A MULTICRITERIA APPROACH

FOR THE IDENTIFICATION OF

ITALIAN METROPOLITAN AREAS
AND THE FORMULATION OF
TERRITORY-SPECIFIC POLICIES
IV EUGEO CONGRESS
Rome 5-7 September 2013

Sabrina Iommi, Donatella Marinari

The identification of metropolitan areas: scientific or administrative criteria?

METROPOLITAN AREAS HAVE RECENTLY BEEN CENTRAL IN TWO DIFFERENT DEBATES:

that on the economic competitiveness, which assumes main urban poles as drivers of contemporary
economic growth thanks to their characteristics of territorial concentration of human activities
(agglomeration economies), functional variety (jacobsian economies), material and immaterial accessibility
(network economies), innovation capabilities. (Open questions: which cities? Characterised by what?)

that on the reconsideration of local government structure. The debate is mainly led by the urgent
need of reducing the public expenditure, but in the case of metropolitan areas the change of borders and
powers would have evident effects also on their competitiveness. In spite of this, till nowadays proposal for
new metropolitan governments have been formulated using administrative criteria: metropolitan areas are
meant as transformation of existing provinces or summing up of them (but areas belonging to the same
province can be very different).

The scientific approach to cities: two different criteria

The traditional administrative borders are now inadequate to delimit metropolitan areas because they have
spread out thanks to the industrial development and the increase of territorial daily mobility.
Scientific approaches to city have used two different criteria to define urban:

the homogeneity criterion, which considers as urban the areas with common characteristics of dense
built land, share of high skilled inhabitants, share of working population, share of employees in specific
industries and so on (e.g. the first Italian classification of urban areas, made by Cafiero and Busca in 1970 for
Svimez adopted this criterion)

the functional criterion, which considers as urban areas connected each to other by dense relationships,
approximated by flows of people, goods, information. First developed in US and GB contexts (e.g. Standard
Metropolitan Areas. Daily Urban Systems. Functional Urban Regions), this criterion has been used in Italy
from 1986 to map the Local Labour Systems (SLL), local areas containing the daily work commuting.
Following the suggestions developed by the European Research Project ESPON, the introduction of a
demographic threshold (50.000 inhabitants) allows to distinguish urban from not-urban areas. The formers are
called Functional Urban Areas (FUAs).

The need of reconciling administrative structure with reality

English-speaking nations, where new methods for the urban delimitation have early been introduced, used
the new scientific borders of the metropolitan areas for three main goals: a) to improve the reliability of the
statistical information gathered, b) to plan public policies in a more effective way, especially referring
to economic growth policy (industrial policy) and spatial planning, c) sometimes, to change local
government borders.
In Italy, none of the proposed scientific identifications of cities has become official or has been adopted for
planning goals or institutional reforms. Only recently Istat has started to furnish statistical data according to
the territorial map of Local Labour Systems (SLL).
On the contrary, when legislative proposals on metropolitan areas have been formulated, they did not
refer to any of the criteria used in the scientific approach (level of urbanization, presence of specialized
economic functions, commuting areas), but they identified cities in an aprioristic way, mainly referring
to provincial borders. Anyway, proposed reforms have never been enforced and Italian main cities have
remained lacking in appropriate governance and policies.

THE THESIS OF THE PRESENT WORK IS:

the scientific tools used for territorial analysis are now settled enough to allow the adoption of an
official map and hierarchy of urban areas

A method for the identification and ranking of Italian urban areas

The paper suggests a multi-criteria approach for the identification of Italian metropolitan areas, which has
two main advantages: a) it considers all the aspects that concurrently make a metropolis (population
size, urbanization density, level and composition of the production base, economic performance), b) it allows
to delimit and rank the urban poles and also to identify specific deficits for each one (in size, in
functional specialization, in economic performance, etc..). which require territory-specific policies.
In the proposed approach, the city is defined through:

functional approach and demographic size (map of the FUAs)

quality and variety of urban functions (Urban Rank)

economic performance (GDP and employment rate)

denseness of urbanised land (UMZs)
The proposed components of the city are largely corroborated by socio-economic literature on urban areas.

More details on the method

The proposed approach combines functional criterion and
aspects of homogeneity.

It uses the map of Local Labour Systems (SLL) based on
home-to-work daily travels, selected through a demographic
size (FUAs) (50.000 inhabitants totally, at least 15.000 in the
main pole). (Demographic size is also used for final ranking)

The FUAs are further selected through the characteristics of
their functions

The urban functions are singled out by the criterion of
territorial rareness (comparing sectoral employment distribution
between FUAs and not FUAs).

The quality of urban functions depends on the degree of
specialization in urban functions of each FUA, on the number,
variety and rareness of pursued urban functions.

The economic strength of city is measured by GDP per
inhabitants and employment per inhabitants.

FUAs belonging to the same Urban Morphological Zone
(UMZ) that is the same urbanised area- are summed up.

The observed variables are synthesize through a Principal
Component Analysis (PCA) or Factorial Analysis in a single
index (I component) called urban rank. It explains 52% of the
total variance and is made by similar weights of each observed
variable.

