Search Results (3)

Throughout the 20th century and in the first decades of the 21st century, the geospatial dynamic exhibiting the highest rate of change globally corresponds to urban expansion surrounding metropolitan areas and large cities. Around intermediate-sized cities, there have also been rapid changes in their geographical space, but study in these areas has had less academic attention and development. Considering this context, this article intends to analyze the dynamics in the periurbanization of communes with intermediate-sized cities. In this study, three geographical criteria were defined for the definition of the study area and seven geospatial indicators of sociodemographic, socioeconomic and land occupation categories, with the purpose of determining the composition of the periurbanization process. Finally, the discussion presents a perspective on the dynamics of periurbanization, the interpretation of future projections identifying three geospatial phenomena and a proposal for a geospatial chorematic model with the composition of periurbanization, based on three subregional intermediate-sized cities in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago de Chile. This research contributes new reflections to the debate around spatial planning and periurban research in Latin America and the Global South. Full article

Since the middle of the last century, especially since the seventies, processes have been generated and consolidated that have changed the image of certain rural environments in Spain, especially coastal, with new forms of organization and territorialities that break the traditional model. The Cantabrian territory, like other areas of the Spanish coast, has seen its territories and landscapes altered in terms of its demographic, economic, and urban structures. The variation over the easternmost area of the Autonomous Community of Cantabria is significant, affected by various growth processes of both cities in the region, as well as others adjacent and connected, such as the urban agglomeration of Bilbao, influencing this space that we call Marina Oriental de Cantabria. The justification and objectives are to know how the coastal geographical situation, good communications, and proximity to Bilbao have configured this space to become a functional part of the metropolitan agglomeration that is generated around this city. An investigation focused on the analysis of the intensification and the effects of the urbanization process of a rural and rururban area, from an integrative, transversal, and multiscale approach, supported by inductive and hybrid methodology, with quantitative and qualitative methods. Through this study, the evolution and problems of these spaces will be known, to analyze the processes that have occurred and continue to occur and, thus, propose measures to reduce the negative effects. The main results and conclusions of the research are manifested in transformations on a legacy space, which has been productively redefined, being one of the most changed since the middle of the last century. Full article

The process of population concentration in cities is a worldwide phenomenon—not yet finished—which has led to a widespread rural exodus and abandonment of rural areas. In Spain it occurred very abruptly from 1960, leaving numerous population centers abandoned in the northern half of the country. It is the so-called “empty Spain”. This problem has recently transcended from the local to the European level and has become part of all political agendas such as “the fight against the demographic challenge”, which the European Commission will finance in the next programming period 2021–2027. However, retaining the population in rural areas is a very complex problem that is difficult to solve. The aim of this article is to show that a polycentric system of towns, well distributed throughout the territory—as happens in Extremadura—has sufficient capacity to stabilize the population in the rural environment and is a viable and global alternative to the demographic challenge through the rururban partnerships and the integrated territorial investments. This article studies, as an empirical reality and demonstration effect, the autonomous community of Extremadura, an inland region bordering Portugal, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula, which has no abandoned nucleus and still maintains 50% of its population in rural areas, compared to a national average of less than 20%. Full article