Which Future for Metropolitan City Regions in Europe? Seven Narratives

The city region is the city of the future. The city region is the preferred territory where people work, where educational and health facilities are concentrated, and where people spend their leisure time. City regions are the living and working places of the majority of people in Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy or in Scandinavia and Poland (Fig. 12.1). The city region is the place families keep in mind when they decide to stay in a place to start a new phase of their life. Demographic and structural developments (aging, the increasing number of single-person households, changes in lifestyles, structural changes in the world of work, rising costs of living and the withdrawal of the state from the provision of public services) are creating new conditions for private as well as commercial location decisions. The traditional distinction between city and countryside, between urban and rural living environments, which has been repeatedly articulated in everyday political life, is increasingly disappearing. The average city region in Europe in 2025 is a 25,000 sq. km large territory that extends from one or more densely populated core cities 100 km into the hinterland. All over Europe cities are more and more expanding into city regions, though planning and decision-making in these city regions varies immensely, mostly for very good reasons. As a rule, city region includes a number of secondary cities and numerous villages and smaller settlements. In the twenty-first century in most European countries, the city region countries combine urban and rural lifestyles.