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industrial growth in the past, but found it hard to compensate the decline in the basic
industrial sectors or other dominating (port) activities by attracting new economic
activity. Various large European towns suffer from the phenomenon of disurbanisation
and the related social-economic problems (notably unemployment and its social
aftermath). Finally, some places have entered the stage of reurbanisation, in which large
towns begin to pick up (after a period of decline) thanks to new economic growth or
urban renewal or regeneration policy. Reurbanisation has been recorded among other
places in Vienna (town renewal), Stockholm (economic growth), Milan, the major Dutch
cities (urban renewal), and several German towns.
Intra-urban patterns; core versus ring
Growth and decline are, as said before, the resultant of a complexity of mutually
reinforcing or opposing forces. From theories on the subject, which seem to be largely
confirmed by the national reports, economic growth and the resulting prosperity are
inseparable from urban development. However, to some areas that hypothesis does not
seem to apply, such as the south of Italy and some old industrial zones in the European
core land and in former East Germany. In those areas, the cities cannot, or only with
supreme effort, develop under their own steam and the private sector is very cautious with
investment. Another observation is that a period of urban prosperity is often followed by a
period in which negative aspects disturb or jeopardise urban development and economic
growth. The negative aspects can take various forms, dependent among other things on
the phase of urbanisation, excess supply of workers, qualitatively trailing supply of
labour, disintegration of the economic basis, congestion, unpleasant living environment,
etc. The situations can widen social discrepancies among the demographic categories in
an urban region. Such discrepancies often find expression in the spatial pattern. A feature
of most urban regions is that the problem categories are left in the least attractive parts of
the town (or settle there for lack of alternatives), while the intermediate groups move to
the suburban municipalities. That situation is typical of, among other countries, the
Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, and, to a lesser extent
Austria and Sweden (the ’second cities’). In other urban regions, the socially weak are on
the contrary found mostly in the suburbs (France, Finland, Stockholm). Finally, there are
countries where the social discrepancies manifest themselves in the core cities as well as
in the suburbs (Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland and Greece, among others). In most national
reports it is stated that social segregation puts the economic function of the towns in
jeopardy. The tenor is that urban regions in particular are increasingly beset with serious
social problems, mostly through extensive unemployment. That tendency was recently
(the early 1990s) observed even in such ’young’ urbanised countries as Ireland, Finland,
Sweden and Austria.
2.3 Administrative and financial frameworks
The member states differ widely in administrative structure. Two main types can be
distinguished: unitary states (twelve) and federal states (three), but these main types show
great diversity, for instance in the number of administrative levels. Moreover, the roles,
functions, competencies, services, budgets, income sources, expenditures, etc. tend to be
differently divided between the administrative levels of a country and the divisions also