1. Plenary session 3: The EU Urban Agenda and cities’ role in the creation of growth and jobs TOWN in Europe Loris Servillo ESPON Open Seminar 2014 “Opportunities and threats for territorial cohesion: Blue Growth and Urban Poverty”

2. Three items 1.Main territorial trends 2.Opportunities and challenges 3.Experiences and examples

3. Morphological analysis DENSITY (inh. / kmq) < 300300 - 1500> 1500 POPULATION (inh.) < 5000 OTHER SETTLEMENTS VST 5000 - 50000 OTHER SETTLEMENTS SMST > 50000 OTHER SETTLEMENTS large SMSTHDUC

4. General picture ~8,350 urban settlements can be classified as SMSTs ~70,000 urban settlements can be classified as Very Small Towns (below the 5.000 inhabitant threshold) SMST: about 27% of EU population Very Small Towns: 19% of EU population

5. On average, SMSTs (in database) are different from large cities on a range of measures: Social (older working population, more pensioners, higher ‘non- foreign’ population) Economic (greater proportion employment in manufacturing, more self-employment, more likely to be net exporter of labour (dormitory), less diverse in sectoral mix) Housing issues (more second homes) What makes SMSTs different

6. Changes in SMSTs during the period 2001-11 are different from the change that are observed in cities over the same period Demographic (faster growing, net migration rate higher) Economic (slightly greater rate) However between group and between country differences: ‘All’ Small towns (N=1339) Small towns in Slovenia Small towns in NW Italy

7. Net migration by country Migration- enhanced aging? Growing Labour exporters Shrinking

9. Is ‘town’ as a proper category? Socio-spatial configurations with a specific regional dependency high variety of socio-economic performances

10. EU NUTS3 with prevailing settlements Settlement polygons

11. Issues for further thoughts concerning regions predominantly populated in small settlements -Prevalence of macro trends -less spatial inertial capacity to bounce them back -macro/meso regional dependency - relationship with urban regions? -National policies matter?

12. Preliminary results

13. Economic activity mix and population size in SMSTs

14. CataloniaSlovenia Czech RepublicFlanders

16. N (SMST polygons in database) Mean number of intersections between SMST polygons and: local authority units (LAU) NUTS3 regions (2006) Belgium (BE)1841.231.05 Czech Republic (CZ)2221.731.01 Spain (ES)651.781.00 France (FR)8812.891.06 Italy (IT)2522.411.11 Poland (PL)421.331.02 Sweden (SE)411.00 Slovenia (SI)431.261.00 England & Wales (UK)5741.191.12 Total23042.051.07 ! Policy message

17. Do SMSTs across Europe face ‘common problems’? Diverse? Social and economic problems for SMSTs are only ‘common’ in an abstract sense In practice the ‘problems’ of towns are mainly framed by their national/regional context (clusters of ‘problem-sets’) What concerns of European policy touch down on SMSTs? Giving SMSTs a voice in regional debates Small town does not mean small problem Tailored measures (place-based approach?) Supporting alternative visions of the local economy Collective action within/among small towns Supporting the definition of micro-regionalism processes CLLD? So what? ! Policy message

18. THANK YOU Loris.servillo@asro.kuleuven.be