Urban agglomeration

Agglomeration (Latin agglomerare, firmly connect ') is as defined by the United Nations ( UN) in 1998 a core city including its suburban surroundings or at least densely populated surrounding area, which is outside the city limits, but is directly adjacent to it. Such agglomeration consists of one or more cities and their suburban communities, which form the agglomeration belt (so-called affluent suburbs ). So agglomeration called a "city " in the pure sense siedlerischen ( de facto), without taking account of administrative boundaries (de jure ).

Under an agglomeration ( or less synonymously also: compression chamber, Province ) refers to a multiple, mutually interdependent communities concentration of settlements, from their surroundings is characterized by higher population density and a higher proportion settlement area. As a rule, an agglomeration grouped around one or more central cities, by a narrow, densely built suburban suburban belt as well as a geographically weitläufigeren, partly rural catchment area are surrounded. The range of core city and suburban belt is also referred to as a city region, major international cities and their vast catchment area form the metropolitan regions. The agglomerations are as concentrations of residential and work functions engines of economic development and places of cultural life and thus for the whole country of importance. As a room category is agglomeration or agglomerations the room type with the highest density of use and form the antithesis to the sparsely populated rural areas. The extending partially through the Rural connecting routes between the agglomerations called corridors.

Other names frequently used for such an area are city and metropolitan region / territory. Although these terms refer to essentially the same thing, but there are small nuances of meaning depending on the design. So the city region includes, in contrast to the broader concepts Greater Region, metropolitan or economic region not their predominantly rural peripheral compartments, but only the immediate, densely built-up area of the core city. However, settlements that border not directly to the core city can be counted in the city region if the majority of the population works in the urban core.

What criteria are figures for all of these terms calculated, but ultimately depends on the delineation methodology used in each case. For these cases, there is no reliable normalization, which is why the figures for different regions are not strictly comparable.

A further distinction between monocentric and polycentric urban areas, depending on whether one or more centers exist.

Definitions

In addition to the above, used by the UN methodology exist in different countries, legal standards, and plan works used different definitions and classification criteria.

In Germany, the term agglomeration is hardly standardized, but is used in different contexts. In terms of population, number of cities, the number of inhabitants of each core city is given in Germany in general, figures of agglomerations or urban regions are less common. From a spatial planning perspective, however, there are two major space structural classification systems:

Both classifications are a further developed in the 1950's by Olaf Boustedt 70 city regions dar. Boustedt assumed that cities grow beyond their administrative boundaries, while the surrounding communities of the city adopt similar characteristics to form a coherent agglomeration. Both the BBR classification as well as the BIK - regions based on commuting data integration for social insurance contributions of the Federal Employment Agency. They differ in terms of the underlying structure level. While typing the BBSR builds on the community associations, based BIK - regions on the smallest administrative division level, the municipalities.

In Switzerland, the term " agglomeration " precisely defined by the Federal Office of Statistics:

• A) agglomerations are connected regions of several municipalities with a total of at least 20,000 inhabitants.
• B ) Each agglomeration has a core zone, which consists of the core city (as cities are municipalities with at least 10,000 inhabitants ) and possibly other communities, each of which has at least 2,000 jobs and a total of at least 85 jobs per 100 resident workers. These communities also need to either send at least 1/6 of their employment in the core city or be structurally connected with, or adjacent to it.
• C ) A non- nuclear zone associated community is assigned an agglomeration if: at least one-sixth of its workforce working in the core zone and at least three of the five following criteria are met: 1 ) Structural context of the core community; Vacant lots by Nichtsiedelgebiet ( agricultural land, forest) must not exceed 200 meters.
• 2 ) The combined Einwohner-/Arbeitsplatzdichte per hectare residential and agricultural land (excluding pastures ) exceeds 10
• 3 ) The population growth in the previous decade was 10 percent higher than the Swiss average. (This criterion applies only to communities that have not yet heard no agglomeration, agglomeration for existing communities, it applies irrespective of the percentage value to be met ).
• 4 ) At least one -third of the resident labor force works in the core zone. Emerging communities that are adjacent to two agglomerations, fulfill this criterion, even if at least 40 % of the workforce worked together in two core zones and accounts for each at least one-sixth.
• 5 ) The proportion of the first sector employment may not exceed twice the total Swiss share.

