Abstract
In the light of complex adaptive system thinking, population age structures in Europe have increasingly reflected the interplay between ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ socioeconomic dynamics driven by natural population growth and migration. Assuming the importance of demographic dynamics shaping regional growth in recent times, a diachronic analysis of local-scale population age structures was developed for 156 districts of Greece between 1971 and 2011. By using appropriate indicators, the analysis was aimed at demonstrating how ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ transitions contribute to socioeconomic change in both urban and rural areas. A comprehensive analysis of change in population age structures between 1971 and 2011 allows identification of latent spatial structures as a result of population re-distribution from urban cores to broader rural regions. Following residential mobility, the empirical results of this study indicate (i) a late phase of urbanization (1971–1981) with population densification and settlement compactness, (i) a rapid suburbanization (1981–1991) consolidating distinctive demographic structures in urban and rural areas, (ii) a mild counter-urbanization (1991–2001) with moderate aging of suburban populations and (iii) a latent re-urbanization (2001–2011) reducing the suburban-urban divide in population age structures. Residential mobility contributed to a more balanced age structure during suburbanization and an increased demographic divide in the subsequent urban waves. A refined analysis of long-term population dynamics in metropolitan regions reflects spatial outcomes and latent aspects of demographic transitions shedding light on the debate over the future development of urban and rural societies in advanced economies.
Highlights
In a context of social fragmentation, economic uncertainty, and transforming cultural attitudes and political rules, urban-rural systems have increasingly assumed the role of open systems influenced by non-linear socio-demographic dynamics [1,2,3,4]
By applying a resilience-oriented, complex systems’ thinking to analysis of population age structures in Greece, a European country experiencing late demographic transition compared with Western and Northern counterparts, the present study evaluates, over a sufficiently long time period (1971–2011), (i) the temporal coherency of population structural indicators and (ii) the spatial coherence of population structures in local demographic systems
The evolution of regional demographic systems was described through a characteristic property, the rapidity of change, considered as a multidimensional factor, the estimation of which requires the analysis of a set of indicators that vary over time and space
Summary
In a context of social fragmentation, economic uncertainty, and transforming cultural attitudes and political rules, urban-rural systems have increasingly assumed the role of open systems influenced by non-linear socio-demographic dynamics [1,2,3,4]. The evolutionary trajectory of regional systems reveals, in some cases, similar patterns reflecting selection, cooperation, imitation, and adaptation to change [9,10,11,12] In this ambit, local spatial units (e.g., economic agglomerations, provinces, municipalities, homogeneous production districts) are considered an interesting analysis’ scale where local institutions are influenced by the collective action of micro-agents [13,14,15]. The exploratory analysis of complex socio-demographic systems stimulated the emergence of articulated and refined analytical frameworks that explore system’s dynamics focusing on macro-level properties resulting from the latent interplay of micro-level agents [16,17,18,19]. This approach fills a gap in regional studies, giving more value to statistical information available at aggregate levels
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