‘southern’ alternatives of urban diffusion: investigating settlement characteristics and...

‘SOUTHERN’ ALTERNATIVES OF URBANDIFFUSION: INVESTIGATING SETTLEMENTCHARACTERISTICS AND SOCIO-ECONOMICPATTERNS IN THREE MEDITERRANEANREGIONS

CESARE DI FELICIANTONIO* & LUCA SALVATI**

*Università di Roma ‘La Sapienza’, Department of Methods and Models for Space, Economics andFinance, Via del Castro Laurenziano 9, I-00161 Rome, Italy. E-mail: [email protected]**Consiglio per la Ricerca e la sperimentazione in Agricoltura, Centre for the Study of Plant-SoilInteractions (CRA-RPS), Via della Navicella 2-4, I-00184 Rome, Italy. E-mail: [email protected]

Received: July 2013; accepted March 2014

ABSTRACTThe present study investigates the relation between urban form and the socio-economic patternsof the resident population in three southern European cities (Athens, Lisbon and Rome) featuredby different processes of urban diffusion. The paper goes beyond the literature on sprawl focusedon (residential, income and ethnic) segregation and the different features of the inhabitants of thesuburbs and those of the inner cities residents. By integrating multivariate statistics and spatialanalysis, a methodology is proposed, based on morphological and socio-economic indicatorsavailable at a fine geographical scale. Results show how urban diffusion processes vary widelyaccording to the context, as does the socio-economic profile of the actors, stressing the need tothink about different ‘southern European alternatives’ of sprawl.

Key words: Sprawl, Mediterranean city, social segregation, economic polarisation

INTRODUCTION: TOWARDS A(SOUTHERN) EUROPEANMODEL OF URBAN DIFFUSION?

The analysis of the increasingly fragmentedand dispersed urban forms has represented amain issue for urban scholars in the lastdecades; sprawl has become a widespreadconcept, even if it is mainly descriptive and notanalytical (Galster et al. 2001; Wilson et al.2003). If in general terms sprawl can be definedas ‘the large expansion of cities into surround-ing areas by the creation of new low-densitysuburbs with detached or semi-detached

housing and large commercial strips’ (Schwarz2010, p. 29), the concept remains ambiguousand disputed (Ewing 1994; Galster et al. 2001;Johnson 2001). The acknowledged features ofsprawl concern the unevenness and fragmenta-tion of growth patterns, causing an inefficientresources utilisation (Bhatta et al. 2010). Thisambiguity and vagueness of sprawl as an inter-national feature of urban development resultfrom the tight connection of the characteris-tics, dynamics and consequences of sprawl withthe socio-economic features of the referredregion (Bullard et al. 2000, Duany et al. 2000,Phelps et al. 2006).

Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie – 2014, DOI:10.1111/tesg.12102© 2014 Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

Despite having been formulated in relation tothesuburbanisationpatternofUScitiesafter theSecond World War (e.g. Harvey & Clark 1965;Schwartz 1976; Ewing 1997; Duany et al. 2000),sprawl has become a main research issue also inthe European countries (see, among others,Cheshire 1995; Bontje & Burdack 2005; Couchet al. 2005, 2007; Schneider & Woodcock 2008;Patacchini & Zenou 2009). In order to explainthe differences between Northern Americanand European dimensions of sprawl, thesestudies stress the need to consider the centralrole of the path-dependent urban culture, asresulting of these cities’ histories. In fact, theUSseemstofeaturean‘anti-urban’attitude,withpeople according preference to low-densityresidential neighbourhoods (Richardson &Chang-Hee 2004; Vicino et al. 2007), while a‘pro-urban’ attitude seems to prevail in Europe(Patacchini & Zenou 2009). Beyond contrastingurban cultures, these differences can beexplained making reference to diverse factors:land availability, socio-economic indicators,transport systems and infrastructures, the pres-ence of amenities and welfare regimes, amongothers (Vance 1990; Brueckner et al. 1999;Huang et al. 2007).

Nevertheless, processes of urban growth anddispersion within Europe are extremely differ-ent, making impossible the definition of asingle model to describe sprawl around thecontinent (Gargiulo Morelli & Salvati 2010). Infact, the strong planning culture of countriessuch as Sweden and Austria (e.g. reflected inthe urban growth trajectories of Stockholm andVienna) coexists with that featured mainly byinformality (e.g. Greece, Portugal, the majorityof Spanish regions and southern Italy) and thetransitional situation of Eastern Europeancities (Reckien & Karecha 2007), making thevarious urban trends among European regions,as already highlighted in the 1980s by Hall andHay (1980) and Cheshire and Hay (1989).

In this paper we focus on the Southern Euro-pean model(s) of urban diffusion, comparingselected settlements characteristics with thesocio-economic patterns of the resident popu-lation in three cities (Athens, Lisbon andRome) characterised by a diverging urbanform. Athens is primarily defined as a compact,mono-centric region, Lisbon as a fragmentedand scattered region, Rome as a poly-nucleated

and semi-dense region. In general, there is nota deep consensus in the international literatureabout the boundaries of the Mediterraneanregion and several attempts to define the‘Mediterranean city’ have found very fewcommon features and a large variety of place-specificities (Leontidou 1990, 1996; CornaPellegrini 1998; Catalán et al. 2008). This‘weak’ theory of Mediterranean cities relies onthe traditional exclusion of the Mediterraneanregion from the spaces of European modernity;in fact, ‘the Mediterranean is treated more as a“regional” subject rather than a key locus inthe production of alternative modernities’(Giaccaria & Minca 2011, p. 346). According toGiaccaria and Minca (2011), what Herzfeld(1984, 1985) defined as ‘Mediterraneanism’ istoday still prominent, an essential understand-ing of the Mediterranean as both an unified,all-encompassing and a culturally and naturallyfractured space.

