Functional Urban Regions Research Articles

Conceptions of the city-region: a critical review

Since the 1990s, there has been a remarkable resurgence of the concept of the city-region in both academic and policy communities. In broad terms, the concept articulates the relationships between the city and its environs. While the city-region's rising popularity is recent, its origin is not. Despite its long history, however, the concept of the city-region does not enjoy a common definition, neither in its use as an analytical term nor in its upsurge as a political one. While there are clear linkages between the two, the main focus of this review is on the city-region as an analytical construct. Hence, the paper provides a critical review of the different methodologies that have been employed over the last 50 years for defining and mapping the city-region. This work shows that, despite their variations, they share two common features—an urban-centric view of the city-region and an economically driven approach to its definition. These are further elaborated by focusing on the prevailing conception of the city-region as a functional economic space and the dominant top-down approach to delineate the boundaries of what is known as the functional urban region.

The Changes in the Functional Urban Region in the New Socio-Economic Conditions in Poland. The Case of Toruń

The Changes in the Functional Urban Region in the New Socio-Economic Conditions in Poland. The Case of Toruń This article attempts to determine the general tendency of changes of functioning of urban regions in the new socio-economic conditions in Poland. The functional connections resulted from an intensively and relatively permanent flow of population, which functions as foundation of identification of the urban region in that study. The paper presents the results of empirical examinations of the functional urban region of Toruń conducted in 70s, 80s, and presently. On that basis explation is presented on how the transformation of the economic system with all consequences influenced on the modification of developed and relatively stable city-surroundings relations. Additionally the article is aimed at recognizing the new determinants of urban regions development in Polish conditions.

Identifying Principles for Spatial Policy: Levels of intervention

In Land Use Planning in order to choose the most suitable geographic scale at which to implement policies we can follow four guidelines : 1) conditions vary across space in ways that mean that there is plausible case for local tailoring of policies to regional and local circumstances 2) there is need to consider the extent to which spillover effects are felt at different spatial scales 3) it should be identified whether there are significant economies of scale or scope affecting the economic policy area 4) it should be taken into account potential synergies and co-ordination challenges within and between economic policy areas. Decisions need to be taken at the most local scale feasible, subject to that scale of government internalising both gains and costs. This implies different types of decision at different tiers of government, with major infrastructure decisions essentially being a national concern and small developments left to the local level. Most decisions are mostly more effectively made at the level of a Functional Urban Region. It is unarguable the importance to coordinate physical with financial planning, once that for development to occur there need to be the funds.

European Urban Growth: Now for Some Problems of Spaceless and Weightless Econometrics

This paper investigates growth differences in the urban system of the EU12 for a data set relating to Functional Urban Regions comparing the results of methods of model selection with those obtained using general to specific model selection with PcGets. The artisanal approach tests hypotheses relating to the role of human capital, EU integration and fragmentation of urban government. The paper also explores issues of spatial dependence and mechanisms of spatial interaction. Using PcGets as suggested by Hendry and Krolzig (2004) to optimise model selection we find that while PcGets provides a powerful tool for model selection when applied to cross sectional data, caution is necessary to ensure that variables relating to spatial adjustment processes are included and spatial dependence is avoided. More generally, not only do the results provide consistent estimates of parameters but they also support relevant theoretical insights. Finally careful testing for spatial dependence reveals that national borders are still significant barriers to adjustment within the EU.

Multipolis: High-technology Network in Northern Finland

Multipolis is a publicly funded innovation-oriented regional policy instrument to develop high technology in northern Finland. Northern Finland has few experts, under 1000 high-technology enterprises and a small market in a territory of 155,100 square kilometres with 716,000 inhabitants. Multipolis connects high-technology enterprises in, and between, 15 specialized high-technology clusters, regional developers and higher education and research institutes. Multipolis combines the technologically highly developed functional urban region of Oulu (“technopolis”) and the rest of northern Finland (“learning region”). Multipolis has enhanced cooperation, acquisition of new information, social networks and common projects by high-technology enterprises. However, the management of the Multipolis network requires more attention.

Ranking functional urban regions: A comparison of interaction and node attribute data

Although many studies employ either interaction- or node-attribute data to study the positions of cities in the urban system, relatively little is known about the relationships between these two different types of data. This study explores this relationship by ranking and comparing 39 metropolitan areas in Western Europe according to their relative role in the system of flows and their concentration of functions. The former is measured via the intensity of interaction, and the connectivity or distribution of interaction across links associated with nodes. The latter is measured via four dimensions: its sociodemographic, economic, transport accessibility, and tourism characteristics. The results show that the relationships between interaction and node attributes differ for types of flow. Compared with business flows, holiday flows and node-attributes are less strongly correlated. We also find that the differences between the two rankings can be explained to some extent by the fact that corporeal interaction is influenced by the physical barriers imposed by sea.

