Abstract
Fluctuations in residential building activity are becoming progressively more intense over time and space in advanced economies and especially in Europe, fueling real estate market segmentation and making the performance of the construction industry increasingly unpredictable. If non-linear urbanization paths are the result of economic downturns consolidating progressively more volatile real estate markets, the present study investigates the impact of recent building cycles on long-term urban expansion in a Mediterranean city (Athens, Greece), using multiple clustering techniques run on a large set of building activity and socio-demographic indicators. Changes over time in building activity were evaluated considering 12 spatially-explicit indicators derived from the analysis of building permits released by Greek municipalities between 1990 and 2017. By referring to different analysis’ scales (macro-scale: settlements, meso-scale: buildings, micro-scale: dwellings), indicators allow a comprehensive investigation of multiple dimensions and characteristics of construction markets at four-time intervals of 7 years each (1990–1996, 1997–2003, 2004–2010, 2011–2017). Spatio-temporal variability in building activity was further investigated considering 12 contextual indicators assessing the basic socio-demographic attributes of local municipalities. Cluster analysis allows identification of distinctive, local-scale responses of real estate markets to economic cycles (expansion–stagnation–recession) in both short- and long-term horizons and relate them to the dominant socio-demographic context. Density of new buildings, average floors per new building, density of buildings’ additions and number of building permits per inhabitant were found to be the most sensitive indicators to economic downturns in the study area. Infrastructure-driven development, as a result of the 2004 Olympic Games, has produced relevant short-term alterations in residential construction markets, complicating urbanization trends at the local scale. Multi-scale indicators from building permit records provide a useful insight in the diachronic mechanisms of urban growth, with implications for regional planning and design of sustainable development practices.
Highlights
Having a measurable impact on land-use efficiency and urban sustainability, real estate is one of the largest economic activities worldwide influencing settlement morphology and shaping built environments [1]
By verifying the hypothesis that non-linear urbanization paths are the result of sequential phases of economic growth and decline, this study proposes a spatial analysis of building activity over multiple time scales in a Mediterranean city (Athens, Greece), as a case example of sequential economic cycles since the early 1990s [18,23,24,25,27,31]
The results of this study indicate that building activity responded to economic cycles more during transitional urban phases as well as in local contexts characterized by a high proportion of residential settlements, low population density and a large availability of buildable land including cropland
Summary
Having a measurable impact on land-use efficiency and urban sustainability, real estate is one of the largest economic activities worldwide influencing settlement morphology and shaping built environments [1]. Fluctuations in building activity at both country and regional scales have been observed before and after economic recessions, with differential impacts on land development These changes have frequently produced spatial outcomes reflecting a rapid evolution of urban forms and metropolitan structures at large [7]. Identification of real estate sub-markets based on a characteristic profile of building activity (e.g., in terms of density, vertical profile, dwelling size and volume) has been less explored in advanced economies [8,9,10] With this perspective in mind, research linking local-scale mechanisms of urban (and economic) expansion and socio-demographic transformations with real estate development paths and segmentation in construction markets is increasingly required to provide interpretative frameworks that may reconnect long-term and short-term changes in metropolitan spatial structures [11].
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