IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirb/v47y2020i4p553-568.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exploring regional and urban clusters and patterns in Europe using satellite observed lighting

Author

Listed:
  • Vassilis Tselios
  • Demetris Stathakis

Abstract

We explore regional and urban clusters and patterns in Europe by using satellite images of nighttime lights and by employing Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis. We map Defense Meteorological Satellite Program nighttime lights data onto the nomenclature of territorial units for statistics III, Local Administrative Units II and pixel (i.e. 1 km 2 grid cell system of Europe) level and apply global and local statistics of spatial association. Under the assumption that nighttime light data are a good proxy for economic activity, the analysis at regional level shows that the regions of global cities and megacities and their surrounding areas are hot spots of high economic activity levels. The regional analysis also reveals the polycentric hierarchical structure of Europe. Using the case studies of the regions of London and Île - de - France, the analysis at the urban level reveals the different urban structure of these two global regions and identifies the functional urban areas of London and Paris.

Suggested Citation

  • Vassilis Tselios & Demetris Stathakis, 2020. "Exploring regional and urban clusters and patterns in Europe using satellite observed lighting," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 47(4), pages 553-568, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirb:v:47:y:2020:i:4:p:553-568
    DOI: 10.1177/2399808318788567
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2399808318788567
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/2399808318788567?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Attila Varga & Luc Anselin & Zoltan J. Acs, 2000. "research notes and comments: Geographic and sectoral characteristics of academic knowledge externalities," Papers in Regional Science, Springer;Regional Science Association International, vol. 79(4), pages 435-443.
    2. Cem Ertur & Julie Le Gallo & Catherine Baumont, 2006. "The European Regional Convergence Process, 1980-1995: Do Spatial Regimes and Spatial Dependence Matter?," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 29(1), pages 3-34, January.
    3. Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés & Tselios, Vassilis & Winkler, Deborah & Farole, Thomas, 2013. "Geography and the Determinants of Firm Exports in Indonesia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 225-240.
    4. Bernard Fingleton, 2003. "Externalities, Economic Geography, And Spatial Econometrics: Conceptual And Modeling Developments," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 26(2), pages 197-207, April.
    5. Rosina Moreno & Raffaele Paci & Stefano Usai, 2005. "Spatial Spillovers and Innovation Activity in European Regions," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 37(10), pages 1793-1812, October.
    6. Rachel Guillain & Julie Le Gallo, 2010. "Agglomeration and Dispersion of Economic Activities in and around Paris: An Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 37(6), pages 961-981, December.
    7. Bernard Fingleton (ed.), 2003. "European Regional Growth," Advances in Spatial Science, Springer, number 978-3-662-07136-6.
    8. Eckhardt Bode, 2004. "The spatial pattern of localized R&D spillovers: an empirical investigation for Germany," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(1), pages 43-64, January.
    9. Ioannides, Yannis M., 2004. "Neighborhood income distributions," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 435-457, November.
    10. Anselin, Luc, 2002. "Under the hood : Issues in the specification and interpretation of spatial regression models," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 247-267, November.
    11. Martin Browning & Thomas Crossley, 2009. "Are Two Cheap, Noisy Measures Better Than One Expensive, Accurate One?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 99-103, May.
    12. Vernon Henderson & Adam Storeygard & David N. Weil, 2011. "A Bright Idea for Measuring Economic Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 194-199, May.
    13. Bernard Fingleton & Enrique López‐Bazo, 2006. "Empirical growth models with spatial effects," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 85(2), pages 177-198, June.
    14. Jeremy Proville & Daniel Zavala-Araiza & Gernot Wagner, 2017. "Night-time lights: A global, long term look at links to socio-economic trends," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(3), pages 1-12, March.
    15. Catherine Baumont & Cem Ertur & Julie Gallo, 2003. "Spatial Convergence Clubs and the European Regional Growth Process,1980–1995," Advances in Spatial Science, in: Bernard Fingleton (ed.), European Regional Growth, chapter 4, pages 131-158, Springer.
    16. Philip McCann & Daniel Shefer, 2004. "Location, agglomeration and infrastructure," Advances in Spatial Science, in: Raymond J. G. M. Florax & David A. Plane (ed.), Fifty Years of Regional Science, pages 177-196, Springer.
    17. Cem Ertur & Julie Gallo, 2003. "An Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis of European Regional Disparities, 1980–1995," Advances in Spatial Science, in: Bernard Fingleton (ed.), European Regional Growth, chapter 2, pages 55-97, Springer.
    18. Sutton, Paul C. & Costanza, Robert, 2002. "Global estimates of market and non-market values derived from nighttime satellite imagery, land cover, and ecosystem service valuation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 509-527, June.
    19. Rodrigues da Silva, Antônio Nélson & Manzato, Gustavo Garcia & Pereira, Heber Tiago Santos, 2014. "Defining functional urban regions in Bahia, Brazil, using roadway coverage and population density variables," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 79-88.
