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Metropolitan areas and regions:

Trends and scenarios

Lewis Dijkstra

Deputy Head of the Analysis UnitDG for Regional PolicyEuropean Commission

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What is a metropolitan area?Local definition of a city• City with an urban

centre of 50 000 inhabitants or more

• Commuting zone: all contiguous municipalities with at least 15% of its employed population working in that city

Regional definition• NUTS 3 approximation

of all commuting zones with at least 250 000 inhabitants

• Benefits: access to regional account data (GVA and employment by sector) and other data with annual time series

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A local definition in three steps1. Define an urban centre2. Define a city based on this urban centre

(LAU2 or groups of LAU2s)3. Define a commuting zone based on this

city (including check for polycentric cities)

IMPORTANT! Cities are selected based on the population of their centre, not total population

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Short version

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Detail for the city definition• Urban centre

– Contiguous grid cells with at least 1 500 inhabitants per km2, excluding diagonals

– Gaps filled– A minimum population of 50 000

• City– A city consists of one or more LAU2s– City has at least 50% population in urban

centres– At least 75% of each urban centre population

is located within one or more cities

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Cluster – Centre – City

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Detail commuting zone• Combine ‘connected cities’ (a city that has at

least 15% of its employed population working in another city) into a single destination

• Select all municipalities that have at least 15% of its employed population working in a city

• Drop the exclaves: non-contiguous municipalities

• Include enclaves: municipalities that share at least 50% of their border with commuting municipalities (applied iteratively)

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City – Commuting zone

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Future improvements to the method• Improve population grid

– Create more bottom up grids– Improve disaggregation

• Check impact of using a smaller grid cell• Consider day-time population (jobs), but no

EU wide employment girds• Consider urban functions, but no EU wide data• The two last aspects are considered for

borderline cases in consultation with national statistical institutes

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Metro regionsTrends and scenarios

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Metro regions general picture• 247 metro regions• 3 equal (almost) a country: LU, CY and MT

• They contain 62% of EU population• They contain 61% of EU employment• They contain 66% of EU GDP

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Population changePopulation change in metro regions, 2000-2008

IE

UKNLFRSKDK

PLIT

RO

BE

PT

CZ

EE

HU

ES

SILT

DE

BG

SE

AT

MT

LVGR

FI

-12

-8

-4

0

4

8

12

16

Cha

nge

in s

hare

of n

atio

nal p

opul

atio

n in

%

Capital metro regionSecond tier metro regionSmaller metro regionNon-metro regions combined

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ProductivityLabour productivity in PPS in metro regions compared to the rest of their country, 2008

ES DEUK

ITNL FR

BE

BG

RO

LT

LV

PL

HU

EE

SK

CZ

SI

DK

ELFISEAT

0

40

80

120

160

200

240

280

Labo

ur p

rodu

ctiv

ity in

PPS

, non

-met

ro re

gion

s co

mbi

ned

=100

Capital metro regionSecond tier metro regionSmaller metro regionNon-metro regions combined

IE

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Change in productivityChange in labour productivity in pps, 2000-2008

FREL

NLITDKPLATSIDEESSEPT

FI

BERO

LVUKEE

HU

LT

SK

BG

CZ

IE

-40

-30

-20

-10

0

10

20

30

Cha

nge

in P

rodu

ctiv

ity re

lativ

e to

the

natio

nal l

evel

in in

dex

poin

ts

Capital metro regionSecond tier metro regionSmaller metro regionNon metro regions combined

60

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EducationPopulation with a tertiary education attainment in metro regions,

2009

FI

EEIE

DKBE

UK

SE

NLLT

ESFR

DE

SIEL

BG

PL

HU

AT

SK

PT

IT

LV

CZ

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

% o

f tot

al p

opul

atio

n ag

ed 2

5-64

Capital metro regionsSecond tier metro regionSmaller metro regionNon-metro regions combinedNational

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EmploymentEmployment rate, 15-64 in metro regions, 2009

NLDK

SEAT

DEUKFI

SI

PTCZ

FREE

BG

IEBELV

SK

ESPLLTITHU EL

35

40

45

50

55

60

65

70

75

80

Empl

oym

ent a

ged

15-6

4, in

%

Capital metro regionSecond tier metro regionSmaller metro regionNon-metro regions combinedNational

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Scenarios• EU-15• Catching up of smaller

metro regions?• Catching up of rural

regions (close to a city)?• Slow urbanisation or

de-urbanisation?• Concentration of

unemployment?• Urban deprivation?• Sustainability of urban

working and living

• EU-12• Growth dispersion or

continued concentration in the capital metro region?

• Metro population stable non-metro regions shrinking or reverse migration?

• Gap in access to services and jobs between capital and smaller metros and non-metro regions

• Public investment priorities?

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Conclusions• Metropolitan regions play a key role in

economy• Present different set of challenges and

opportunities depending on the country• Metropolitan analysis is essential to

understand different situations and trends

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Thank you for your attention

Questions?