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ESPON TOWN project Loris Servillo Vilnius (Li), 04 December 2013

ESPON TOWN project Loris Servillo Vilnius (Li), 04 December 2013. New perspective on towns in Europe: From analysis to policy reflections. Linguistic differences and translating problems Conventional wisdom on towns

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ESPON TOWN project Loris Servillo Vilnius (Li), 04 December 2013

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  1. ESPON TOWN project Loris Servillo Vilnius (Li), 04 December 2013 New perspective on towns in Europe: From analysis to policy reflections

  2. Linguistic differences and translating problems Conventional wisdom on towns Town: 1) an urban area that has a name, 2)defined boundaries and 3)local government, AND that is larger than a village and generally smaller than a city Definition within the TOWN project Town: 1) a built-up area (a polygon that has a number in a database!), 2) with boundaries possibly crossing administrative limits, and 3) where you search (and sometimes find) for local capacity and horizontal and multi-level local governance What is a town?

  3. Small and medium-sized towns Morphological interpretation

  4. Morphological interpretation

  5. 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 ! Policy message

  6. Complexity and institutional diversity across Europe concerning the relationship between administrative and morphological definitions Not only a technical aspect: • Data issue • (thus) • Policy issue

  7. ! Policy message

  8. EU Settlement polygons NUTS3 with prevailing settlements

  9. EU macro-trends Variation of Population and GDP at NUTS3 level between 2001 and 2011 Measured on 3 types of regions: Region predominantly populated in small and medium settlements (pop in HUDC < 30%) Highly urbanized regions (pop in HUDC > 70%) Region with population evenly distributed in various settlements (in between) Preliminaryresults

  10. In relation with early suppositions Have we assisted to a general shift of population toward cities and metropolitan areas? Have we registered a general impoverishment of (regions characterized by) smaller settlements? Can we consider towns as isolated and independent settlements? National policies matter? Meso-level: relationship with urban regions? Objective 1 regions ! Policy message

  11. 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

  12. 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 NW Italy Small towns in Slovenia

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

  14. ! Policy message Do SMSTs across Europe face ‘common problems’? • 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 • No ‘one size fits all’…. • Supporting alternative visions of the local economy • Collective action within/among small towns • Supporting the definition of micro-regionalism processes So what?

  15. ! Policy message Place-based approach recommended? Endogenous growth vs specialized towns with urgent challenges (retail trade, deindustrialization) In many case, at the local level, difficult to anticipate problems, to make choices (and alliances); How does the national/regional policy deal with a town specificity (and specific cases of towns)? Investment driven? Bottom-up and top down? How is it negotiated, coproduced with the local stakeholders?   Does the national, regional, local level prioritize, discriminate? Is there a ‘policy model’? So what?

  16. Thank you Loris Servillo loris.servillo@asro.kuleuven.be

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