The role, specific situation and potentials of urban areas as nodes in a polycentric development ESPON Project Lead partner Nordregio Third interim report ECP-meeting Oct. 2003, Italy

A Spatial Organisation of Cities characterised by: Functional Division of Labour, Economic and Institutional Integration, and Political Co-operation. Polycentrism

Levels and issues REGIONAL Opportunity: Synergy of urban complementarities Focus: Networking - co-operation - integration NATIONAL Problem: Unbalanced national urban system Focus: Peripheral cities and regions EUROPEAN Problem: Unbalanced European territory Focus (1): MEGAs and regions outside the 5tagon Focus (2): International flows outside the 5tagon ConceptsPolicies&PlansGovernanceInternationalFlows TIR focus: Europeanterritory

Yellow regions are below 44% of EU15 average Pronounced East-West divide GDP per capita in PPS, EU 27+2, 2000

Gain: Green Loss: Red A mosaic with East-West catch-up trends Change in share of EU 27+2 GDP/capita

Cities in Europe No universal definition of a city Functional Urban Areas (FUAs): Commuting catchment areas or relevant counterparts FUAs are building blocks in our analysis for potential polycentric urban regions

1,595 FUAs in EU 27+2 Two bananas: From England –to Italy –to Hungary Next step: –Trends FUA population

Best potential accessibility in Pentagon No correlation between size and accessibility ( i.e. “function matters” ) Multi-modal accessibility of FUAs (EU 27+2)

Functional specialisation Six additional indicators for functional specialisation –Transport –Tourism –Manufacturing industries –Knowledge –Decision centres of private companies –Public administration

Concentrated within countries Concentrated to the Pentagon No “European” nodes in accession countries Transport Airports & harbours

The Alps and the Mediterranean coast … … and cities like London, Paris and Rome Tourism Number of Beds

NUTS 3-level data not available for UK and France Strongest FUAs in the Pentagon and in Spain Low GVA in acc. countries Small FUAs may be global! Manufacturing Gross Value Added

A balanced picture: universities are found all over Europe Capitals are strongest Knowledge Number of students

Extremely concentrated Stockholm is the only “European” centre outside Pentagon Business head- quarters Top 500 (turnover) companies

Public admini- stration National service centres Hierarchical

64 MEGAs Clusters of MEGAs: –England, Be-Ne-Lux, Germany –Italy, France, Switzerland –Czech Rep, Poland, Hungary Solitary MEGAs Tissues of FUAs Typology of FUAs Three types, based on the seven indicators

Polycentric: Midlands, Randstadt, Rhine-Ruhr, Po Valley, Ostrava/Krakow Monocentric: Paris, Madrid, Athens, Berlin, Stockholm Polycentricity of 149 grouped FUAs on the basis of proximity

Top-Down: Solitary MEGAs Potential polycentric FUA-regions Bottom-Up: SWOTs Programmes Potentials outside 5tagon

Policy options Regional potentials Infrastructure investments: NB: hard and soft measures Strategic planning and co-operation EU: Turn funding from nodes to links / new obj 2 measures for PcR / SWOT based programs / Guidelines on PcR More balanced national urban systems Division of labour between national nodes Second tier of cities in mono-centric and acceding countries! EU: funding the 2 nd tier / encourage national planning in EU-context EU competitiveness and territorial cohesion Identify and strengthen potential new global integration zones - NB: dense urban systems in acceding countries! EU: TENs, EU institutions, funding for PcR: e.g. obj.2 measures for PcR beyond decay and reconstruction / Interreg on joint urban strategies.

Key choices made in the work To deal explicitly with two concepts of polycentrism: –MEGAS –Functional polycentrism Deliver the list of FUAs Include transnational links

Challenges the next period Feedback check on operationalisation of FUAs and MEGAs To integrate the top down identification of potential polycentric regions and the bottom up verification of practical experience on planning and governance To further develop the analysis of potential polycentric regions (e.g. the FUA-group analysis) The contradictions between policy recommendations at different levels (e.g. the EU and the national levels) The policy context after 3rd cohesion report