Crisis and the city: profiling urban growth under economic expansion and stagnation

Economic crises have influenced urban growth altering building cycles and re-shaping house and labour markets as a consequence of increased socioeconomic disparities. In southern Europe, one of the most affected regions by the 2007–2008 global crisis, evidence on the recession’s impact on urban growth characteristics and directions are still occasional and restricted to local contexts. This study contributes to this issue by identifying similarities and differences in short-term urban expansion before and during recession. Population growth over 2000–2007 and 2008–2014 was assessed in 235 urban districts and municipalities of Rome metropolitan region, Italy. Local-scale changes in the distribution of resident population are considered a reliable indicator of recent growth trends at the city scale and were compared with evidence from previous studies exploring trends in settlement and land-use indicators. Local-scale population distribution showed relevant differences in the time intervals investigated. While early-1990s depopulation of some central districts continued over 2000–2007, demographic re-polarization was observed especially over 2008–2014 in an increasing number of inner districts. At the same time, suburban growth occurred in different spatial directions and speed over the two periods. Our results identify a more rapid growth rate and a higher spreading of population over space during 2000–2007 compared to 2008–2014, identifying a trend towards population densification and settlement re-compacting in the last years. Our results corroborate previous evidence from other southern European urban agglomerations bringing insights on the debate over the future development of sprawling cities.