Demographic, employment and administrative challenges for urban policies in Estonia

Estonia is according to the size, population and gross domestic product one of the smallest countries in the European Union. I discuss the challenges of demography, employment and territorial administrative organisation that are the main structural factors behind regional development in Estonia. Selected functional urban regions (FUR) are the most competitive regions in Estonia. So far the FURs have not been deeply considered in national, regional or innovation policies. A key strategy is to enhance urban policies by pooling public and private innovation-supportive actors, institutions and human resources within and between FURs.

Research report: Metropolitan region RhineRuhr – the sleeping giant

This paper presents some results of the current Interreg IIIC project POLYNET, and the finished Interreg IIC projects GEMACA and EURBANET, dealing with the new phenomenon: the polycentric Mega-City Region, addressing key questions about business life in these regions, the economic performance of these regions and the value, feasibility and design of planning polycentric urban regions. The focus is on the emerging functional urban region of RhineRuhr and the difficulties in seeking to move forward in developing a ‘European Metropolitan Region RhineRuhr’.

Urban agglomerations in the function of regional integration of Serbia in South-Eastern Europe

In this article is analyzed the importance of urban agglomerations in the regional organization of Serbian space at one side, and on the other side they are taken as carriers of the future integration of the Serbian urban system into the urban of the South-Eastern Europe (SEE). In the regional configuration of Serbia, more different forms of territorial impacts of urbanization, urban areas and urban regions. High level of urban centralization is formed under the influence of the population density and functions of the metropolitan area of Belgrade. The problems of unbalanced disposition of population growth and qualitative transformation of urban centers are stressed and analyzed. Based on the role in integration process in the SEE, the metropolitan region of Belgrade is pointed out as its principal carrier and the metropolitan region of Nis as its secondary carrier, as well as the urban centers of importance for the cross-border regional cooperation. As the most suitable instrument of internal regional integration the model of Functional Urban Regions (FURs) or Functional Urban Areas (FUAs) is proposed, and for external regional integration is proposed the model of Metropolitan European Growth Areas (MEGAs). The coherent short-term and long-term development strategies for Serbian towns and their regions seem absent.

The Öresund Area: Pre- and post-bridge cross-border functional integration: The bi-national regional question

Copenhagen in Denmark and Malmo in Sweden were connected in 2000 by the 18- km fixed Oresund link. This meant that the time distance-barrier was reduced dramatically and that the land-sea bottleneck was eliminated. High-profile pre-bridge expectations of a new regional development regime towards a functionally integrated, bi-national region are assessed in this paper. The paper relates to the continuing discussion on development of border-regions and bi-national cities. Data on cross-Oresund flows of people and vehicles, together with data on migration and commuting, indicates a modest post-bridge shift in the development of functional integration. The Oresund Area development towards a bi-national, integrated, functional urban region is in progress, but the progress is much slower than expected.

A cooperative spatial future for RheinRuhr

As is the case with other metropolitan regions, there are claims that the emerging functional urban region of RheinRuhr needs to develop a cooperative spatial future. This article explores the underlying difficulties in seeking to move forward in regional cooperation and strategic regional development for RheinRuhr. At present, no clear shift can be observed from traditional land use planning and local development approaches towards more strategic planning for the whole urban region. There are still many obstacles to be overcome. Nevertheless, strides have been taken in the direction of improved cooperation. A dense and functionally overlapping (sub)‐regional associationalism seems to be one step towards future city‐regional governance and possibly government. An evaluation is reported of two new innovative modes of structural and regional policies, namely the Regional Conferences and the IBA Emscher Park Planning Company; their impacts on regional policy‐making structures are reviewed. A discussion on more recent approaches to regional cooperation follows. It is argued that, in the long term, as a multi‐regionalized space, RheinRuhr requires some kind of coordinator and moderator and new practices of regional planning and management. The future development of a RheinRuhr metropolitan region requires further steps to be taken towards strategic planning by the Land government as well as a deepening of the level of institutionalization. Some ideas are put forward on how the elaboration of a spatial Leitbild for RheinRuhr could be initiated and supported.

