Development Scenarios for Eastern European Cities and Regions in the New Europe

In this paper we focus on urban growth dynamics of Eastern European cities and regions in the past and in the new Europe. This work is a part of on-going research in the field of urban and regional development, carried out in Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission. Eastern European cities experienced similar and very turbulent historical and political development during 20th century. The policies during the communist period with planned economy has clearly reflected in the land use pattern development, e.g. the absence of large suburbs and underdeveloped transport networks around cities. In contrast to other European cities, no or very few commercial zones and commercial centres were built in suburban areas. In addition, satellite cities were built only on a limited scale. With the collapse of communist regimes cities and regions in Eastern Europe have entered into a new phase of urbanisation, which changes dramatically land use patterns. The liberalization of economy and the membership of the EU has led to the growing involvement to the European market and EU development schemes (e.g. TEN/T, ERDF, etc.). In spite of the expected decrease of population in the new EU countries the average gross domestic product is projected to triple and the number of households per capita is projected to double between 2000 and 2030 (EEA, 2005¬/4). Among the consequences of socio-economic development the continuous growth of urban areas can be foreseen. What shapes urban sprawl will take and will it cause new threads to sustainability remains to be seen. In this paper we focus on two study cases (1) the Dresden – Prague transport corridor in Germany and in the Czech Republic (Barredo et al, 2005) and (2) the Harjumaa region and the city of Tallinn in Estonia. The objective of this work is to test the impact of diverse economic development trends on urbanisation processes. Several development scenarios are produced in order to model the spatial pattern of urban land use. The MOLAND urban and regional growth simulation model (Lavalle et al, 2004), based on “cellular automata†(CA), is a key instrument in the forecasting land use development. The model operates at two levels. At the micro- level, the CA-based model determines the fate of individual land use cells based on the type of the activities in their neighbourhood. At the macro- level, various additional factors such as overall land use demand, effects of the transportation network as well as legislative, environmental and institutional characteristics (e.g. environmental protection, zoning) constrain the behaviour of the CA-model. This approach allowed us to integrate “physicalâ€, environmental, socio-economic development as well as institutional aspect of territorial development. The scenarios offer a useful approach to analysing and understanding urban land use dynamics and can also serve for landscape management at the local and regional scales, complementing existing policies and programmes. In both study cases we evaluate the impact newly developed motorways’ supported by EU Structural Funds. Very important feature of Dresden-Prague corridor is the extreme flood events in 2002. The increasing vulnerability to natural hazards due to rapid urban development in flood-prone area is also discussed in the paper.

Towards urban un-sustainability in Europe? An indicator-based analysis

In this article we analyse the relationship between urban land use development and population density in fifteen European urban areas. In the last 20 years the extent of built-up areas in Europe has increased by 20%, exceeding clearly the 6% rate of population growth over the same period. This is one of the consequences of unsustainable development patterns in large areas of Europe. In order to illustrate such unsustainable process we show five sets of indicators on built-up areas, residential land use, land taken by urban expansion, population density and how the population takes up the built-up space.The results show that analysing urban land use development necessitates the use of complementary indicators. The built-up areas have grown considerably in a sample of 15 European cities. The most rapid growth dates back to 1950s and 1960s. The annual growth pace has slowed down in the 1990s to 0.75 %. In half of the studied cities over 90% of all new housing areas built after the mid-1950s are discontinuous urban developments. This trend is increasing the use of private car and fragmentation of natural areas among others negative effects. When putting these findings into the context of stable or decreasing urban population, it is clear that the structure of most of European cities has become less compact, which demonstrates a de-centralisation process of urban land uses. We close by discussing on one hand the common urban land use and population density trends and on the other hand differences between the studied cities. Although most studied urban areas have experienced dispersed growth, as a result of the analysis we divide the cities in three groups: - compact cities,- cities with looser structures and lower densities,- and cities in the midway between the extremes.

Effects of Socio-Economic Scenarios on Land-Use Dynamics: Downscaling and Linking Integrated Policy Scenarios and MASST Outputs with the MOLAND Model

The ultimate effects of policies and correlated programmes of implementation are often reflected in the actual physical variations occurring on land use patterns. The purpose of this brief note is to evaluate how the integrated policy scenarios elaborated in the ESPON programme's project 3.2 "Spatial scenarios in relation to the ESDP and EU Cohesion Policy" can be downscaled and translated into land-use dynamics of a specific region. The results herein presented are of preliminary nature and aim to demonstrate the feasibility of the approach. The exercise has been carried out for the study area including the cities of Dresden and Prague and the transport corridor between two cities defined by the motorway D8 on the Czech side and A17 on the German side . The simulation of the land use spatial pattern has been performed by using the MOLAND Regional Growth model developed at the EC/JRC . The MOLAND model is based on "cellular automata" (CA) approach and allows to integrate spatial aspects of land use patterns with socio-economic (including transport plans), institutional and environmental features of territorial development. The MOLAND model simulates land use dynamics on the basis of digital map compiled at scale 1:25,000 and is calibrated with historical land use information.JRC.H.7-Land management and natural hazard

Analysing the Compactness of Urban Areas by Using Indicators Derived from Data Acquired by Remote Sensing

Urban form is one of the main characteristics of urban areas which affects its sustainability. It has a bearing on the size of the ecological footprint of the city, degree of soil sealing, transport (length of trips and modal split), air pollution, social segregation, etc. We analyse urban sprawl by making use of land use data gathered through remote sensing. Our data source is the multi-temporal land use databank called MOLAND, which has been created and maintained by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. In this paper we focus on two indicators measuring the expansion of European urban areas from the mid-1950’s to the late 1990’s. The first indicator is based on the change of mean distance between the residential areas and the city centre and how it has evolved in time. The assumption is that in more sprawled cities the distance has grown more and faster than in more compact cities. There are considerably large differences among studied European urban areas. The second indicator describes the saturation of land use. Urban areas have been divided in co-centric rings the width of which is 1 km and the center point is in the city centre. The further away from the city centre the rings move the dominance of open space and forests grows. The analysis covers the period from the mid-50’s to the late 1990’s. During this period the share of built-up areas has grown in all distances but proportionally more farther away from the city centre. This indicator complements the first one. Both indicators indicate the loosening of urban structures in the studied European cities. They have proven to be solid indicators for describing some aspects linked to urban sprawl.JRC.H.7-Land management and natural hazard

Comparing Constraint Urban Cellular Automata Simulations between Sprawled and Compact Cities.

Abstract not availableJRC.H-Institute for environment and sustainability (Ispra

Modelling Dynamic Spatial Processes: Simulation of Urban Future Scenarios through Cellular Automata.

Abstract not availableJRC.H-Institute for environment and sustainability (Ispra

Urban Mapping Applications Using IKONOS and IRS High Resolution Satellite Data.

Abstract not availableJRC.H-Institute for environment and sustainability (Ispra

Towards Urban un-Sustainability in Europe? - An Indicator-based Analysis

JRC.H.7-Land management and natural hazard