Global Metropolitan-Regional Scale in Evolution: Metropolitan Intermediary Cities and Metropolitan Cities

Abstract

The case of Madrid is used as empirical focus to propose a new classification of the metropolitan region urban medium-sized or secondary city system. Based on a methodology that integrates the morphological (size, location and socioeconomic history) and the functional dimensions (centrality index, advanced producer services (APS) concentration and commuting), the article compares new employment centres-cities with metropolitan origin-and historical cities-previously free standing cities, progressively integrated in metropolitan processes. The results show a distinction between (1) metropolitan cities, with a traditional intermediation role, and (2) metropolitan intermediary cities, that include an additional quality to their traditional intermediation role, that of concentrating APS. The article confirms that some medium-sized cities-metropolitan intermediary cities-linked to different origins and up to 100 km away from the metropolis are more visible in the global scene and are establishing an emerging global multicore-network at a metropolitan-regional scale.

The Influence of Education on Work-Related Travel in Rural Metro-Adjacent Regions: The Case of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain)

“…While previous scholars have already analysed mobility in central Spain, most of them have focused on the Madrid Administrative Region [14,74]. Recently, studies have analysed the CLM region, some in an isolated manner [37] and others combined with the Madrid region [49].…”

“…In parallel, processes of population/economic decentralization have taken place, leading to the emergence of new metropolitan sub-centres and the integration of historic cities and to the expansion of the metropolitan region beyond the Madrid Administrative Region [75]. As a result, functional interrelations have developed in the neighbouring provinces of two different 'rural metro-adjacent regions' [49]: CLM and Castilla y León.…”

“…Two sets of processes are crucial to the increasing dynamism in these rural areas: 1) metropolitan processes, which have started overflowing beyond their traditional boundaries, thanks to improvements in transportation networks [48], and integrating new sub centres in their catchment areas [49]; and 2) state re-scaling, that equip governments with appropriate political strategies to coordinate supra-national and intra-national scales while promoting territorial competitiveness in the current globalization era [50,51] the increasing importance business meetings play in mobility patterns as an essential component of working c.…”

Localising urbanisation trajectories: comparing the emergence of second-tier urban regions in Europe (1890–2011)

“…One of the outcomes of this neglect is an adherence by policymakers to generic normative concepts applied to urban regions as a 'remedy for all kinds of urban and regional problems ' (121). This disregards that experiences of development have historical and local explanations and may be exemplary only for specific types of urban region, which changed over time in different ways, often shifting trajectories and blending different forms of growth (Solis, Mohino, and Urena 2015).…”

“…Second, except for strictly PUR cases, noncentrifugal forms of urbanisation have been mostly attributed to the second half of the twentieth century, seen as regime changes following earlier stages of centrifugal growth (van den Berg, Drewett, and Klaasen 1982;Schmid 2006). Champion's triple classification has been used in research but often to argue that cities have progressed in time along centrifugal, incorporation and fusion modes (Solis, Mohino, and Urena 2015). But some urban regions have experienced early forms of multi-centric and non-hierarchical growth, gradually populating the territory with semi-autonomous urban fragments, without going through earlier core-periphery expansion stages (Portas, Domingues, and Cabral 2007).…”