Landscape change and the urbanization process in Europe

Urbanization is one of the fundamental characteristics of the European civilization. It gradually spread from Southeast Europe around 700 b. c., across the whole continent. Cities and the urban networks they formed were always an important factor in the development and shaping of their surrounding regions. Polarization of territory between urban and rural and accessibility are still important aspects in landscape dynamics. Urbanization and its associated transportation infrastructure define the relationship between city and countryside. Urbanization, expressed as the proportion of people living in urban places shows a recent but explosive growth reaching values around 80% in most European countries. Simultaneously the countryside becomes abandoned. Thinking, valuing and planning the countryside is done mainly by urbanites and future rural development is mainly focused upon the urban needs. Thinking of urban places with their associated rural hinterland and spheres of influence has become complex. Clusters of urban places, their situation in a globalizing world and changing accessibility for fast transportation modes are some new factors that affect the change of traditional European cultural landscapes. Urbanization processes show cycles of evolution that spread in different ways through space. Urbanization phases developed at different speeds and time between Northern and Southern Europe. Main cities are affected first, but gradually urbanization processes affect smaller settlements and even remote rural villages. Functional urban regions (FURs) are a new concept, which is also significant for landscape ecologists. Local landscape change can only be comprehended when situated in its general geographical context and with all its related dynamics. Patterns of change are different for the countryside near major cities, for metropolitan villages and for remote rural villages. Planning and designing landscapes for the future requires that this is understood. Urbanized landscapes are highly dynamic, complex and multifunctional. Therefore, detailed inventories of landscape conditions and monitoring of change are urgently needed in order to obtain reliable data for good decision-making.

Testing the differential urbanisation model in Great Britain, 1901–91

This paper tests the relevance of the differential urbanisation model for depicting the spatial urban development of Great Britain. Population change is studied for eight, mainly decade–long, periods from 1901 to 1991 using a version of the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS) Functional Regions framework. Rates of population growth are calculated for a Britain–wide classification of settlements based on population size and for a six–fold typology based on status within the national urban hierarchy. The differential urbanisation model is then tested for Great Britain as a whole and for four broad regional divisions. The results suggest that the British urban system had very largely moved beyond the urbanisation stage by the beginning of the twentieth century and that counter–urbanisation was the prevailing pattern before mid century.

CONTRASTING STRUCTURES OF METROPOLITAN MOBILITY IN SPAIN

The results used in this paper are drawn from an INTERREG ITC European Union project examining the territorial and functional characteristics of the Spanish metropolitan urban regions, and its integration within the south west European urban systems. Seven Spanish metropolitan areas (Barcelona, Madrid, Malaga, Seville, Valencia, Bilbao and Zaragoza) are considered in order to explain the nature of urban mobility of each case. Economic agglomerations, morphologic agglomerations and spaces responding to the delimitations of functional urban regions were identified as three kinds of clearly differentiated territorial spaces. The study adopted the methodology used by the United States Census Bureau for the identification of the Spanish metropolitan areas, based on travel to work trips. The analysis of the flows of journeys between the places of residence and work allowed the achievement of a clear understanding of the nature of mobility patterns in the respective metropolitan regions.

Endogenous Processes in European Regional Growth: Convergence and Policy

The traditional empirical approaches to the analysis of economic growth,cross‐section and panel data regressions are substantially uninformative withrespect to the issue of convergence. Whether national or regional economies appear to converge in terms of per capita income or productivity levels (the so‐called β‐convergence) critically depends on the way in which the empirical model is specified. Traditional specifications witness a disproportionate presence of proxies for forces leading towards divergence among the conditioning variables. It is therefore hardly surprising that these analyses find a positive and statistically significant value for the estimate of the speed of convergence.A more constructive use of cross‐section and panel data regressions is in the analysis of the determinants of growth. The present paper therefore builds on recent work on the role of different growth determinants (Cheshire and Carbonaro 1996) and analyses the growth performance of 122 Functional Urban Regions (FURs)over the period 1978–1994. This model explicitly recognizes growth as amultivariate process. In this new formulation it incorporates a spatialized adaptation of Romer's endogenous growth model (Romer 1990), developing the work of Magrini (Magrini 1997). Magrini's model originated from the view that technological knowledge has a very important tacit component that has been neglected in formal theories of endogenous growth. This tacit component, being the non‐written personal heritage of individuals or groups, is naturally concentrated in space. As a result, technological change is profoundly influenced by the interaction between firms and their local environments.The present paper reports the results of the estimation of a fully specified model of regional growth in per capita income. Particular attention is played to the role of research and development (R&D) activities, and to the influence of factors such as Universities that shape the local environments and have important policy implications.These results are then applied to quantifying the scope for policy to influence the growth process. Several simulations are presented deriving alternative growth outcomes across European regions that would have been obtained if those variables over which policy might have control—including the contribution of human capital—had had alternative values reflecting the realistic scope of policy makers' influence. The implications for convergence/divergence in regional per capita income levels are then analyzed using a Markov chain approach (Quah 1993 and 1996; Magrini 1999).

