Study of Smaller Towns Their size and potential importance in Europe Presented in POTSDAM, Germany November 2010 Valerie J Carter President ECOVAST International & Chair ECOVAST UK

Context  Retz conference  jointly run by ECOVAST; Lower Austria and South East England  Highlighted a real policy gap with regard to ‘small towns’  Yet small towns provide a real focus for economic, social and cultural life in their sub regions interacting with other towns as well as their hinterland of villages and the countryside  Action to Strengthen Small European Towns  needed to be backed by evidence/research

Study covered all Europe

Purpose of Study  How many people in Europe live in small towns ?  do 50% of people live in large towns/cities ?  What is a small town ?  How important are small towns ?  could they have a more effective voice in Europe

The Research  Looked at the different ranges of population  split into several categories  Larger towns/cities – 3 sub categories  population over 1 million  population over 250,000 but less than 1mill.  population over 50,000 but less than 250,000  Smaller towns/cities – 4 sub categories  population 40,000 to 49,999  population 30,000 to 39,999  population 20,000 to 29,999  population 10,000 to 19,999

What is a ‘small town’  Study has chosen 10,000 as the lower limit  SEEDA study concluded that all settlements above 10,000 provided a good range of services  supermarkets; range of shops; magnet traders; employment; secondary schools; administrative offices; cultural attractions; accessibility etc  16 rankings (by function were established)  4 main categories- Top; Upper; Middle; Lower  179 towns agreed originally  14 did not meet the functional criteria  9 ‘top’ rural towns; 22 ‘upper’ rural towns

What is a ‘small town’ 2  It is not about historic ‘towns with Charters’  eg: Oxfordshire, England has many Charter towns but more then half are now ‘villages’  Bastide towns in France  Upper limit can be decided later

Data sources  Study covered all of Europe  European Union  non European Union  except European Russia  Wanted a single compatible source for all countries  Tageo.com provides information for more than 2.6 million towns/cities globally  Secondary sources needed for some countries  Michelin Red Guides

Findings: Larger Towns  Spain; UK & Belarus have over 50% of their population in towns/cities over 50,000  Estonia; Latvia; Lithuania; Netherlands; Bulgaria; Ukraine; Serbia & Macedonia have 40-49% of their populations in towns/cities over 50,000  There are 1,341 towns/cities with populations above 50,000  with a combined population of nearly 218 million

Findings: Smaller towns  There are 5,517 towns with populations of less than 50,000  440 (3.3%) pop. between 40-49,999  768 (4.4%) with pop. between 30-39,999  1,388 (5.8%) with pop. between 20-29,999  3,191 (7.5%) with pop. Between 10-19,999  Belgium; Netherlands; Switzerland; Macedonia; Finland; Portugal; Iceland have more than 20% of their towns with populations below 30,000

Graph showing different sizes of towns

Percentages of population by size bands

Rural Areas  There are million people living in places where the population is under 10,000  41.7% of the population of Europe  Undoubtedly some of this will be ‘very small town’ settlements  it will not all be rural populations  Difficulties of comparable data sources  Some additional work needs to look into this  possibly for one or two countries  agreement would need to be made on what constitutes a ‘town’

Further study – very small towns  Germany - additional 899 ‘towns’ below 10,000 population  44% of all German towns  462 between & 9,999 pop.  437 below 5,000 pop.  Population 4,802,148  5% of the population of Germany

Further study – very small towns  Very small towns in France  Populations of Sous Prefectures  by definition administrative centres – a functional criteria of a ‘town’  150 SP’s  30% less than 10,000 populations  some only 1,500

Conclusions  The average ‘urban’ population across Europe in places of over 50,000 is 37.2%  More than 80% of the towns in Europe are below 50,000 population  1,388 towns are between 20,000 and 29,999  3,191 towns are between 10,000 and 19,999  Together these small towns have a population of more than 77 million  13.3% of the population of all Europe  larger than all European countries except Germany

Conclusions 2  These 77 million people should have a much stronger voice  Many are run by strong municipalities  They should work together to influence European politicians  They could help shape future policy  And avoid a total dominance of an urban based approach