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Explaining the Recent Performance of the European Community's Major Urban Regions

Department of Economics, University of Reading, Reading, UK

An earlier paper set out and applied a methodology for measuring the comparative incidence of urban problems in the European Community (EC). An 'output'-rather than 'input'-based measure was generated, using weights which were derived using discriminant analysis. In the present paper these results are updated to 1988. This allows an estimate to be made of the changing incidence of urban problems in the EC for the whole period 1971-88. It is argued that urban problems are best viewed as the symptoms of adjustment to changes in the functions and supply side conditions of particular cities, interacting with the adaptive capacity of their local economy and their social structure. Statistical measures of the characteristics of each city, reflecting these factors, are suggested and then used as independent variables to explain the measured change in the incidence of urban problems in each city. Equations are presented which account for up to 80 per cent of the observed variance in the change in urban problems. It is argued that not only does this throw light on the causal factors in urban problems, which include the influence of European integration, and on the nature of those problems, but that it also provides support for the methodology used to measure their incidence. The residuals from these equations, however, reflect the influence of unmeasured variables and represent a form of purely local 'performance factor'. There is then an analysis of the pattern of these residuals, using qualitative data for individual cities. Since urban policy is not included as an independent variable, this approach provides some quantitative measure of its influence in generating urban revival. A further finding is that there has been a growing polarisation between 'successful' and 'unsuccessful' cities.

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