Accessibility and Spatial Inequalities in Greece

Abstract

Accessibility suggests a major issue in rural areas. Remoteness or inaccessibility is known to amplify rural deprivation and suspend sustainable regional development. Many rural areas in Greece suffer from remoteness mainly because of a varying and continuously alternating terrain. A diverse space is shaped by more than 70% mountain areas, hundreds of inhabited islands in an insular area almost the size of the mainland and intense variation in population distribution between the large urban agglomerations and the periphery. In this paper, a geographical remoteness index for Greece is presented that can capture the required scale of analysis and the distinct characteristics of Greek space. The index is localized and evaluated using empirical and theoretical methods and several demographic and network geostatistics. Finally, we examine the relationship of the index and critical socioeconomic variables in order to associate accessibility with spatial inequalities. Spatial regression models are used that uncover the impact of remoteness in certain key development aspects, namely economy, human capital and infrastructures. Potentially, accessibility may be used as an evaluation tool to redirect policies for spatial equity.