The singularity of this region puts into ques-tion the valid use of linear approaches; in fact,as stated by Kourliouros (2003, p. 792) in hisdiscussion about the ‘cultural turn’ in econ-omic geography from a Southern Europeanperspective, this region needs to be investi-gated based on ‘a deliberately holistic political-economic framework including and resynthe-sising various aspects and processes of change’.On the same line, Minca (2004) calls for anintegration of ‘quantitative’ and ‘qualitative’approaches (e.g. focusing on human/spatialrelations) in the research on the Mediterra-nean, in order to avoid a monolithic view of‘incomplete modernisation’ and marginali-sation, compared to a rich, fully modern North-ern Europe.

About the urban dispersion processes ofsouthern European cities, many studies showedhow they diverge deeply from those of bothNorthern Europe and the US (see, amongothers, Dematteis 1998; Couch et al. 2007); togive the example of Italy, Calafati (2008) talksabout an ‘Italian style of urban sprawl’ reflectedin the high settlement dispersion observed inNorthern Italy. In general terms, it can beargued that informality represented the mainfeature of housing until the 1980s in thesecountries (Leontidou 1990, 2010; Costa et al.1991; Barata Salgueiro 2001; Busquets 2006),not just tolerated but almost promoted by the

2 CESARE DI FELICIANTONIO & LUCA SALVATI

© 2014 Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG

State. In fact, inside an institutionalist frame-work, ‘informality must be understood not asthe object of the state regulation but rather asproduced by the state itself’ (Roy 2005, p. 149).Informality made the urban tissue of southernEuropean cities chaotic and heterogeneous,with a mixture of residential/commercial func-tions and the prevalence of vertical differentia-tion (Delladetsima 2006).

It is usually acknowledged that the transitionof southern European cities from compacttowards sprawled forms became prominent inthe 1990s, together with the processes of econ-omic and population deconcentration (Longhi& Musolesi 2007; Schneider & Woodcock 2008;Gemmiti et al. 2012). Commenting on thisprocess, Dematteis (1998) talks about ‘Medi-terranean peri-urbanisation’ and ‘territorialmetropolisation’ to describe the moment inwhich urban development does not occur bycontiguity but dilutes in a wider space withoutsolutions of continuity; well-documented casesof this phenomenon are represented byRome (Munafò et al. 2010) and Athens(Chorianopulos et al. 2010).

The paper explores the relations betweenurbanmorphologyandselectedsocio-economicpatterns of the living population in the threeaforementioned metropolitan regions throughamethodology integratingmultivariate statisticsand spatial analysis, based on several morpho-logical indicators taken from national censusesat the enumeration district scale. By highlight-ing the differences of the socio-economic pat-terns associated to the processes of urbandiffusion in the referred areas, the paper aims atchallenging the monolithic representation oftheMediterranean(and itsmetropolitanareas).This way, it contributes in enriching the interna-tional debate on sprawl, showing how its socio-economic ‘determinants’ can be variegated andcontradictory.

After a brief presentation of the investigatedcities linked to a more general reflection on thereturn of comparative urbanism in the follow-ing section, the developed methodology isexplained and discussed in the third section.The results are presented and discussed case bycase in the fourth section, highlighting the newaspects emerging compared to existing litera-ture; finally, in the last section, we summariseour findings, underlining the need to think

about diverse southern European urban diffu-sion processes.

CASE STUDIES

In recent years there has been a resurgenceof comparative urbanism as a main discus-sion issue in urban studies literature (e.g.Kantor & Savitch 2005; Robinson 2006, 2011;Kloosterman & Lambregts 2007; Nijman 2007;Bourne 2008; McFarlane 2010; Ward 2010),associated with a calling for ‘a comparativeapproach that acknowledges the territorial andrelational geographies of cities’ (Ward 2010, p.483), ‘an approach that seeks to move beyondthe rather fixed and static theorisations ofplace, space and scale that tend to continue tocharacterise much of the comparative urbanstudies literature’ (Ward 2010, p. 473).

In order to analyse the relationship betweenurban form (expressed by six settlement typolo-gies ranging from hyper-compact to dispersedand low-density, see Figure 1) and socio-economic patterns of the resident populationin the considered metropolitan regions, severalsocio-economic indicators describing thedemographic, social and economic features ofthe population living in the six examined settle-ment types have been considered. For eachcase, the area we consider corresponds to theprovince (or prefecture) administered by thatcity (extending for 2,982 km2 area in Athens,2,996 km2 one in Lisbon and 5,355 km2inRome). The analysed areas encompass theboundaries of the related ‘urban atlas’ regions,identified as areas featured by a significantshare of the residents’ commuting into themain centre. In order to make data comparableamong regions, we considered the enumera-tion districts as in the 2001 population censuses(4,066 units in Athens, 32,057 in Lisbon and19,635 in Rome). We use enumeration districtsin order to have a detailed analysis of buildings’features, human settlements and residentpopulation’s socio-economic patterns at ascale largely used to analyse urban landscape(Martinuzzi et al. 2007; Lauf et al. 2012).

Because of the cities we analysed belongingto the same geographical area, it seems to con-trast with recent critical reflections in urbanstudies encouraging ‘all kinds of novel andunusual comparative research to compensate

‘SOUTHERN’ ALTERNATIVES OF URBAN DIFFUSION 3


Figure 1. Classification of the three investigated urban regions (Lisbon, Rome, Athens) into six settlements’ categories(left: the whole examined region; right: a zoom on the strictly urban area).



for years of neglect and to challenge entren-ched assumptions of incommensurability’(Robinson 2011, p. 19). On the contrary, wethink that our analysis, focused on three‘strong character’ cases, diversely and stronglyattached to their history and presenting differ-ent social relations shaping them, reinforces arelational comparative approach (Ward 2010).In fact, these urban regions present divergingform, degree of compactness, populationdensity, demographic trends, economic per-formances and land-use distribution along theurban-rural gradient. In the next subsections,we present the main features of the investi-gated cities, as emerging in the internationalliterature.