    20. Martijn J. Burger & Bert van der Knaap & Ronald S. Wall, 2014. "Polycentricity and the Multiplexity of Urban Networks," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 816-840, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chakraborty, Tanika & Mukherjee, Anirban, 2022. "Economic geography of contagion: A study on Covid-19 outbreak in India," SocArXiv gp2wr, Center for Open Science.
    2. Chakraborty, Tanika & Mukherjee, Anirban, 2022. "Economic geography of contagion: A study on Covid-19 outbreak in India," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1028, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    3. Tanika Chakraborty & Anirban Mukherjee, 2023. "Economic geography of contagion: a study of COVID-19 outbreak in India," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(2), pages 779-811, April.
    4. Cats, Oded & Birch, Nigel, 2021. "Multi-modal network evolution in polycentric regions," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    5. Chengming Li & Xiaoyan Wang & Zheng Wu & Zhaoxin Dai & Jie Yin & Chengcheng Zhang, 2021. "An Improved Method for Urban Built-Up Area Extraction Supported by Multi-Source Data," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-16, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Maria ABREU & Henri L.F. DE GROOT & Raymond J.G.M. FLORAX, 2005. "Space And Growth: A Survey Of Empirical Evidence And Methods," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 21, pages 13-44.
    2. Maria Abreu & Henri L.F. de Groot & Raymond J.G.M. Florax, 2004. "Space and Growth," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 04-129/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    3. Debarsy, Nicolas & Yang, Zhenlin, 2018. "Editorial for the special issue entitled: New advances in spatial econometrics: Interactions matter," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 1-5.
    4. Burhan Can Karahasan, 2020. "Winners and losers of rapid growth in Turkey: Analysis of the spatial variability of convergence," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 99(3), pages 603-644, June.
    5. Hans-Friedrich Eckey & Reinhold Kosfeld & Matthias Türck, 2007. "Regionale Entwicklung mit und ohne räumliche Spillover-Effekte," Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, Springer;Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR), vol. 27(1), pages 23-42, February.
    6. Roberto Patuelli & Norbert Schanne & Daniel A. Griffith & Peter Nijkamp, 2012. "Persistence Of Regional Unemployment: Application Of A Spatial Filtering Approach To Local Labor Markets In Germany," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(2), pages 300-323, May.
    7. Arbia, Giuseppe & Battisti, Michele & Di Vaio, Gianfranco, 2010. "Institutions and geography: Empirical test of spatial growth models for European regions," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 12-21, January.
    8. Shapiro, Daniel & Oh, Chang Hoon & Zhang, Peng, 2023. "Nighttime lights data and their implications for IB research," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 29(5).
    9. Kristian Behrens & Frédéric Robert‐Nicoud, 2009. "Krugman's Papers in Regional Science: The 100 dollar bill on the sidewalk is gone and the 2008 Nobel Prize well‐deserved," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 88(2), pages 467-489, June.
    10. Pfaffermayr, Michael, 2009. "Conditional [beta]- and [sigma]-convergence in space: A maximum likelihood approach," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 63-78, January.
    11. Marcos Sanso-Navarro & María Vera-Cabello & Miguel Puente-Ajovín, 2020. "Regional convergence and spatial dependence: a worldwide perspective," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 65(1), pages 147-177, August.
    12. Eckey, Hans-Friedrich & Türck, Matthias, 2007. "Convergence of EU-Regions. A Literature Report," INVESTIGACIONES REGIONALES - Journal of REGIONAL RESEARCH, Asociación Española de Ciencia Regional, issue 10, pages 5-32.
    13. Roberto Ezcurra & Vicente Rios, 2015. "Volatility and Regional Growth in Europe: Does Space Matter?," Spatial Economic Analysis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(3), pages 344-368, September.
    14. Friso Schlitte & Tiiu Paas, 2008. "Regional Income Inequality and Convergence Processes in the EU-25," SCIENZE REGIONALI, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2008(Suppl. 2), pages 29-49.
    15. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Marco Solazzi, 2012. "A bibliometric tool to assess the regional dimension of university–industry research collaborations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 91(3), pages 955-975, June.
    16. Rafael González-Val, 2015. "Cross-sectional growth in US cities from 1990 to 2000," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 83-106, January.
    17. Maza, Adolfo & Hierro, María & Villaverde, José, 2012. "Income distribution dynamics across European regions: Re-examining the role of space," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 2632-2640.
    18. Daniel Albalate & Germà Bel & Ferran A. Mazaira‐Font, 2022. "Geography and regional economic growth: The high cost of deviating from nature," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(2), pages 360-388, March.
    19. Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés & Tselios, Vassilis, 2007. "Analysis of Educational Distribution in Europe: Educational Attainment and Inequality Within Regions," Papers DYNREG08, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    20. Roberto Patuelli & Norbert Schanne & Daniel A. Griffith & Peter Nijkamp, 2012. "Persistence Of Regional Unemployment: Application Of A Spatial Filtering Approach To Local Labor Markets In Germany," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(2), pages 300-323, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envirb:v:47:y:2020:i:4:p:553-568. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.