Metropolitan growth, urban cycles and housing in a Mediterranean country, 1910s–2010s

Abstract

Long-term urbanization trends reflect important transformations at the metropolitan scale, being increasingly dependent on place-specific processes of change. By investigating vertical profile and age of buildings over one century, the present study identifies sequential urban cycles in Greece and characterizes the dominant socioeconomic profile at local scale over 12 time intervals between mid-1910s and mid-2010s. The Greek metropolitan system underwent rapid changes during both economic expansions and recessions. The empirical results of this study outline a spatially complex path of urban expansion with sequential waves of dense urban growth, hyper-densification of inner cities, semi-dense suburbanization of fringe districts and sprawl in coastal and more accessible internal rural areas. Distinct patterns of building activity at the spatial scale of municipalities, reflected a traditional coastal-inland divide and divergent responses to market stimuli and planning constraints. A local-scale analysis of urban cycles grounded on indicators derived from official statistics and covering a relatively long time period sheds light on latent patterns of cities' growth and change, clarifying the contribution of housing and real estate markets to an integrated strategy for sustainable development of metropolitan systems.