Urban Life Cycle and Competitiveness in the Metropolitan Region of Bologna

 20
final result, to behave in a logic of competition but 
without neglecting the social dimension of urban 
development. As concerns this last aspect, a balanced 
social distribution of the positive effects of any 
reurbanisation process and more community 
participation are progressively recognised as desirable 
and of absolute importance conditions supporting any 
urban renewal policy.    
Moreover, a microeconomic foundation of 
residential mobility will be presented with a simple 
model. 
  
 
1.2 European urban dynamics: a general theory of 
       urban development 
 
In Urban Europe: A Study of Growth and Decline 
(Van den Berg et al.1982) it has been stated that urban 
systems evolve according to a cyclical pattern. The 
basic assumption underlying the theory of the dynamics 
of urban regions is that urban systems rise and fall 
according to the spatial behaviour of urban actors, who 
are motivated by successive combinations of changing 
exogenous variables, such as demographics, politics, 
social values and technology. 
Studying a sample of functional urban regions 
(FURs) in the period 1950-1975, the authors identify 
four stages of development.  
 21
The first one, called urbanisation, is a stage of 
spatial concentration in which the growth of the core 
dominates that of the ring, and the whole agglomeration 
is impressively growing. The stage of urbanisation runs 
parallel to the process of industrialisation that gave the 
strongest impulse to urban growth, drawing masses of 
migrants coming from rural areas in search of jobs to 
the cities. High priority for economic growth, location 
of large-scale industries and development of local 
public transport are the main features of this stage. 
Urban functions, such as residential, working, shopping 
and transport, are all concentrated in the core. However 
this concentration in the long term has a negative 
impact on the location and welfare potential of the city 
core that increasingly becomes less attractive for 
residents as a place to live in and for companies as a 
location for their businesses.  
 
At the next stage, namely suburbanisation, or 
urban sprawl, the main feature is that of spatial 
deconcentration with the ring’s growth dominating that 
of the core. This stage is basically a period in which 
the suburban municipalities find their population 
growing fast, while the core is losing inhabitants, 
although a strong link between the formers and the 
latter remains because job are still in the core. The 
main characteristics of this stage are the rise in 
prosperity due to economic growth, the increasing car-
 22
ownership and the strong expansion of transport 
infrastructure put into action by government policy.  
At this stage huge commuter flows between 
suburbs and the core – especially during peak hours - 
occur as a result of such development, leading to a 
situation in which the increasing unprofitability of 
public transport represents a relevant urban problem, 
very difficult to be solved. Moreover migrants continue 
to be oriented to the core not only for work, but they 
also rely on it for the higher-order services such as 
hospitals, theatres, cinemas, etc. With the progressive 
separation of residences and workplaces, the ensuing 
unbalanced traffic flows, congestion in the inner cities, 
increasing unprofitability of public transport and the 
inclination of service companies to leave the congested 
town centres, large towns enter in a less favourable 
position with respect to the smaller ones, because the 
latter are preferred location for residential and tertiary 
activities. The consequence of such unpleasant 
phenomena is that the large agglomerations tumble 
from the suburbanisation stage experiencing a new 
trend called disurbanisation.        
 
At this third stage, the entire metropolitan area is 
losing population and employment because of rapid 
out-migration mostly to the smaller municipalities 
located at some distance away. The main cause of the 
occurring of this stage is that congestion makes all 
 23
kinds of workplace and central provisions in the city 
less accessible and because of lack of space, higher 
rents and living costs make the minor towns relatively 
more attractive.  
The agglomerations that disurbanised not only 
lose their inhabitants and activities, but also face the 
problems and consequences of rising unemployment, 
deteriorating facilities and services, social disease and 
exclusion and, particularly in the central cities, public 
deficits created by their shrinking tax bases.   
In other words the disurbanising large 
agglomeration bears the effects of the increased 
attractivity of medium-size agglomerations further 
away. Therefore the competitive position of the 
original agglomeration falls down in favour of the 
smaller towns. One of the main reason of the ‘success’ 
of the smaller agglomerations is that there has been a 
great increase in the appreciation for the quality of life, 
i.e. for an attractive, safe and socially balanced living 
and working climate. As a result of urban decay, urban 
regions have been increasingly compelled to behave in 
a logic of competition to avoid the reaching of a 
situation of permanent decline. Nevertheless there exist 
some variables - defined for instance in Urban Systems 
in a Dynamic Society (Van den Berg, 1987) - that 
reverse the process of urban decline boosting a renewal 
growth, according to the cyclical pattern of urban 
development.      
 24
This is the fourth and last stage distinguished in 
the pattern of urban development and it is called 
reurbanisation. 
In this stage the revitalisation of cities strongly 
depends on the ability of local government to develop 
and implement a new policy able to attract back the 
people who previously left for the suburbs or minor 
towns. This has to be done not through the exploitation 
of given locational advantages, such as capital and 
natural endowment, but rather with an appropriate local 
policy capable to improve the quality of life of their 
cities and their accessibility and thus capable to raise 
the urban competitiveness.  
 
