Polycentricity and multipolarisation of urban outskirts: From polycentric urban region to megapolitan region

Abstract

The multipolarization of urban outskirts induced by home-to-work travel is a growing phenomenon that has received little research interest. This phenomenon is where an urban outskirt sends a significant portion of its commuters toward different urban cores within a single functional urban region or even toward different functional urban regions. From a theoretical perspective, the latter is intriguing because it calls into question the framework based on the differentiation between the intra- and inter-urban scales, on which the study of urban geography is typically based. Our research is based on an exploratory analysis on Belgium, using an iterative statistical technique based on the conceptual distinction between intra-urban multipolarization within polycentric functional urban regions and inter-urban multipolarization within megapolitan regions. As it relates to Belgium, inter-urban multipolarization has given rise to the megaregion of central Belgium (Europolis), whose population is estimated to be ~6.6 million. Beyond the case of Belgium, our exploratory analysis demonstrates that the concept of multipolarization is worth exploration by urban and economic geographers. We thus reach the conclusion that the developed conceptual framework, along with its related methodological protocol, deserves to be applied in other spatial and temporal contexts.