Athens – Athens has been represented as a pro-totype of the always-in-transition hyper-compact‘Mediterranean city’ (Leontidou 1990) that,after the diffusion and infrastructural renewallinked to the Olympic games (Chorianopouloset al. 2010), is still sprawling outside the bound-aries of the compact city, generating social ten-sions and exclusion (Leontidou et al. 2007;Leontidou 2010). Informality and spontaneityappear as the main features of Athens urbandevelopment(Dalakoglou2012).Somefeaturesof the city urban development highlighted byinternational literature and being relevant forour study include (i) the historical growth ofthe city as un-designed, confused, based onself-financed real estate development andlacking expenditure on urban infrastructuresand (ii) the importance of vertical social differ-entiation (Maloutas & Karadimitriou 2001),seen as complementary to community segrega-tion.Moreover,Maloutas(2007)hasshownhow,during the 1990s, there was both a decreasingsegregation of immigrants and increasing socialpolarisation and inequalities. Finally, analysingAthens’ socio-spatial segregation in relation tothe feminisation of migrations and employ-ment, Arapoglou and Sayas (2009) have shownhowlow-skilledmigrantanddomesticworkers inthe service sector locate mainly in the core andsuburban areas, domestic ‘white collars’ andprofessionals prefer moving to ‘upper-classsuburbs’, small entrepreneurs and self-employed workers sprawl to peri-urban areas,clerks and salespersons tend to move to innersuburbs.

Lisbon – The analysis of the urban form ofLisbon reveals the presence of sprawl featuredby discontinuous urban patches similar to ‘oilgrowing spots’ or ribbon low-density urba-nisation linked to the prominence of informalsettlements until the end of the 1980s (BarataSalgueiro 2001). The growth of the Portugueseeconomy in the 1990s with Lisbon being themain urban recipient for foreign direct invest-ment led to a rapid expansion of the construc-tion sector. In relation to the resident popu-lation, during the 1990s Lisbon has become thedestination of strong immigration flows; infact, between 1991 and 2001 the percentage ofimmigrants in the Lisbon metropolitan area(LMA) almost tripled (Fonseca et al. 2002).According to Malheiros and Vala (2004), thehigh concentration of immigrants in the LMAis linked to the restructuring of the urbaneconomy towards the service sector, requiringskilled professionals but also many unskilledworkers. The presence of long-term establishedimmigrants’ communities favours the residen-tial concentrations of immigrants; in fact, immi-grants’ networks facilitate both access tohousing and entry in the labour market.

Rome – The fragmented and dispersed urbanform of Rome has been described as ‘an archi-pelago of urban islands’ (Fratini 2001). In fact,as time going on, the originally semi-compactcity has become more and more fragmented(Munafò et al. 2010). Urban growth followedradial axes starting from the core city and inline with the most important transport routes,generating land fragmentation. In a recentanalysis of the changes in the resident popu-lation of Rome metropolitan area (RMA) inthe last decades, Crisci (2010) has shownhow, since the 1970s, peri-urbanisation hasoccurred, with the core city losing amounts ofresident population in favour of the suburbs.The main actors of this process are youngadults who cannot afford to live in the corecity, given the high prices of the real estate andthe lack of a welfare regime centred onhousing (Arbaci 2008). This process has dra-matically modified the ageing structure of theresident population in the core city, as the rateof old people has increased more and more inthe last forty years. Most of the resident immi-grants are women employed as care workers



and that they are polarised in relation tohousing (Crisci 2010). The residential segrega-tion of immigrant households has been high-lighted by Mudu (2006) who also verifies howthe residential choices of young adults’ house-holds tend to coincide both for domestic andimmigrants.

METHODOLOGY

In order to analyse the relation between low-density urban settlements and the socio-economic patterns of the resident population,a three-steps multivariate strategy based on theuse of indicators taken from official statisticalsources has been developed, leading to a clas-sification of urban settlements into homo-geneous groups from the morphologicalperspective.

The first step consisted of a principal compo-nents analysis (PCA) carried out on the originaldata matrix composed of the indicatorsselected for each city (Table 1) to extract latentpatterns and simplify data complexity. In orderto verify the quality of PCA outputs, the Keiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) measure of samplingadequacy and Bartlett’s test of sphericity wereadopted, the first aimed at testing if the partialcorrelations among variables are small togetherwhile the second if the correlation matrix is anidentity matrix. According to the results of thePCA, an intermediate matrix was developedwith m columns representing the PCA factorscores estimated for each enumeration district(Salvati & Zitti 2009). The PCA identified sixrelevant latent factors for each case, indicatingthe most important dimensions of recent urbandevelopment and summarising the key compo-nents of urban form in the three investigatedregions: settlement concentration and density;vertical profile of buildings; and the materialand year of construction. Compact settlementsare mainly associated to high populationdensity, building’s age ranging from 1960 to1980, and high vertical profile of settlements.To the contrary, dispersed settlements arecharacterised by low vertical profile and recentconstruction period, mainly after 1990 (thesefindings are summarised in Table 1).

Second, a k-means cluster analysis was appliedto the intermediate matrix (the indicatorsselected for each city per m factor scores) in

order to achieve a classification of the enumera-tion districts into homogeneous urban areas.Following the parsimony criterion, the proce-dure was conducted for a set of possible solu-tions (i.e. cluster numbers) ranging from threeto 10 clusters. The most efficient partition (i.e.the number of clusters chosen in order to gainthe most effective discrimination amongmunicipalities) was identified using standarddiagnostics that included the pseudo F-statisticand the cubic clustering criterion (Duran &Odell 1974); based on cluster membership,average values of the considered indicatorswere then calculated for each cluster of districtsand for each city. According to the values of thepseudo F statistics and cubic clustering crite-rion, for each region six clusters form the par-tition best discriminating morphologically theurban settlements. Figure 1 maps the classifica-tion of each enumeration district according tothe considered indicators and the statisticalanalysis for each case. The spatial distributionof the six clusters reflects the distance from themain urban centre suggesting that the form ofthe three cities was at its origins mainly mono-centric. Clusters 4, 5, and 6 (respectively indi-cating medium-density settlements, low-densitysettlements and dispersed settlements) aregradually located outside the core cities.

