50000

OTHER SETTLEMENTS SMST SMST

> 50000 OTHER SETTLEMENTS large SMST HDUC

General picture

~8,350 urban settlements can be classified as SMSTs ~70,000 urban settlements can be classified as Very Small Towns

(below the 5.000 inhabitant threshold)

SMST: about 27% of EU population Very Small Towns: 19% of EU population

• On average, SMSTs (in database) are different from large cities on a range of measures:• Social (older working population, more pensioners, higher ‘non-

foreign’ population)• Economic (greater proportion employment in manufacturing,

more self-employment, more likely to be net exporter of labour (dormitory), less diverse in sectoral mix)

• Housing issues (more second homes)

What makes SMSTs different

• Changes in SMSTs during the period 2001-11 are different from the change that are observed in cities over the same period• Demographic (faster growing, net migration rate higher)• Economic (slightly greater rate)

• However between group and between country differences:

‘All’ Small towns (N=1339)

Small towns in Slovenia

Small towns in NW Italy

Net migration by countryMigration-

enhanced aging?

Growing

Labour exporters

Shrinking

Is ‘town’ as a proper category?

Socio-spatial configurations with a specific regional dependencyhigh variety of socio-economic performances

EU

NUTS3 with prevailing

settlements

Settlement polygons

Issues for further thoughts concerning regions predominantly populated in small settlements

- Prevalence of macro trends - less spatial inertial capacity to bounce them back

- macro/meso regional dependency - relationship with urban regions?- National policies matter?

Preliminary results

Economic activity mix and population size in SMSTs

Catalonia Slovenia

Czech Republic Flanders

0,6

0,7

0,8

0,9

1

1,1

1,2

1,3

1,4

0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1 1,2 1,4 1,6 1,8

networked large cities agglomerated autonomous

emp

pop

N (SMST

polygons in database)

Mean number of intersections between SMST polygons and:

local authority units (LAU) NUTS3 regions (2006)

Belgium (BE) 184 1.23 1.05 Czech Republic (CZ) 222 1.73 1.01 Spain (ES) 65 1.78 1.00 France (FR) 881 2.89 1.06 Italy (IT) 252 2.41 1.11 Poland (PL) 42 1.33 1.02 Sweden (SE) 41 1.00 1.00 Slovenia (SI) 43 1.26 1.00 England & Wales (UK) 574 1.19 1.12 Total 2304 2.05 1.07 ! Policy message

• Do SMSTs across Europe face ‘common problems’?• Diverse? Social and economic problems for SMSTs are only

‘common’ in an abstract sense• In practice the ‘problems’ of towns are mainly framed by their

national/regional context (clusters of ‘problem-sets’)

• What concerns of European policy touch down on SMSTs?• Giving SMSTs a voice in regional debates• Small town does not mean small problem• Tailored measures (place-based approach?)• Supporting alternative visions of the local economy• Collective action within/among small towns• Supporting the definition of micro-regionalism processes• CLLD?

So what? ! Policy message

THANK YOU

Loris.servillo@asro.kuleuven.be