Ratio within a metropolitan area

Agglomerations are summarized in the rarest of cases within a political management unit. As a rule, there is between the core city and politically independent suburbs, strong political opposition which is amplified in some cases by traditional rivalries, but almost always by the social, fiscal and settlement structures impact of suburbanization.

The ongoing intra-regional meaning and population shift in favor of the surrounding countryside, the accumulation of socially disadvantaged people in the core cities, the provision and financing city regionally significant infrastructure (eg transport networks, cultural and recreational facilities ) through the core cities without the beneficiaries in suburbs financial contribution and the cut-throat competition for establishment of businesses ( business tax dumping ) advised the core cities in ever greater difficulties. The financial and functional exhaustion can weaken a core city to the extent that it is no longer able to fulfill their overall regional functions, which ultimately harms the entire city region, including the suburbs.

In order to create a fair balance of interests within the city region and to coordinate the urban region in the national competition there is in many urban regions institutions for inter-municipal cooperation:

Voluntary cooperation

• Community collaborations private law ( GmbH and Others )
• Regional conferences, regional forums and Others

Association models

• Purpose associations for solving individual problems (eg waste management, water supply, public transport ).
• Planning associations for common land use planning, regional planning and transport planning.
• City and regional associations where several such tasks are bundled, so a better way to compromise arises.

Gebietskörperschaftliche models

• Eg regional circuits ( FRG), city Provinces ( Netherlands)
• Regional cities

Agglomerations in different European countries

Germany

As cities in Germany can be distinguished in the national plans uniformly in the upper and middle centers to urban areas in Germany can be divided into poly-and mono central spaces.

Many of the urban areas in Germany are part of a broader European Metropolitan Region. The frequent association of agglomerations are located in Germany hardly mono central metropolitan areas, whereas in urban areas it is rather the rule that they were formed only to a regional center. Aachen, Dresden, Hamburg, Munich and Stuttgart are in accordance with the provisions of the State Planning the only major centers of their agglomerations.

These formal definitions are in the geographic reality, however, large sub-centers within the urban areas of large cities compared to that in part, the functional significance of regional centers reach ( including Berlin -Spandau, Frankfurt - Höchst, Hamburg -Harburg or Munich -Pasing ).

Reference date: December 31, 2010

Austria

Statistics Austria has 34 statistical metropolitan areas defined based on a core zone of the city ( as the administrative center ) and its surrounding communities, and an outer zone.

They included together 5.567 million inhabitants ( as of 1 January 2001), which is about 64 % of the total Austrian population. Three quarters of them (3.81 million) recorded on the core zones, about 1.35 million to the outer zones.

After the population of the city region, four size classes can be distinguished:

• Vicinity of Vienna, with satellite towns Baden, Bad Vöslau, Klosterneuburg, Korneuburg, Stockerau
• 6 other metropolitan areas with more than 100,000 inhabitants in the core zone
• 9 Mittelstadt regions 40000-100000 inhabitants in the core zone
• 18 small urban areas with fewer than 40,000 inhabitants in the core zone

The final classification was made ​​in 2001.

Switzerland

Since 1930, every ten years the urban agglomerations are randomly redrawn from the results of censuses. Since 1980, the underlying foreign communities are taken into account in cross-border agglomerations, which is near Basel, Geneva and Lugano important.

The ten largest urban areas in Switzerland according to the Federal Statistical Office ( in parentheses are the population without foreign part ):

The largest agglomerations with foreign central city, but catchment in Switzerland ( Source: Federal Statistical Office):

Agglomerations worldwide

The largest agglomerations of the world with more than ten million inhabitants are:

Source: http://www.citypopulation.de/world/Agglomerations.html Reference date: April 1, 2011

Demarcation problems and comparability

The given data are difficult to compare because each city different definitions have been applied.

For U.S. cities, for example, the numbers of the extended metropolitan regions, the Combined Statistical Areas are shown, while for the urban areas but in fact designated as Urban Areas areas be brought into account, whose population numbers are much lower (in the case of Los Angeles, for example, 12 instead of 18 million ).

Another problem is the national definition of agglomerations. So in the above list as the compression chamber Aachen is described only by the German side of the urban area, although cities such as Heerlen or Kerkrade belong to this space in the Netherlands.

Swell

• Www.citypopulation.de