The last step consisted of a linear discrimi-nant function analysis (DFA) aimed at deter-mining which indicators contributed the mostto the definition of settlement clusters. Modelswere estimated by using a linear stepwise DFAmodel weighted by district surface area. Foreach city, we considered only indicators enter-ing the discriminant function with a probabilitylevel fixed to 0.01. This way, we profiled spatialunits in order to identify low-density, dispersedsettlements. Results indicate how the most sig-nificant indicators discriminating among thesix clusters (p < 0.0001 in all comparisons) aresubstantially similar in Lisbon, Rome, andAthens: building’s density (high vs low), age ofconstruction (recent years vs the decadesimmediately following the Second WorldWar) and vertical profile. This makes datasummarised in Table 1 comparable among thethree cases. However, other indicators haveimportance at the city level (e.g. UNO: percent-age of unoccupied houses; LAR: percentage ofhouses with more than 5 rooms in Rome; CON:



Tab

le1.

Sele

cted

mor

phol

ogic

alch

arac

teri

stic

sof

the

six

settl

emen

t’scl

uste

rsfo

rth

eth

ree

inve

stig

ated

regi

ons.

Var

iabl

eO

ldce

ntr

eH

yper

-com

pact

sett

lem

ents

Sem

i-com

pact

sett

lem

ents

Med

ium

-den

sity

sett

lem

ents

Low

-den

sity

sett

lem

ents

Dis

pers

edse

ttle

men

ts

Lis

bon

Bui

ldin

gde

nsi

ty(/

km2 )

29.0

10.0

9.1

7.2

5.9

3.5

Surf

ace

area

(%)

4.0

32.1

4.3

23.6

8.1

27.9

%bu

ildin

gs<

1945

17.5

0.9

63.7

3.8

1.6

7.0

%bu

ildin

gs19

45–1

970

33.8

2.5

16.0

24.0

3.4

16.9

%bu

ildin

gs19

70–1

990

43.0

5.7

12.4

59.5

16.7

28.7

%bu

ildin

gs19

90–2

000

5.7

90.9

7.6

13.8

78.3

47.4

%bu

ildin

gsw

ith

1–2

floo

rs46

.99.

284

.682

.478

.851

.3

Rom

eB

uild

ing

den

sity

(/km

2 )23

.19.

28.

53.

62.

50.

6Su

rfac

ear

ea(%

)6.

325

.129

.03.

023

.213

.4%

build

ings

<19

4593

.919

.111

.583

.18.

27.

6%

build

ings

1945

–197

04.

965

.840

.58.

830

.527

.9%

build

ings

1970

–199

01.

013

.241

.25.

249

.952

.0%

build

ings

1990

–200

00.

21.

86.

50.

811

.412

.5%

build

ings

wit

h1–

2fl

oors

24.4

11.5

50.8

75.2

84.6

95.0

Ath

ens

Bui

ldin

gde

nsi

ty(/

km2 )

35.3

31.9

25.6

12.8

7.6

3.9

Surf

ace

area

(%)

1.2

26.1

46.3

18.2

1.1

7.0

%bu

ildin

gs<

1945

60.8

7.8

6.2

1.3

1.0

2.3

%bu

ildin

gs19

45–1

970

19.1

47.2

50.8

16.9

15.8

24.4

%bu

ildin

gs19

70–1

990

13.2

37.5

33.7

55.1

29.2

62.2

%bu

ildin

gs19

90–2

000

6.5

7.2

8.8

26.0

53.2

10.5

%bu

ildin

gsw

ith

1–2

floo

rs94

.336

.781

.785

.296

.098

.8



percentage of buildings with concrete andbricks; ROO: percentage of buildings withsloping roof in Athens), highlighting the capac-ity of the methodology to identify both pro-cesses observed in all the examined regions andsite-specific factors.

Profiling settlement typologies in the threestudy areas – In order to analyse the relation-ship between urban form (compact/dispersed)and the socio-economic patterns of the resi-dent population, we elaborated the census dataregarding building features, population struc-ture and employment in the investigated urbanregions at the scale of enumeration district(with a spatial resolution of 1:25,000 in all citiesexamined). In relation to the settlements’ fea-tures, we used indicators concerning the build-ing and population density, the building’s yearof construction, the settlement’s verticalprofile, the building’s construction material,the building’s main use (residential or not) andother settlement features (Table 1). By thisway, our analysis of urban diffusion fits with themulti-dimensional definitions of sprawl, as thatby Galster et al. (2001). As explained in theprevious section, in order to have a consistentanalysis for the three cities, six settlement clus-ters were identified and characterised using themultivariate strategy.

In the case of Athens, the analysis identified abuilding density gradient from the historicalcentre to the suburban dispersed settlements,reflecting the rate of adjacent buildings. Thehyper-compact and semi-compact settlementstogether represent more than 70 per cent ofthe area (26 and 46% respectively), while low-density and dispersed ones occupy respectively1 and 7 per cent of the whole area. Concerningthe Lisbon region, the analysis identified abuildings density gradient from the historicalcentre to the suburban dispersed settlements,reflecting the vertical profile of the city and theage of buildings. The dispersed and low-densitysettlements occupy together 36 per cent of theregional area (28 and 8% respectively), whilethe hyper and semi compact ones together reg-ister the lowest rate among the three investi-gated regions (36%). For Rome’s region, theanalysis revealed a buildings’ density gradientassociated to the vertical profile of buildingsand to the age of construction. In fact, the

vertical profile of buildings is higher in thehistorical centre and in the hyper-compactsettlements. Despite a high rate of land occu-pied by hyper and semi-compact settlements(54%), the low-density and dispersed densitiestogether register the highest rate among thethree case studies (37%).

