ESPON 2013 Programme - Internal Seminar “Crossing Knowledge Frontiers, Serving the Territories”

1. ATTREG Project (ESPON 2013/1/7) “The Attractiveness of Regions and Cities for Residents and Visitors” (2010-2012) ESPON 2013 Programme - Internal Seminar “Crossing Knowledge Frontiers, Serving the Territories” 17-18 November 2010 Liège, Belgium A.P. Russo (URV, LP) and L. Servillo (KUL)

2. LEAD PARTNER University Rovira i Virgili (ES) PROJECT PARTNERS KU Leuven (BE) Univ. of Venice Ca’ Foscari (IT) EURICUR Rotterdam (NL) Univ. of Coimbra (PT) Centre for Tourism Research (DK) IGSO (PL) Univ. of Ljubljana (SI) Univ. of West England (UK) RESEARCH SUBCONTRACTOR Istanbul Technological University (TR)

3. Research background • Emerging importance in ESPON 2006 results of “soft” factors as drivers of regional development • Acknowledgement in the new geographic and planning literature of the intertwining of economic and cultural aspects in determining the competitive advantage of regions and cities, and on mobility as an epistemological paradigm for the social sciences • Increased attention in ESPON 2013 to socially and culturally-embedded development processes, mobility, and territorial capital as a strategic, multidimensional asset to achieve more competitiveness and cohesion (new round of projects: DEMIFER, EDORA, FOCI, etc.) • Growing policy orientation of this research stream • ESPON 1.3.3 (2004-2006) as the first attempt to “map” attraction factors in European regions and to explain their differential capacity to “valorise” their attractiveness as a development asset

4. ATTREG Objectives • To identify the main attraction factors of European cities and regions with respect to a wide range of mobile populations • not only residents and visitors as a binary (migration flows associated with labour vs. leisure) but a continuum of mobilities differentiated by attraction factors • To analyse the spatial effects of attractiveness … • globally and in relation with a specific group • … and to categorise regions accordingly • also in relation with other established ESPON regional classifications • To analyse the possible consequences and scenarios of evolution of this situation face to the main trends identified by the ESPON programme • To evaluate the influence of public policy at different scales in stimulating or managing attractiveness so as to reach desired effects • in relation to the main European policy documents (e.g.EU2020).

5. What drives mobility, today? Jobs (yes, but increasingly, it’s firms that follow workers and talents) Convenience – people “vote with their feet” and respond to convenient mixes of purchasing power, taxes, services. Quality of life (yes, but different elements matter for different groups of mobile population) Safe, “green”, serviced places for families Beautiful (unspoilt, heritage-rich) settings for tourists and some place-aware residents Vibrant, exiting, mostly urban centres for young people and “creatives” Highly accessible, connected, wealthy places for business elites Warm, “manufactured”, serviced places for retired people and second home owners Social composition of places Some want to be together with their “peer” like some immigrant group and mass tourists Some want to avoid them, like allocentric tourists and “pioneers” Early assumptions

6. If the world was “flat” and dimensionless, everybody would go somewhere and stay there. Mostly a large number of people would end up in beautiful, safe, well connected cities. And every place would try to “dress” itself to attract certain types of people (but some places would have an “acquired advantage”) . NOT SO SIMPLE. What HINDERS mobility, today? Affective permanences – some people would not move even if they had a better life somewhere else. There are fast movers and slow movers. Dimension externalities. As places attract more and more people, they lose some of their advantages – quality of life goes down, prices go up, accessibility may decrease… at a certain point “less crowded” places may become more attractive as a spatial affect of increased mobility. Mostly, this means that there’s a chance for second-order cities and rural areas. Between-groups (negative) externalities. Just as it may attract them, the attraction of certain groups may repel others. Some people do not like to live where there are too many immigrants, or too many tourists (but some do). Mobility

7. At various levels, places / regions / countries may develop “enhancements” which are specifically aimed at the attraction of certain “target” groups – mostly, the talented new workers and the wealthier tourists. BUT THEY HAVE TO BE AWARE OF THE LIMITS AND SPATIAL EFFECTS of such policies, which otherwise would in “zero-sum” game Urban-rural relations are particularly at stake. Urban growth may establish synergies with the capacity of attraction of surrounding urban areas, or may result in a negative externality. Thus managing urban-rural relation is also about managing attractiveness at the correct regional scale. European policies targeting territorial cohesion and smart, sustainable and inclusive development have to know what is the foreseeable effect on the attractive of regions and the potential responsiveness for certain groups. For instance, making a few “European engine places” very accessible may lead to their abrupt loss of attractiveness in a very short time (impact of low-cost airlines in places like Venice, Barcelona). While pointing at strengthening the position of second-order cities may take some weigh off crowded urban areas. Policy consequences

