Towards a polycentric metropolitan system in Spain? Evolution of subcentre’s influence on the population distribution

Abstract

In the course of the last decades the growth of metropolitan areas in the first industrialized countries has been dominated by the decentralization of both population and employment. These processes of decentralization have been verified primarily under a dispersion growth model and to a lesser extent by polycentrism. This article attempts to verify whether this pattern also applies to the seven major Spanish metropolitan areas, which despite having very different sizes and structures, have recently experienced significant growth. For this purpose is have analyzed the changes in the spatial distribution of the population and verified through econometric models the ability of the employment subcentres to organize population density in the surroundings. Analysis has revealed two divergent paradigms of metropolitan areas. The first, which characterizes the mainly monocentric areas, evolves through an expansion of the metropolitan centre (despite its central nucleus melts) and an explosion fragmented and unstructured in the metropolitan remoteness. The second characteristic of areas with a higher level of polycentrism, evolves through a shyer expansion of the metropolitan centre and most vigorous of the subcentre and its immediate periphery. It may be said, therefore, that there is a divergence in patterns of urbanization of the main Spanish metropolitan areas.