Socio-economic indicators – Data used in thispaper are taken from digital databases devel-oped by the National Institutes of Statistics ofGreece (ESYE), Italy (ISTAT) and Portugal(INE) to support censuses. Among the infor-mation available from the database, there is avector map covering the whole investigatedareas with the geometry of thousands enumera-tion districts corresponding to three-five build-ing blocks in urban areas. The surface area ofeach enumeration district polygon was calcu-lated by way of the relevant ArcGIS ‘Spatialanalyst’ tool (ESRI Inc., Redwoods, CA). Forthe present study, more than 40 indicators wereselected to describe socio-economic patterns ofthe resident population (population structureby gender, age, marital status, education,employment and citizenship). The primarydata source employed was the General Censusof Population and Buildings carried out byESYE, ISTAT and INE; the indicators were cal-culated from data collected in a fully compa-rable way at the enumeration district level in2001. Using census data is advantageousbecause of its reliable information and exhaus-tive coverage (Malcata Rebelo 2010). Not allthe selected variables were available for eachcase study and, when necessary, proxy variableswere calculated. However, based on the avail-able indicators, we consider the description ofthe socio-economic context as enough articu-lated to satisfactory identify territorial patternsto be contrasted with the morphological char-acteristics observed at the local scale in thethree cities.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In this section, a synthesis of the results of ourstudy is presented. We discuss separately foreach case the relation between settlementtypology and the observed socio-economic pat-terns of the resident population.



Athens – Results for the Athens’ region(summarised in Table 2) confirm the existingliterature describing the city as a compact citywhere urban diffusion has been occurring sincethe 1990s. The historical centre is the area fea-turing the highest rate of old low-educatedpeople among the residents: almost half of theresidents are older than 50 (47%) and 38 percent of them only completed primary school.These features are reflected in the workingprofile, registering the lowest employment rate(36%). Concerning the presence of immi-grants among the residents, the historicalcentre appears as the favourite for thosecoming from high-income countries (bothEuropean and non-European): the rate is 7 percent, with the general average being 2 per cent.The historical centre presents also high rates ofimmigrants from low-income countries (12%).

The hyper-compact area seems to be fea-tured mostly by domestic low-middle class; infact, there is a high rate of waged workers(77%), especially non-technical employees(14%) in the retail sector (15%, the highestrate) and the domestic residents’ rate is slightlyhigher than the average. Concerning educa-tional status, 9 per cent and 27 per cent of theresidents have, respectively, a university degreeor a lyceum diploma (both a bit under thegeneral averages of 11% and 27%). The semi-compact area presents the highest rate ofpeople aged under 14 (21% of the residents,while the general average is 14%), determiningthe lowest mean age (34). Concerning theworking status, the rate of waged workers ishigh (77%), both non-specialised and qualifiedworkers (14% and 20% respectively). The semi-compact area does not seem very attractive forimmigrants, in fact it features the highest rateof domestic residents (93%).

The medium density area is the one featur-ing the highest rates of entrepreneurs andemployers (14% and 16% respectively), whilethat of unspecialised workers is the lowest(7%). The high socio-economic status of theresidents emerges also by looking at the educa-tional status: 13 per cent of them have a univer-sity degree, while the rates of people beingilliterate or without educational title are low(2% and 3% respectively). The low density areaappears as the favourite for most skilled andeducated people; in fact, it presents the highest

rates of people with a master degree, a univer-sity degree or a secondary school diploma (1%,15% and 32% respectively) and of knowledgeworkers and non-technical employees (18%and 14%). Most of the workers are waged (79%,the highest observed rate), while the rate ofself-employed workers is the lowest (10%).

The dispersed settlements area presents ahigh rate of old people among its residents, infact people aged over 50 are 39 per cent of thetotal population. Considering the educationalstatus, it features the lowest rates on populationwith high-educational status; consequently, ifwe look at the working status, data show highrates of qualified and unspecialised workers (20and 13% respectively), while the rate of knowl-edge workers is low (7%), in a context of highunemployment (17%). The immigrant resi-dents of the area come mainly from low-incomecountries (10.2% of the overall residents).

Data on the Athens area depict an originallyhyper-compact city where urban diffusion hasoccurred since the 1990s, whose main actorsare medium-upper class and white collars fami-lies (e.g. knowledge workers, entrepreneurs),especially for the low-density area. At the sametime, sprawled areas also appear to attractimmigrants from low-income countries and,more generally, people featuring a low socio-economic profile (as confirmed by the unem-ployment rate of the dispersed area). On thecontrary, the historical centre seems to featurea dual social structure: on the one side there aremany old people and low-income/educationfamilies (unspecialised and care workers, immi-grants from low-income countries), on theother many white collars (both domestic andimmigrant from high-income countries) locatethere. Finally, the hyper and semi-compactareas are the most privileged for low-middleclass families with children, mainly wagedworkers with a relatively high education.

Lisbon – In the Lisbon case (Table 3), ouranalysis shows that the majority of the popula-tion are found in the historical centre and inthe low-density area. The historical centre fea-tures a high rate of old people: in fact peopleaged over 65 represent 20 per cent of the resi-dents, determining a high value for the ageingindex (248), compared to the grand average(187). The work profile of the residents is fea-



Tab

le2.

Ave

rage

valu

eof

the

mai

nin

dica

tors

cons

ider

edfo

rA

then

sm

etro

polit

anar

eaby

settl

emen

tcla

ss.