PROS
The idea fits: community is where daily
activities take place
CONS
ISTAT should improve the method used to
map the SLLs

PROS
Rareness and quality of urban functions are
widely corroborated by economic literature.
Here they are inferred by reality.
CONS
Urban rank index could be improved adding
an accessibility measure

PROS
The synthetic index allows ranking, while the
observed variables allow to highlight strong
and weak points, which are useful to
formulate territory-specific policies

The selection of urban functions

Specialization index
FUA /not FUA (a)

Concentration index
in urban FUA (b)

Urban degree of function

(geometrical mean a*b)

CF Chemical-pharmaceutical industry

2.54

1.42

1.90

CI Computers, electronics, optics

1.91

1.23

1.53

CK Mechanical engineering

1.14

1.10

1.12

CL Means of transport

1.29

1.16

1.22

1.39

1.01

1.18

1.72

1.03

1.33

JA Publishing

5.18

1.31

2.61

JB Telecommunications

8.05

1.33

3.27

JC Information services

2.45

1.16

1.68

MA Professional activities

1.32

0.97

1.13

MB Research & Development

2.62

1.23

1.80

University staff (MIUR)

11.10

1.37

3.90

R Arts and entertainment activities

1.05

0.98

1.01

E Public Utilities

1.71

0.98

1.30

Health staff (Health Min.)

1.34

1.03

1.17

2.27

1.07

1.56

HT and ICT MANIFACTURING

MHT MANIFACTURING

LOGISTICS
H Transportation and storage
FINANCIAL SERVICES
K Financial and insurance activities
PUBLISHING AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS

KIBS and UNIVERSITIES

PERSONAL CARE SERVICES

OTHER SPECIALIZED SERVICES TO FIRMS

N Administration and support activities

It measures
the quality of
urban
functions

It selects
urban
functions

Italian Metropolitan Areas in urban hierarchy

City tipology

City/Area name

LARGE
METROPOLITAN
SYSTEMS
(pop.>1 mil.)
MEDIUM
METROPOLITAN
SYSTEMS
(pop 500th-1 mil.)

Metropolis in common
regions according to
law (+Reggio Calabria)

Presence
urban funct.s

Economic
performance

Manifacturing
spec. index

Cultural
spec. index

Urban rank
index (>0)

Milan area

HIGH

HIGH

1.2

1.3

2.95

Rome

HIGH

HIGH

1.0

1.7

2.78

Turin

HIGH

HIGH

1.4

1.3

2.37

Naples area

HIGH

LOW

0.9

1.0

0.78

Bologna

HIGH

HIGH

1.3

1.2

3.34

Genoa

HIGH

HIGH

0.9

1.3

2.41

Area Florence-Prato

HIGH

HIGH

0.8

1.0

2.10

Padua

HIGH

HIGH

1.0

1.2

1.86

Venice

HIGH

HIGH

0.9

0.8

1.51

Verona

HIGH

HIGH

0.8

0.9

1.46

Bari

HIGH

MEDIUM

1.2

1.2

1.41

MEDIUM

HIGH

1.2

0.9

1.39

Catania-Acireale Area

HIGH

MEDIUM

1.0

1.0

1.01

Bergamo-Albino Area

MEDIUM

HIGH

1.2

0.7

0.97

HIGH

LOW

0.8

1.2

0.61

MEDIUM

MEDIUM

0.9

0.7

0.19

Parma

HIGH

HIGH

1.3

1.0

1.74

Modena

HIGH

HIGH

1.4

0.8

1.40

Reggio Emilia

HIGH

HIGH

1.5

0.8

1.36

Vicenza

HIGH

HIGH

1.2

0.8

1.26

Udine

HIGH

HIGH

1.1

1.0

1.22

Cagliari

HIGH

HIGH

1.0

1.2

1.13

Trent

HIGH

HIGH

0.8

1.3

2.25

Bolzano

HIGH

HIGH

0.7

1.2

2.16

Pisa

HIGH

HIGH

0.9

1.9

1.91

Siena

HIGH

HIGH

0.8

1.5

1.86

Trieste

HIGH

MEDIUM

1.0

1.2

1.76

Ancona

HIGH

MEDIUM

1.0

1.1

1.64

Brescia-Lumezzane Area

Palermo-Bagheria Area
Versilian Area

MEDIUM CITIES
(pop 250-500th)

SMALL CITIES
(pop 100-250th)

The map of Italian urban hierarchy

Northern and Central Italy chiefly need the reduction of local
government fragmentation and/or networking policies because
the average demographic size of local government is rather
small; Southern Italy chiefly needs improving of economic
performance.
Not FUA Areas
Urban Rank Index
Less than 1.0
From -1.0 to -0.5
From -0.5 to +0.5 (average)
From +0.5 to +1.0
From +1.0 to 2.0
From +2.0 to +2.5
More than 2.5

Conclusions
SUMMARIZING:

The scientific tools for territorial analysis of social and economic phenomena are
now settled enough to allow the definition of an official map and ranking of urban
areas, metropolitan ones included.

The new territorial map is crucial for planning more effective public policies (in
particular spatial planning, transport and economic development policies) and to
guide institutional reforms (borders reassessment, cooperative strategies, etc.)

The method presented in this work, even if improvable, gives an example of

how, starting from settled ideas of urban studies literature (functional approach
to spatial delimitation, rareness and variety of urban function, etc.) and using
existing statistical data, it is possible to create an urban hierarchy based on a
rational approach.

In particular, the proposed method matches synthetic and detailed indicators, so

allowing the ranking, but also the spotting of strong and weak points. This last
information gives important suggestion for the formulation of territory-specific
policies and government/governance reforms.

A MULTICRITERIA APPROACH
FOR THE IDENTIFICATION OF
ITALIAN METROPOLITAN AREAS
AND THE FORMULATION OF
TERRITORY-SPECIFIC POLICIES
IV EUGEO CONGRESS
Rome 5-7 September 2013

Per informazioni:
sabrina.iommi@irpet.it