Regionalised sprawl: conceptualising suburbanisation in the European context

Abstract

Being recognised as the predominant urban pattern of the twenty-first century, suburbanisation is a global phenomenon that is characteristically regionalised: time- and site-specific factors and conditions differently shape its emergence in different locations. Post-suburbia and suburban governance are two analytical perspectives that are used to account for the global and regionalised character of suburbanisation. However, conceptualising suburbanisation in Europe should also more clearly encompass the role of spatial planning systems and the related actors’ sociopolitical configurations. We here propose an institutional, actor-centred conceptual framework accounting for spatial planning to more effectively analyse processes and patterns of European regionalised global suburbanisation.