By adopting a policy of urban revitalisation, local 
governments try to upgrade their city’s attraction for 
the ‘market parties’, i.e. for inhabitants, business 
companies, visitors and investors. To this extent, such 
a policy must be developed in close cooperation with 
those market parties and with an eye to their various 
preferences
1
. It is important that cities do not just 
follow the trend, but rather are able to anticipate it so 
as to manage it in the most proper way. 
 
 
 
 
                                                                                       
1
 For a thorough analysis of the subject see Van den Berg, Urban Systems in a Dynamic Society, Rotterdam, 1987 
 25
 
Fig 1.1 - Population size of the core, ring, and  
             functional urban region (FUR) in different 
             stages of urban development 
Source: Urban Europe: A Study of Growth and Decline, 
    Van den Berg et al.,1982 
 
Generally speaking reurbanisation occurs when 
the shares of the population and employment in the 
core with respect to those in the entire agglomeration 
increase again. Nevertheless this must not lead to a 
misunderstanding of the very characteristics of this 
stage. The possible improved competitive position of 
the core is not likely to lead to a population explosion, 
because today’s high demands on housing and 
environment preclude high population densities for the 
obvious reason of the increased appreciation for the 
quality of the living and working environment. Thus 
 
 26
large cities cannot become as large as they used to be 
in the past, and therefore core population and 
employment will only show modest quantitative 
growth. What reurbanisation really means is primarily 
the recovery of the large core, i.e. new flows of 
financial means, new opportunities of employment and 
the fact that people converge there again. Because the 
growth of population and employment will be limited, 
the reurbanisation of large towns does little to reverse 
the trend of spatial deconcentration, which will 
continue in the medium term anyway. Revitalisation 
and deconcentration can go side by side, and are not 
mutually exclusive. It is the rapid development of 
higher-order service-sector activities and the 
improvement of the quality of the living and working 
environment and the consequent attraction and return of 
higher-income groups that in turn boost further creation 
or preservation of high-grade facilities, which will 
make the core even more attractive to these groups. 
The improvement of the quality of the city’s 
environment has to be undertaken through the 
rehabilitation of the existing house stock, improving 
the traffic situation with a redesigned road system, off-
street parking facilities, creating pedestrian precincts 
are zones and upgrading the social infrastructures. 
 
The renovation of a city was formerly considered 
by local governments just as a matter of improvement 
 27
of the local housing quality in such a way to stem the 
massive outflows from cities. However, it soon become 
clear that this type of renovation offered no relief for 
the economic crises that many European cities have 
been confronted with in the past several decades. It was 
finally understood that restoring the urban economy 
was at least as much important and urgent as improving 
the housing situation in old town quarters.     
The economic recovery of the city was claiming 
for the availability of well-educated, high-skilled 
personnel, as well as first-class locations, i.e. for those 
who first left the city because the only group enjoying 
the greatest freedom in choosing their residential 
locations. Thus in the city centres, revitalisation has 
accelerated the growth of employment for well-trained 
individuals, far outpacing the job opportunities for the 
unskilled and low-skilled. As a result of the latter, 
those who concentrates in the inner cities, hardly profit 
from the revitalisation measures. 
 
So far in this chapter, revitalisation policy has 
been dealt just as matter of improvement of the city’s 
appeal as a location for businesses, well-educated and 
high-skilled staff and, implicitly, as a magnet for real 
estate investors and visitors. Of course a city that fails 
to attract investors and developers will hardly reach the 
renovation it needs. 
 28
As on the whole real investors are free to choose 
an investment project as well as the country or region 
to invest in, within the same country, a ‘rational’ 
choice will prefer high-return, low-risk projects given 
by the investment climate of individual cities. This in 
turn depends, among other factors, on the 
diversification of the urban economy, the town’s 
market potential and the quality of the living 
environment
2
. 
At the same time, cities that lack appeal to 
visitors cannot profit from the strong expansion of the 
tourist sector, which increasingly, and for a growing 
number of cities, is becoming a pillar of the local 
economy. 
Finally, cities that are unpleasant places to live 
lack a foundation for future economic growth.      
  
However, as much as these types of policy may 
have been too much oriented to the economy (of the 
‘uppers’), neglecting their dangerous social 
implications, in turn, they have lead to a progressive 
erosion of the residential function, and the widening 
gap between rich and poor. Extreme and unrestrained 
wealth and bitter poverty and social exclusion are often 
found side by side in such cities. As a final result, 
serious social tensions have been unavoidable. Facing 
such contradictory developments, a revitalisation 
                                                                                       
2
 Klaassen, van den Berg, van der Meer,  The City: Engine Behind Economic Recovery, Rotterdam, 1989 
 29
policy cannot meet but a loss of societal support and 
finally be doomed to fail. 
As far as a local government is really and 
seriously concerned about the welfare of its own 
citizens, it should prefer an urban policy pursuing the 
achievement of economic revival in a socially equitable 
manner, that is a policy designed in such a way to have 
a balanced social distribution of the effects.  
Indeed not only higher-income groups are 
involved in the development of strategy of 
revitalisation, but on the contrary each strategy is 
useless without societal support. Local government 
must negotiate with, and consider the needs of the 
entire local population.  
   
