Download Functional regions

Functional regions:
Which regions and what functions?
By Lewis Dijkstra
Deputy Head of Unit
Economic and Quantitative Analysis Unit
1
Overview
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•
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Metro regions
Remote regions
Rural regions
Labour Market Areas
2
Metro regions: Why and how?
• A better understanding of the role and
performance of large agglomerations in the EU
• A basis for comparisons with metropolitan
regions outside the EU
• Based on the Urban Audit’s larger urban zone
and a sensitivity analysis
• Agreed with the OECD
• Based on a joint analysis of Eurostat, REGIO and
OECD
3
Growth is more concentrated in less
developed Member States
Change in GDP per head in metros, 2000-2007
63
30
Capital Metro
25
Change in GDP/head relative to the national level in index points
Second Tier Metro
Smaller Metro
SK
20
non-metro regions combined
15
10
EE
5
IT
FR
PT
PL
AT
FI
DE
SE
NL
0
ES
LV
UK
SI
RO
-5
BE
DK
IE
HU
CZ
GR
-10
BG
-15
-20
-25
LT
-32
-30
EU countries ranked by GDP per head in PPS, 2007
4
Capital metros play an bigger role in
less developed Member States
GDP per head in metros compared to national level, 2007
250
BG
Capital Metro
SK
Second Tier Metro
225
Smaller Metro
non-metro regions combined
national
GDP per head in PPS in 2007, national= 100
200
175
HU
LT
150
125
LV
EE
CZ
PT
SI
GR
FI
BE
RO
IE
AT
MT
100
SE
DK
IT
PL
ES
FR
DE
UK
NL
75
50
25
0
EU countries ranked by GDP per head in PPS, 2007
5
Metro region conclusions
• The difference in GDP per head between the
capital metro and the rest of a country is likely to
shrink in the medium term
• This means that growth is likely to spread to
other regions and will become higher in nonmetro regions than in metro regions
• Public policies can facilitate this process
• OECD has adopted this approach and applied it
to the US, Mexico and Canda
• See Regional Focus 1/2009
6
Remote regions: Why and how?
• Predominantly rural regions cover a wide variety
of situations
• New classification creates more homogeneous
groups
• The proximity to cities is critical. Cities can offer
access to public services such as higher
education and health care, a more diverse
economy, a potential market
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Step 1:
All cities UA
+ UMZ
calculate
travel time
8
Step 2: Apply
to 45 minute
threshold
9
Remote rural region conclusions
• Remote rural regions are less productive than
non-remote regions
• Remote rural regions are more likely to face
population decline
• Economic growth favours rural regions close to
cities
• Lower access to services such as universities
and hospitals
• An analysis in North America finds the same
trends
10
Rural regions: Why and how?
• OECD classification in predominantly urban,
intermediate and predominantly rural is contested
• Methodology leads to distortions:
– cities in large municipalities become rural
– villages in small municipalities become urban
• New approach used a clustering of high density
grid cells which avoids distortions
• Is being developed in close cooperation with DG
AGRI, Eurostat, JRC and the OECD
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Objective of rural regions
• Create a more comparable definition of rural
regions
• Create classification with less extremes i.e. avoid
that Member States are entirely urban or rural
• Create a new classification of LAU2 which could
be used in surveys in a similar manner as the
Labour Force Survey level of urbanisation
classification
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Labour Market Area Simulations
• Variation in the size and approach to defining
NUTS 3 regions which reduces comparability
• Commuting distorts GDP per head at NUTS 3
level
• Labour market areas are a better unit of analysis
• Many Member States have defined their own
Labour Market Areas
• LAMAS are NUTS 3 groupings based on metro
regions and national labour market areas
13
LMAs: available geometry
14
LAMAS
15
LAMAS next steps
• Analysis of the LAMAS to assess their socioeconomic situation and performance
• Eurostat will develop a harmonised labour market
area definition which can be applied to the entire
EU
16
Functional regions and Cohesion
Policy
• In the current period, functional regions can be
addressed in a variety of ways:
– Global Grant
– Multi-regional programmes (but not between RCE
and Convergence)
– Macro regions
– European Grouping for Territorial Cooperation
• The 5th Cohesion Report will include the
proposals for the next period.
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