170 likes | 175 Views
Functional regions: Which regions and what functions?. By Lewis Dijkstra Deputy Head of Unit Economic and Quantitative Analysis Unit. Overview. Metro regions Remote regions Rural regions Labour Market Areas. Metro regions: Why and how?.
E N D
Functional regions: Which regions and what functions? By Lewis Dijkstra Deputy Head of Unit Economic and Quantitative Analysis Unit
Overview • Metro regions • Remote regions • Rural regions • Labour Market Areas
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
Capital metros play an bigger role in less developed Member States
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 non-metro 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
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
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
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
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
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
LAMAS next steps • Analysis of the LAMAS to assess their socio-economic situation and performance • Eurostat will develop a harmonised labour market area definition which can be applied to the entire EU
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.