Discourses of Rurality in EU Spatial Policy: The European Spatial Development Perspective

The publication in 1999 of the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) is a significant step towards European spatial planning. It follows a period of intergovernmental and inter‐institutional development of a framework and policies, which raises many issues about the normative and discoursive positions and constructions which are integrated into the process. The paper reviews the emergence of the ESDP, and explores how ’rurality‘ is being contested within the new European spatial discourse it contains. The Foucauldian discourse analytic approach focuses on the articulation of a new policy discourse within the text of the adopted ESDP document, but places this analysis within a broader consideration of the contested policy process. Discussing three key policy issues peripherality, a new urban‐rural partnership, and rural restructuring, the paper argues that the emphasis on competition, and the focus on urban areas and functional regions, raise clear concerns about the treatment of rurality. Key areas for further research are identified in response to the current vacuum of academic debate over rurality in European spatial policy.

The ‘Clean Break’ Revisited: Is US Population Again Deconcentrating?

"The Hoover index, calculated across counties and larger spatial units, is again declining--signalling a renewal of population deconcentration in the United States. After increasing for several decades, the index declined in the 1970s when nonmetropolitan population growth surged past metropolitan-area growth, but the index rose in the 1980s as metropolitan population growth recovered and surpassed nonmetropolitan growth. We update these trends, introducing careful controls for changes in metropolitan-area boundaries, and we incorporate a ¿functional urban region' approach. Although the nonmetropolitan population growth rate is still below the metropolitan rate, we conclude that in the 1990s some features of the ¿turnaround' of the 1970s have returned."

Urban Economic Growth in Europe: Testing Theory and Policy Prescriptions

A quite robust model of differential growth rates of per capita income in the major functional urban regions of the European Union is presented and tested for the 1980s. The results underline the important role of purely spatial economic processes in differential regional growth and suggest that the pattern of European urbanisation tends itself to generate systematic divergence of mean per capita incomes between neighbouring city-regions, even though the mechanism generating this divergence of mean incomes is not inconsistent with converging incomes for comparable individuals. In addition, the evidence is supportive of a spatial adaptation of Romer's endogenous technical progress model. The model is formulated in a way which tests policy concerns. In general, the results are supportive of European regional policy although the systematic spatial effects of European integration seem to be fading and extending outwards to near-peripheral urban regions.

SMALL AND MEDIUM‐SIZED ENTERPRISES IN THE ANTWERP‐BRUSSELS AXIS

ABSTRACT The results of interdisciplinary research in which data and techniques of accounting are combined with theories in the field of economic geography are presented. The investigation tests the validity of some theories of economic geography on the basis of financial statement data. Up till now these theories have only been tested empirically with the use of macro‐economic data, such as employment figures. In this project, the performances of small and medium‐sized companies are analysed in the functional urban regions of Antwerp, Brussels and Mechelen. The most important conclusion is that the ‘average’ companies in the centre of the ‘research area’ show weaker financial performances than those in the periphery. If focused solely on trade companies the same pattern emerges. For industrial companies however, ‘the reversal of the centre‐periphery relations’ is not obvious.

Urban Spatial-cycle Stages of Functional Urban Regions in Japan and the Coupled Oscillation Hypothesis.

The phenomena of centralization and decentralization in functional urban regions (FURs) in Japan are examined for a long period, covering 1947-1990. The theoretical scheme employed is an extended version of Klaassen’s spatial-cycle framework, which makes use of a growth ratio instead of the absolute level of population, and the methodological instrument is the ROXY index. The result shows that the transition in urban cycle stages for FURs of almost same size or in geographically close location have great resemblance, and that, in macroscopic view, FURs in Japan can be divided into two groups, ‘leaders’ which includes the five largest FURs and ‘followers’ which includes the other FURs. These results suggest the possibility that intra-FUR urban cycles are coupled with one another through non-linear interaction.