Polycentricity in the Spanish urban system: an analysis for seven metropolitan areas

Abstract

The recent growth of urban systems, their economic restructuration and the reduction of
transport costs have generated a new metropolitan paradigm in which urban sprawl and
polycentrism are gaining share again. In this paper the internal structure of the seven biggest
metropolitan Spanish areas is studied, in order to know whether polycentrism is the dominant
pattern in the allocation of both employment, and population. Using methods based on travelto-
work data and employment density potential subcentres are identified. The results suggest
a clear difference on the structure of urban areas: Barcelona, Valencia and Bilbao stand out as
the most polycentric urban systems, while Madrid, Seville and Zaragoza the less polycentric;
Málaga is an outstanding case, because few subcentres do concentrate a relatively important
share of economic activity. Furthermore, the bigger is the polynucleated structure of urban
systems, the bigger is their complexity, understanding such a complexity as the level of direct
dependence of each metropolitan municipality and its respective centre, that might suggest,
for the case of more complex and polycentric systems, a high level of sustainability, both in
terms of time spent on commuting and reducing the energy use.