An analysis of urban population structure and dynamics through the automated management of the registry office

Abstract

1. The issue of limitations in generating information in current public demographic documentation has been repeatedly raised by experts for a long time, with regard to experimental researches on population structure, movement and territorial distribution which, besides presenting their own independent scientific content, most of the time represent a basis and a necessary condition for every modern socio-economic survey. To the purpose of such surveys, the lack of a reference to municipal units as a maximum term of specification for demographic data, has been particularly stressed several times. In fact, while this criterion prevents from tracing back the analysis of population phenomena to homogeneous geo-economic areas, which are identifiable within a borough or partially belonging to several boroughs, at the same time, in comparison to big cities, it makes it completely impossible to make an in-depth and systematic study of urban population’s settlement and demographic behaviour. Rather than being caused by flaws in scientific research, these limitations and insufficiency of demographic data sources have so far mainly originated from practical factors, which are linked to the elaboration and classification, in main offices, of a large mass of data deriving from censual surveys or obtained through current data collection. However, nowadays it seems urgent to reconsider from a technical and organizational point of view the issue of statistical-demographic records, whose generation has to be done in time scales and forms that are in line with scientific research requirements and with the operational demands of our times. The way to be followed is an effective use of modern computers in order to adapt the management of public statistical services to the new opportunities they have opened in terms of fast time scales and affordable costs for the processing of large quantities of data and basic information.