Abstract Urban forms are increasingly reflective of socio-economic change in metropolitan regions. The present study illustrates an original approach to identify latent mechanisms of urban growth through the analysis of metropolitan spatial structures and their proximate drivers of change. Urban transformations are evaluated here using built-up patches as the elementary analysis unit and background socio-economic attributes at four stages of the “city life cycle” (urbanization, suburbanization, dis-urbanization, re-urbanization). Regression models based on 13 indicators assessing urban patch area and shape, nearest neighbour urban patch area and shape, elevation, distance from 5 urban centres, 2 road infrastructures and sea coastline, were run with the aim to investigate direction and intensity of metropolitan growth in post-war Athens (1948–2012), a southern European city shifting from a compact mono-centric form towards discontinuous urban structures. Mono-centric configurations were characterized by linear dependence of urban patch size from the distance to central cities. Shifts toward scattered urban forms were associated with changes in the multivariate relationship between urban patch size and territorial drivers, pointing out the increased complexity of dispersed metropolitan structures. Our approach integrates economic and ecological visions of urban landscapes and contributes to understanding long-term mechanisms of metropolitan growth under dynamic spatial equilibriums. Investigating the multiple relationships between form and functions at the base of socio-economic transformations are relevant issues when identifying and profiling urbanization cycles.

中文翻译：

---

长期增长与大都市空间结构：不同经济周期下城市斑块规模影响因素分析

摘要 城市形态越来越多地反映大都市区的社会经济变化。本研究展示了一种通过分析大都市空间结构及其变化的直接驱动因素来确定城市增长潜在机制的原始方法。这里使用建成区作为基本分析单元和“城市生命周期”四个阶段（城市化、郊区化、非城市化、再城市化）的背景社会经济属性来评估城市转型。基于 13 个评估城市斑块面积和形状、最近邻城市斑块面积和形状、高程、与 5 个城市中心的距离、2 个道路基础设施和海岸线的指标的回归模型，旨在调查大都市增长的方向和强度。战后雅典（1948-2012），一个南欧城市从紧凑的单一中心形式转向不连续的城市结构。单中心配置的特点是城市斑块大小与中心城市的距离呈线性相关。向分散的城市形态转变与城市斑块大小和领土驱动因素之间多元关系的变化有关，指出分散的大都市结构的复杂性增加。我们的方法整合了城市景观的经济和生态愿景，有助于理解动态空间平衡下大都市增长的长期机制。在识别和分析城市化周期时，研究基于社会经济转型的形式和功能之间的多重关系是相关问题。