Var

iabl

eO

ldce

ntr

eH

yper

-com

pact

sett

lem

ents

Sem

i-com

pact

sett

lem

ents

Med

ium

-den

sity

sett

lem

ents

Low

-den

sity

sett

lem

ents

Dis

pers

edse

ttle

men

tsA

vera

ge

%po

p0–

1411

.314

.620

.715

.611

.513

.314

.0%

pop

15–3

928

35.4

39.8

36.8

38.7

34.4

37.3

%po

p40

–64

33.9

31.6

3034

.732

.234

.132

.6%

over

6526

.815

.39.

412

.917

.418

.415

.9M

ean

age

46.3

39.0

34.3

38.4

40.9

41.4

39.8

%un

i.deg

.7.

910

.27.

715

.717

.06.

212

.3%

hsc

dipl

.17

.526

.919

.327

.032

.522

.127

.3%

read

wri

te10

.74.

65.

13.

32.

76.

64.

3%

man

ag.

7.3

9.4

7.8

13.8

9.0

10.3

10.2

%kn

.wor

k12

.312

.59.

516

.818

.57.

514

.2%

nte

chem

pl.

7.2

13.6

10.1

11.8

14.1

8.3

12.5

%re

tse

ll9.

715

.113

.911

.914

.812

.813

.9%

qual

.wor

k17

.616

.719

.614

.213

.119

.815

.7%

unsp

.wor

k11

.48.

414

.27.

29.

313

.19.

0%

empl

oyer

s11

.711

.410

.415

.89.

414

.912

.2%

s.e.

wor

k21

.410

.511

.312

.310

.313

.711

.5%

wag

ed57

.576

.676

.869

.779

.367

.774

.3%

care

4.8

1.5

1.4

1.9

0.9

3.7

1.8

Em

pl.r

ate

36.4

39.7

38.3

41.5

41.3

36.6

40.2

Un

empl

.rat

e14

.212

.614

.711

.412

.316

.912

.7%

Gre

ek87

.891

.993

.492

.186

.688

.590

.3%

l.i.c

11.7

7.9

7.2

6.1

13.1

10.2

9.1

%h

.i.c.

7.3

1.4

0.8

3.1

2.7

1.4

2.1



Tab

le3.

Ave

rage

valu

eof

the

mai

nin

dica

tors

cons

ider

edfo

rL

isbo

nm

etro

polit

anar

eaby

settl

emen

tcla

ss.

Var

iabl

eO

ldce

ntr

eH

yper

-com

pact

sett

lem

ents

Sem

i-com

pact

sett

lem

ents

Med

ium

-den

sity

sett

lem

ents

Low

-den

sity

sett

lem

ents

Dis

pers

edse

ttle

men

tsA

vera

ge

%h

.ow

ner

ship

61.7

85.5

51.4

78.0

89.7

70.8

70.8

%h

.ren

tal

34.7

12.9

39.8

16.9

6.7

22.1

24.4

%h

h1–

2m53

.640

.459

.344

.536

.248

.648

.4%

hh

3–4m

40.1

53.0

33.2

46.8

54.2

42.7

43.9

%h

h5+

m6.

36.

67.

58.

79.

68.

77.

7%

pop

0–13

11.2

21.1

10.1

12.5

16.8

11.8

12.6

%po

p14

–64

68.5

73.8

6270

.673

.768

.369

.5%

pop6

5+20

.25.

227

.816

.89.

519

.817

.9M

ean

age

44.4

34.9

48.1

42.5

38.1

44.0

43.0

Age

ing

inde

x24

8.1

36.7

264.

915

4.3

55.3

186.

618

7.3

%re

adw

rite

11.4

14.2

17.1

12.4

12.3

14.9

12.8

%h

scdi

pl.

15.0

19.3

10.0

13.2

15.9

11.2

13.9

%un

i.deg

.9.

215

.96.

97.

810

.95.

98.

6%

prim

sect

0.5

0.3

1.9

1.1

0.9

2.2

1.1

%se

cse

ct11

.111

.911

.813

.414

.113

.812

.5%

ter

sect

34.2

44.3

28.3

31.8

35.9

28.9

33.0

%re

tire

d23

.26.

629

.020

.012

.422

.420

.7E

mpl

.rat

e45

.856

.542

.046

.450

.944

.946

.6



tured by a high rate of workers in the servicesector (34%) and retired people (23%),pushing the employment rate under the overallaverage (45.8% vs 46.6%).

The hyper-compact area appears as veryattractive for middle-upper class householdsmade of more than two people with children.In fact, the area features an elevated rate ofthree or four members households (53%, whilethe average is 44%) and the highest ones con-cerning households composed by at least onemember aged under fifteen (46%). At the sametime, it presents the lowest rate of householdswith at least one member aged over 65 (10%while the general average is 31%), leading to alow value for the ageing index (37). As far as theeducational profile of the residents is con-cerned, it features the highest rates of peoplehaving a university degree or a high schooldiploma (16% and 19% respectively). Thesedemographic and educational features arereflected in the working profile of the residentpopulation, registering the highest rates ofemployment (56.5%) and a very low rate ofretired people (6.6%).

The semi-compact area seems to locatemainly low-income households showing lowhomeownership rate (51%); at the same time,40 per cent of the households are tenants, whilethe general home rental rate is 24 per cent.Regarding the resident households structure,most of them are mono-nuclear or bi-nuclear(59% with the grand average being 48%), witha high prevalence of old people. In fact 44 percent of them have at least one member agedover 65 (the rate for the overall city is 31%).The low social status of the area is proven alsoby the educational indicators, whose values areall under the grand average for the higher edu-cational titles, while the rate of people withoutany educational title is high (17%).