 
1.3 Which revitalisation without societal support?  
 
As already put in evidence above, societal support 
is of eminent imortance in every revitalisation process. 
To this extent, however, it is necessary by local 
government to gain trust by all the actors involved in 
the urban renovation process by creating a structure for 
the development of community participation 
programmes applicable to the urban environment. 
Community participation has here to be considered as a 
process designed to create conditions of economic and 
 30
social progress for the whole community with its active 
participation. 
To fully understand community participation it is 
necessary to understand its relationship with the wider 
political, economic and social urban environment in a 
structured way.  
 
In fact to induce a particular development, a local 
government may be tempted to comply in fully with the 
wishes of one market party, that is not likely to be that 
of the inhabitants; whether such a policy really furthers 
municipal welfare, not only in the short run but in the 
long run, is questionable. 
At this point a problem arises. It concerns with 
the possibility for a local government to enhance the 
well being of its citizens without heeding the ambitions 
of the market parties: since most of them will be little 
inclined to cooperate with a local government, such a 
policy certainly cannot contribute to a maximum 
growth of municipal welfare.  
 
The following question is therefore immediate: 
how to establish trust ties among the citizens in order 
to make the disposition to support the urban policy 
sustainable? I cannot but remember what Arrow said in 
a well-known essay appeared a few years ago talking 
about economic development: ”one can plausibly 
maintain that most of the world’s backwardness can be 
 31
explained by the lack of mutual trust”
3
. The assumption 
underlying this proposition is simply that development, 
and urban development do not surely make an 
exception, requires high levels of cooperation and this, 
in turn, implies deep trust ties among economic agents 
as well as with these and the political authority.     
 
A convincing perspective for the establishment of 
trust networks, is that of promoting the appropriate 
conditions acting on constraints and incentives through 
political action. In order to promote trust 
generalisation several different actions can be taken, 
all of which appear to be connected, one way or 
another, with the achievement of a more equitable 
society. Without rules governing the urban renovation 
process, without confidence based on the rule of 
democracy, without an overall sense of direction and a 
fair degree of equity and transparency, there could be 
no well-functioning market forces driving a real 
uncontaminated process of reurbanisation towards the 
‘harmonious’ city. 
 
Reurbanisation, if it is to flourish, must also work 
from shared norms and objectives providing the basis 
for a common understanding. 
For instance, one cannot hope to generalise trust 
if social inequality tends to increase or become 
                                                                                       
3
 K. Arrow, “Gifts and exchanges”, in Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1972,p.343 
 32
endemic. Decreasing inequalities are a necessary 
condition for generating trust. If the aim to be pursued 
is also equity viewed as the equality of citizens’ 
fundamental capabilities, the unequal distribution of 
opportunities and income, and the unequal 
accumulation of wealth are not the appropriate starting 
points for a successful urban policy. 
Trust generalisation likewise implies, on the one 
hand, higher technical competence levels upon which 
trust certification is based - this being the key-role of 
the professions and of light urban bureaucracy – and, 
on the other hand, that ethic codes adopted by 
corporations should reach that critical threshold beyond 
which the market can act also as a reputation control 
device. 
 
To sum up, the winning strategy to reach an 
equitable reurbanisation with generalised trust is to 
favour the creation of a new economic space in the 
urban development process, that of the civil economy 
which is the only mean to get the urban competition 
being civilised. 
The promotion of the civil economy sphere in the 
urban renovation process has here to be intended as the 
promotion of the involvement of the growing non-profit 
organisations and cooperatives in the urban renewal 
process. 
 
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In short an urban policy aimed to let the city be 
reurbanised has thus to pursuit: 
 
™ high economic potential: the creation of a satisfactory  
   amount of jobs and income is of absolute importance;  
 
™ improvements in quality of the living/working 
   environment; 
 
™ better accessibility of the city in terms of market 
   potentials; 
 
™ a balanced social distribution of the effects; 
 
™ community participation. 
 
 
1.4 A microeconomic foundation for residential 
       mobility 
 
Much of the theoretical analysis of urban 
dynamics, which pay explicit attention to both time and 
space, has been attempted only recently. The dynamic 
urban process is indeed quite complex. It involves 
dynamic changes in a number of key variables such as 
population, capital, and labour in the urban economy, 
and analysing such changes even at an aggregate level 
is difficult enough.