Prospective study on physical planning and the environment in the megalopolis in formation in North-West Europe

Abstract

In December 1972 the Commission of the European Communities requested the European Research Institute for Regional and Urban Planning (ERIPLAN) in The Hague, to undertake, in collaboration with other national or regional research institutes, a prospective study on physical planning and the environment in the megalopolis in formation in North-West Europe. The extensive study was submitted to the Commission in April 1974. A synthesis report has been prepared for publication and was submitted to the Commission in March 1975. In North-West Europe the process of urbanization is developing across the national borders of five countries, giving rise to an urban concentration in which 80 million people live and work. The study area covers a surface of 230,000 km 2, its average population density being more than 350 people/km 2. A “core area” of the megalopolitan regions has been defined which contains 73% of the total population, 70% of all industrial employment and almost half of all agricultural employment of the study area. The methodological framework of the study is based on the dependence of urban regions upon open spaces. The typology of open spaces in North-West Europe shows two large complexes, called megalopolitan open spaces, north and south of the continental megalopolis, which are of very divergent nature and possess high potentials for balancing the exogenous demands of the megalopolitan central core. Further, three inter-metropolitan open spaces and a series of metropolitan open spaces have been identified. Their evaluation includes their productive, ecological and social functions. The study of open spaces allowed particularly to enlighten their supra-national dimensions and their importance for recreation and ecological regulation considered from a supra-national point of view. The dynamics of urbanization are investigated on several levels: regional concentration and dispersal tendencies of population based on trend analysis and available projections, regional consumption of space through urbanisation and metropolitan expansion. The five main urban regions: Central South-East England, Randstad Holland, Rhine-Ruhr conurbation, Franco-Belgian conurbation and Paris, account for 46% of the total population in the study area. Areas with a high population growth and particularly of migration surplus exhibit typical locations: some of them are within inter-metropolitan buffer zones, others are immediately adjacent to the largest metropolitan areas. The pattern of concentration of population and activities, however, favours the coastal regions and those situated along the main rivers and estuaries. The deconcentration of the residential function in metropolitan areas causes an increasing volume of commuting movements over growing distances, and therefore further consumption of material and human energy. The related process of suburbanization around the metropolitan areas, strengthened by growing per capita space needs, leads to the accelerated and irreversible conversion of open space into urban land. Population growth is apparently not the major assaillant of open spaces: during the past decade, in fact, urban land increased at a rate that was on average rather more than double that of population growth. Wide disparities, however, become apparent among national land use patterns. The trends analysed in the urbanization and pollution processes, when confronted with the evaluation of open spaces, reveal the intensity of pressure which is exerted on them, and therefore the reduction of the regulation capacity. Urbanization pressure on the Belgo-Dutch-German intermetropolitan open space is particularly high. More generally, water pollution and water supply appear to be a major problem of the North-West European regions. Underground supplies are increasingly polluted and have already reached their limit of exploitation, while filtering of river water is becoming increasingly difficult because of the growing concentration of toxic products and heavy metals. The response of policies outlined in official documents to the problems identified in this report shows how these problems are likely to be tackled and also illustrates the degree of awareness about supra-national and transfrontier evolutions. Further, identified trends, when compared to the objectives proposed by the official policies, reveal the degree of success achieved in the implementation of these objectives. The emergence of conflict in such confrontations lead to new proposals for action, building the framework of a hypothetical, but highly desirable megalopolitan planning. The further investigation of the identified problems through more detailed and precise studies appear, however, necessary.