The medium-density area seems to ‘average’the socio-economic patterns of the overall met-ropolitan region, all the indicators being closeto the grand average. The low density area resi-dents show a socio-economic profile verysimilar to the ones living in the hyper-compactone. In fact, there are high rates of large house-holds (54% of them are composed by three orfour members and 9.6 per cent by at least fivemembers, both being the highest rates) withchildren (in 40% of them at least one member

is aged under 15). All the indicators for highereducation titles are above the general averageand, at the same time, the employment rate ishigh (51%). The middle-upper class status ofthe residents is proved also by the homeown-ership rate (90%), while just 7 per cent of thehouseholds are tenants. The socio-economicpatterns of the residents in the dispersed arearesemble the low status of those living in thesemi-compact area. This is proven by the ratesregarding the educational and working profileof the residents. In fact, people having a univer-sity degree represent just 6 per cent (the lowestrate) and the employment rate is lower than theaverage (45%).

The results presented in this section showhow, in the Lisbon case, the relation betweenurban diffusion and the socio-economic pat-terns of the resident population is complex anddifferentiated.Infact,middle-upperclasshouse-holds (highly educated and employed especiallyin the service sector, many students) tend to belocated mainly in two diverging territorial con-texts (i.e. the hyper-compact and the low densityareas). Similarly, low class households arelocated mostly in two diverging contexts(namely semi-compact and dispersed settle-ments). This confirms the existing literaturedescribing the importance of informal settle-ments in less compact areas from the 1960s.

Rome – For Rome’s region, results (summa-rised in Table 4) depict the complex relationbetween the urban geography and the socio-economic features of the city, unveiling someimportant aspects not yet highlighted by exist-ing literature. The historical centre emerges tobe mainly the residential location of smallhouseholds of middle and upper class oldpeople; this is easily visible by considering theaging and the population replacement indexesand the mean age (255, 214 and 45 respec-tively). The socio-economic status of the resi-dents is shown by their educational level (22%of the residents have a university degree and54% at least a high school diploma) andworking profile (the employment rate is 40%,retired people are 18% and the area has thehighest rates of entrepreneurs and peopleemployed in real estate and education sectors –respectively 15% and 11%). The high value ofthe real estate properties and the small dimen-



Tab

le4.

Ave

rage

valu

eof

the

mai

nin

dica

tors

cons

ider

edfo

rR

ome

met

ropo

litan

area

byse

ttlem

entc

lass

.

Var

iabl

eO

ldce

ntr

eH

yper

-com

pact

sett

lem

ents

Sem

i-com

pact

sett

lem

ents

Med

ium

-den

sity

sett

lem

ents

Low

-den

sity

sett

lem

ents

Dis

pers

edse

ttle

men

tsA

vera

ge

Pop.

Rep

.in

dex

214.

219

9.4

149.

614

1.8

130.

364

.116

5.6

Act

.p.S

tr.i

nde

x11

5.8

104.

599

.810

9.6

98.6

147.

210

3.1

Age

ing

inde

x25

5.5

208.

613

8.7

210.

311

0.8

158.

416

3.8

Mea

nag

e45

.444

.340

.844

.540

.147

.542

.2%

a.l.

udeg

.22

.815

.511

.113

.28.

33.

011

.3%

a.l.

hsc

dipl

.54

.149

.144

.141

.937

.834

.042

.0E

mpl

.rat

e40

.138

.538

.342

.838

.043

.238

.6%

man

uf.

9.5

10.0

12.4

7.7

13.2

13.9

10.5

%co

nst

r.5.

75.

27.

45.

39.

19.

96.

7%

com

m.

18.0

17.7

20.3

15.7

19.4

17.1

18.6

%r.

e.11

.410

.99.

06.

26.

95.

18.

8%

p.a.

11.6

14.9

12.6

14.6

10.6

9.3

11.4

%ed

u.10

.28.

77.

28.

35.

74.

87.

1%

entr

epr.

15.4

9.2

8.1

7.6

7.8

7.2

9.0

%s.

e.w

ork

13.7

10.7

13.9

11.3

17.0

18.2

13.8

%w

aged

66.8

77.1

73.7

65.7

66.5

64.6

67.0

%re

tire

d18

.218

.915

.012

.813

.914

.014

.9%

h.o

wn

ersh

ip58

.165

.971

.671

.471

.872

.969

.9%

1–2r

oom

s19

.211

.010

.018

.410

.09.

110

.1%

5+ro

oms

29.9

26.0

32.5

24.9

38.5

42.7

33.0

Hom

em

.s.(

m2 )

88.6

79.8

92.1

90.6

108.

088

.992

.3A

v.h

hsi

ze2.

12.

42.

62.

22.

72.

82.

3%

n.I

.Eur

o40

.638

.037

.024

.328

.922

.131

.2



sions of households are reflected in thehousing features of the area: it has the highestrate of home rental (30%), the mean size ofhouses is the second lowest (88.6 m2 for housesinhabited by residents, 85m2 for those notinhabited by residents). At the same time, therate of six rooms houses is high (15%), thisshowing the high social status of the properties.The socially prestigious status of the areas influ-ences also the residential choices of immi-grants; in fact, in the historical centre, 40.6 percent of the resident immigrants come from EUcountries.

The hyper-compact area appears as thefavourite for middle class households led bypeople aged over 50 and employed in thepublic administration. In fact, the values ofboth the aging and the population replace-ment indexes are high (209 and 199 respec-tively) and the rate of waged workers is thehighest (77%), with the most importantemploying sectors being public administration,real estate, education and health (15%, 11%,8.7% and 8.5% respectively). Concerning theeducational profile of the residents, the arearegisters high rates of both people having auniversity degree (15.5%) and at least a highschool diploma (49%).

The semi-compact area seems to privilegethe residential location of low-middle classhouseholds with children. In fact, even ifbi-nuclear households present the highestrate (26.7%), three and four membershouseholds register important rates (22%and 21% respectively), with the aging popu-lation index being lower than the average (139vs 164). As to the occupational profile of theresidents, the employment rate is lower thanthe overall average, with the most impor-tant employing sectors being manufactu-ring, transport, buildings and, above all,commerce/restaurants/hotels.

