Policentrisme i Eficiència Territorial

The overarching research goal of this dissertation is to make theoretical and empirical contributions to the link between the polycentric spatial organization of agglomeration in metropolitan areas and its economic, social and environmental (dis)advantages. First, this thesis renews the theoretical approximation to the link between polycentricity and performance by proposing a new conceptual framework that brings together concepts of the externalities of agglomeration economies that are rooted in distinct literature, namely, the concepts of borrowed size, agglomeration shadows and network externalities. Moreover, this proposed conceptual framework is tested by conducting an empirical analysis that considers all of the metropolitan agglomerations in OECD countries. Second, this dissertation empirically explores the relationship between polycentricity and performance through the lens of aggregate human mobility patterns, residential energy use, wages and housing costs. This empirical analysis applies quantitative methods that, despite their advantages, are unused in the research field of urban and regional studies and spatial planning. Specifically, this thesis employs econometric modeling based on the Bayesian approach to statistics. Evidence-informed guidelines for spatial development strategies of metropolitan agglomerations are then provided. These guidelines are built upon the empirical substantiation that the development of agglomeration economies and their externalities in a metropolitan area is a mixture of the size of centers, the proximity to other places and the interactions among centers in networks at multiple territorial scales, from the metropolitan scale to the international scale. This dissertation represents the second phase of development of the line of research 'Polycentricity, Performance and Planning'. This line of research is based on examining the multiple (and reciprocal) theoretical and empirical relationships among the polycentric spatial structure of metropolitan areas; the performance of metropolitan areas in terms of economic competitiveness, environmental sustainability and social well-being; and how metropolitan areas are planned through the elaboration of spatial plans. The main contribution of this line of research is to achieve a greater symbiosis between research (theory and evidence) and policy (practice) within the field of spatial planning and urban and regional studies to improve both the feasibility and the effectiveness of spatial plans. Further fundamental and applied research, the latter with the support of statistics, will be conducted soon to continue developing this line of research in the field of urbanism.