Cebrián Abellán, F.; Andrés López, G.; Bellet Sanfeliú, C. The Use of GIS and Multicriteria Techniques for the Socio-Spatial Analysis of Urban Areas in Medium-Sized Spanish Cities. Land2023, 12, 1115.
Cebrián Abellán, F.; Andrés López, G.; Bellet Sanfeliú, C. The Use of GIS and Multicriteria Techniques for the Socio-Spatial Analysis of Urban Areas in Medium-Sized Spanish Cities. Land 2023, 12, 1115.
Cebrián Abellán, F.; Andrés López, G.; Bellet Sanfeliú, C. The Use of GIS and Multicriteria Techniques for the Socio-Spatial Analysis of Urban Areas in Medium-Sized Spanish Cities. Land2023, 12, 1115.
Cebrián Abellán, F.; Andrés López, G.; Bellet Sanfeliú, C. The Use of GIS and Multicriteria Techniques for the Socio-Spatial Analysis of Urban Areas in Medium-Sized Spanish Cities. Land 2023, 12, 1115.
Abstract
In recent decades, particularly intense changes have occurred in Spanish urban areas. This is the result of demographic and urbanizing transformations that have led to a change in the city model. The predominance of compact forms has been replaced by the growing prominence of urban sprawl. Structures are now more extensive, characterized, in turn, by fragmentation and notable consumption of land in the peripheries. In medium-sized cities, the municipalities bordering the central cities have concentrated the processes of suburbanization and periurbanization. This paper addresses the process of change for 34 cities and their urban areas located in inland Spain. A proposal is made for the delimitation and characterization of urban areas, taking the municipality as the unit of analysis. At the methodological level, six variables are used, analyzed by means of multicriteria statistical techniques combined with the use of GIS tools. An Urban Transformation Index (ITU) has been developed that synthesizes urbanizing, demographic and socioeconomic dynamics. In the territorial area, the 20-minute isochrone is used as a reference. In the temporal domain, the period of analysis addresses the events of the first two decades of the twenty-first century.
Keywords
Urban Areas; Medium Cities; Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
Subject
Social Sciences, Geography, Planning and Development
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.