Compared to the others, the medium densityarea appears to locate mostly low income andhousing profile households, led by old people.In fact, it presents a high rate of small sizehouses (18%) and the value of the aging indexis 210. The working profile of the residentsshows ambivalent results, in fact the employ-ment rate is higher than the average (43% vs39%), but important sectors are the primary,the commerce/restaurants/hotels and public

administration, while the rates of entrepre-neurs and self-employed workers are low. Ofthe resident immigrants, 76% of them are origi-nally from non-EU countries.

The socio-economic profile of the residentsin the low density area is similar to that of theresidents in the semi-compact one. In fact, itfeatures the highest values in households size(2.7 members), while the rate of mononuclearhouseholds is the lowest (20%). The low(er)educational profile of the residents (8% ofthem having a university degree and 38%having at least a high school diploma) influ-ences also their working profile, the unemploy-ment one being the highest (9%) and a highemployment rate in the building sector (9%).

So data presented in this section show howcomplex and fragmentary the urban diffusionprocess has been in Rome’s metropolitan area(Fratini 2001). In fact, if the historical centreappears as the favourite residential location ofmiddle class households constituted mainly byone or two old people and a similar trend canbe observed in the hyper-compact area, lesscoherent patterns can be found in the othercases. What emerges clearly is that youngerhouseholds with children prefer more dis-persed and peripheral locations, confirmingwhat already shown by existing literature. Thiscan be surely explained by making reference tothe high values of the real estate market in thehistorical centre and the availability of largerand cheaper houses in the suburbs.

CONCLUSIONS: DIVERSE SOUTHERNEUROPEAN ALTERNATIVES OFURBAN DIFFUSION?

In the present paper, an investigation of therelationship between urban form (by consider-ing selected morphological features of settle-ments) and the socio-economic patterns of theresident population has been presented, focus-ing on three southern European cities (Athens,Lisbon and Rome) that have been usuallydescribed in existing literature as prototypes ofdifferenturbanforms(respectivelycompactanddense, dispersed-fragmented and semi-compactand poly-nucleated). Based on simple indicatorstaken from national censuses, a three-steps mul-tivariate strategy was developed in order todefine homogeneous areas in terms of urban



morphology. For the three investigated urbanregions, the analysis allowed identifying sixsettlements’ clusters (old centre, hyper-compact, semi-compact, medium-density,low-density and dispersed settlements). In thepresent study selected socio-economic indica-tors of the resident population were comparedbetween the six clusters to define the (possiblydifferent) social and economic profile of popu-lation in ‘compact’ and ′sprawling′ settlementsin southern European cities with differenturban form. This approach revealed innovativeto the international audience since the socio-economic profile of sprawled areas has beenusually analysed in terms of (class and ethnic)segregation or by focusing on the demographicfeatures of the residents in the suburbs in oppo-sition to those of the inhabitants of the corecities, but no study has compared the socio-economic patterns of residents based on settle-ments’ density clusters and urban form.

For the three cases, results show different rela-tions between urban form and the socio-economic profile of the resident population. Infact, in the case of Athens, the main actors ofurban diffusion appear to be medium-upperclass, white-collar households (firstly knowledgeworkers and entrepreneurs), that moved out ofthe city centre mainly in the 1990s profiting ofthe urban diffusion processes linked to the cityOlympic regeneration. Low-density and dis-persed areas, however, also seem to attract immi-grants from low-income countries and, moregenerally, less advantaged groups. This dualityemerges as featuring also the old city centre,whose inhabitants are mostly low-income/education households of old people on the oneside and white collars (both domestic and fromhigh-income countries) on the other side.

Regarding the Lisbon area, our analysispartly confirms the existing literature on theinformal settlements’ development observedsince the 1960s that led to a semi-polycentricurban structure affecting in a complex mannerthe socio-economic profile of the residents.In fact, low-income households, constitutedmainly by old retired males poorly educatedand living in depriving housing conditions,tend to be over-represented in the semi-compact and dispersed areas, while middle-upper class households including highlyeducated people employed in the service

sector, seem to prefer the hyper-compact andthe low-density areas.

This complex and fragmented relation canbe observed also in Rome’s region, for whichour analysis confirms the definition of an‘archipelago of urban islands’ proposed byFratini (2001), constituted by a compactcentre and a large amount of recently built-up dispersed neighbourhoods. Consideringthe socio-economic profile of the residents, theprestige of the historical centre determineshigh real estate values, making it the residentiallocation of mono-nuclear and bi-nuclearmiddle and upper class households, consti-tuted mostly by old people. If a similar patternemerges for the hyper-compact area, no linearrelation can be found for the others, the onlywell-defined trend being that young(er) house-holds with children prefer more dispersed andperipheral locations.

Results depict how the forms of urban diffu-sion processes can be diverse even in the case oforiginally-compact cities located in an areausually described as homogeneous, such asMediterranean Europe (Herzfeld 1984, 1985),challenging, by this way, the monolithic visionof the social consequences of sprawl as gener-ating segregated and class-uniform suburbs formiddle and upper class households. In contrastwith most of the existing literature, the presentstudy shows how ‘Southern European alterna-tives’ (as per Giaccaria and Minca’s 2011 for-mulation) can be found in the ambiguousprocess usually referred as ‘sprawl’. As alreadyhighlighted by many scholars (e.g. Robinson2006), our analysis calls into question thepartial and exclusionary nature of modernurban theory, in which ‘modern’ is synony-mous of (North)Western Europe and NorthAmerica. This can be challenged if we considerdifferent ‘alternative modernities’, highlight-ing the geographical, historical, social andeconomic complexity of urban processes, thisleading to an urban theory of differences.

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