8. Conceptual framework

9. Environmental Capital (climate, natural resources, protected landscapes, green areas, rural areas and/or settlement structures, etc. ) Antropic Capital (monuments and landmarks,quality of the built environment, housing, infrastructure, hotels, etc. ) Economic Capital (firms and sectors, level of economic activity, employment, networks and clusters, innovativeness, investments, centrality, etc. ) TERRITORIAL CAPITAL (potential assets) Social & Cultural Capital (populationdiversity, social networks, gender / ethnic participation, crime, academic production, cultural activities etc. ) Institutional Capital (democracy, efficiency of the system, tax climate, participatory processes, accessibility, etc. ) Human Capital (skills and diversity of workforce, scholarisation levels,, etc. ) Public decision-makers Sectoral stakeholders MOBILISATION (governance processes outcome Redistribution of resources Associations of categories Economic performance Cultural agencies / NGOs Residents (different types by educational level / income / skills / mobility profiles / etc.) Visitors (different types by type of stay / tourism activity / cultural profiles / etc.) POTENTIAL USERS AND ATTRACTION FACTORS Attraction factors for residents (accessibility /labour market / quality of place / tax climate / security / cultural and social dynamism / etc.) Attraction factors for visitors (accessibility /entertainment offer / quality of place / costs / specific interest facilities / etc.)

10. STEP 1 STEP 3 STEP 2 influence of territorial assets of realised attraction of regional users Block A variables (regional users) Block B variables (territorial capital) Estimation techniques dynamic and path-dependency effects Typology of regional attractiveness Typology of territorial capital endowments STEP 4 ESPON spatial typologies Multivariate analysis and bi-variate cross-tabulation techniques ATTREG typology of attractive regions and spatial effects STEP 5 Case study analysis Qualitative analysis of mobilisation factors STEP 6 Block C variables (economic structure) Structural model estimation Qualitative audit of key decision-makers Scenario analysis INDICATIONS FOR POLICY

11. “AUDIENCES” (attracted populations): • High-skilled labour force (mostly from OECD countries) • Low-skilled labour force (mostly from non-OECD countries) • Tourists • “traditional” – upscale and budget • “unconventional” (new lifestyle mobilities) • “ASSETS” (dimensions of territorial capital): • Physical / environmental cap. • Environmental amenities, degree of protection, climate, etc. • Antropic cap. • Heritage, architecture, infrastructure, etc. • Economic cap. • Economic structure, jobs, innovativeness, purchasing power, etc. • Social & cultural cap. • Social diversity, participation by ethnic and gender, cultural activities and infrastructure, etc. • Human cap. • Skills and diversity of human resource pool • Institutional cap. • Governance structures, government effectiveness, transparency, etc. ? • How do different audiences respond to differences in endowments (or changes) in dimensions of territorial capital • How are these phenomena distributed territorially, what are their local and spatial effects • Regional typologies • “DESCRIPTIVE”: • According to endowments of different classes of territorial capital • According to mobilised flows (“winner” and “loser” regions) • “ANALYTICAL” • According to effects (matching different categories or ATTREG categories with other ESPON typologies) • According to geographical typologies (coastal vs. inland, peripheral vs. central, urban vs. rural, ESPON space vs. CEC countries, etc.)

12. Role of case studies • To obtain fine-grained knowledge about processes of “mobilisation” of territorial assets to achieve attractiveness and the role of specific policies • To explain counter-intuitive results • To analyse in deep spatial effects (spatial externalities, network effects) • To conduct intra-regional and qualitative analysis • To provide a foundation and identify common issues in typologies as resulting from clustering and other analytic techniques

13. Role of territorial scenario analysis • What does knowledge about territorial attractiveness and attraction factor contributes to established ESPON scenarios? • How will the attractiveness of cities and regions evolve in the medium-long term? • What is the role of economic factors in generating “equilibria” in the spatial distribution of attractiveness? • What is a desirable “mix” of audiences and how could local and European policy “orient” attractiveness to achieve it?

14. Role of policy analysis • How are main European policy documents incorporating an attention to territorial attractiveness • What are the policy options (also in terms of expected impacts) in re-structuring the European map of mobilities? • What opportunities are there to re-focus European planning and policy on attractiveness? • AIM • To develope a much clearer set of ideas about the relationships between the key endowment factors and different audiences as well as the ‘mobilisation process’ • to investigate the local, regional and EU policy conditions that might influence the mobilisation of assets that attract. • But in particular: • To be able to identify different ‘policy bundles’ (or instruments) in association with mobilising processes that lead to different outcomes in given conditions.

15. First steps forward • Inception report of conceptual and methodological focus, delivered June 2010 and substantially approved • A list of variables and a database in construction (assembling different sources – ESPON and non-ESPON – and some collection in CEC countries) • A cartographic base to reproduce the first results • Contractual stage concluded and first reporting on-going • First ATTREG International Workshop tomorrow (19 Nov) in Leuven, with lecturers and discussants from relevant ESPON projects and other experts • A web-management tool for the project implemented and a website to be opened soon (www.attreg.espon2013.net)

16. Database ATTREG (7 months after the start of the project)

17. Sources used

18. THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION! • antonio.russo@urv.cat • loris.servillo@asro.kuleuven.be