Latent Exurban Development: City Expansion Along the Rural-To-Urban Gradient in Growing and Declining Regions of Southern Europe

This paper quantifies the extent of exurban development in Mediterranean Europe. The assessment was carried out by studying changes in the urban-to-rural population density gradient between the years 1950 and 2010. Three of the six urban regions in this study have experienced population growth and moderate urban concentration, while two regions appear to be shifting toward population decline and urban de-concentration after having experienced compact expansion. A phase of recent re-urbanization has been observed in one region. Altogether, these findings indicate a common path of urban expansion among representative Mediterranean regions between 1950 and 1980 while, in the following period, the cities experienced distinct development phases. From this study, we conclude that exurban development is mainly the product of a shift from compact and dense to semi-compact and intermediate-density settlements. [Key words: semi-dense urban growth, density-distance curve, Mediterranean Europe].