Stefanos Tsigdinos (p), Nikolas Thomopoulos

Naoyuki Mori

Active travel has been at the core of attempts to promote sustainable mobility and contribute towards the Sustainable Development Goals, whilst creating more liveable cities. Cycling has been featuring as a prominent alternative or at least complement to car-centric urban planning and it has an established contribution in local and regional economic development. Nonetheless, the uptake has been quite low and stagnant in large parts of Europe. Electric bicycles, namely e-bikes, have rejuvenated interest, largely due to the support they offer to overcome any local or regional geomorphological challenges. Yet, distribution of e-bikes and their required infrastructure have reintroduced debates linked with equity and inclusion.

This submission aims at evaluating docked e-bike schemes in selected cities across Greece to offer evidence and insight about improving current plans and policies. An urban typology is created first using four carefully selected cities based on a series of criteria, namely Kalamata, Rhodes, Kozani and Lamia. The focus is deliberately on smaller cities with a population of less than 100,000 permanent residents, but selection criteria also include location, geomorphology and number of tourists visiting annually. Then, an equity analysis of e-bike docking station locations is conducted for each selected city, using different equity types and principles, such as horizontal, vertical and egalitarian. Lastly, the ongoing socio-spatial inequality analysis is conducted within each city to establish best practice and areas requiring improvement. This analysis is based on secondary socio-demographic data and leads to the final multi-city typology of e-bikes, which informs the policy recommendations.

Preliminary findings demonstrate interregional differences both within and between cities, highlighting disparities across urban areas. The latter is particularly evident in cities with lower numbers of tourists or in cities with more challenging geomorphology and patchy infrastructure provision. Gaps are identified in existing planning practice and therefore offer useful input to support formal planning initiatives, such as Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan updates. Through an initial flow analysis, valuable insights are offered for practitioners, academics and policy makers regarding the development of sustainable business models for new mobility services, which serve both user and city objectives. In such, this submission meets a dual objective of supporting more widespread cycling across smaller cities with limited public transport options, while at the same time it tests an effective method of meeting inclusive and sustainable transport objectives. Outputs enhance evidence-based policy making at local and regional policy levels, which foster sustainable shared mobility.

Naoyuki Mori (p), Kiyoshi Takami, Giancarlos Parady

Dimitrios Manoukas

Since the 1960s, rapid population growth in the Tokyo metropolitan area has led to the development of residential areas on hilly terrain far from railway stations. In these undulating suburban areas, the aging population is facing increasing difficulty in walking uphill to access public transportation.
Older people experience a decline in physical function, resulting in slower walking speeds and increased physical strain when navigating slopes. Therefore, incorporating these factors into accessibility evaluations is crucial. However, many previous studies have not fully considered the physical limitations of older people.
Metabolic conversion distance is therefore a useful concept to evaluate older people’s access to public transportation. This distance accounts for both the increased physical strain while navigating slopes and slower walking speeds associated with aging-related declines in physical function. It is calculated using metabolic energy expenditure when walking uphill as an indicator of the physical strain while navigating slopes. Additionally, the inverse ratio of observed walking speed to the standard walking speed (4 km/h) quantifies the impact of slower walking speeds.
This study focused on Kanazawa Ward in Yokohama City, which is located approximately 40 km southwest of Tokyo. This area has a rapidly aging population and numerous residential neighborhoods on hilly terrain. Employing the concept of metabolic conversion distance, this study evaluated access to the nearest bus stop and compared the results with those of conventional methods such as crow-fly and network distances. The 300 m catchment area was calculated for bus stops and the population within each area.
The metabolic conversion distance to the nearest bus stop was, on average, 1.62 times longer than the network distance, and its standard deviation was approximately 1.66 times greater. Relative to the entire Kanazawa Ward , the coverage ratio of the catchment area was 73.0% for crow-fly distance, but only 55.5% for network distance, and 30.2% for metabolic conversion distance. Furthermore, on a population level, the coverage ratio of the catchment area, relative to the entire Kanazawa Ward, was 85.8% for crow-fly distance. However, this ratio was only 68.3% for network distance and 36.5% for metabolic conversion distance. Approximately 57% of the population within the catchment area by crow-fly distance fell outside the catchment area by metabolic conversion distance.
Many municipalities evaluate accessibility using crow-fly distance. However, the present findings demonstrate that such evaluations may significantly underestimate the accessibility challenges faced by older people.

Dimitrios Manoukas (p)

Artur Walasik

The proposed presentation will attempt to intertwine three research topics that are often explored in the multidisciplinary fields of Regional Development and Cultural Studies: collaborative workspaces, youth, and social innovation. Based on qualitative data collected in the regions of Extremadura (Spain), Aarhus (Denmark), and the Southill area of Limerick (Ireland) where the FUNDECYT-PCTX incubator and technological park, the Institut for (X) collaborative initiative, and the Southill Hub are located, the research brings together these aspects through a spatial and place-based methodological approach. The peripheral aspect of the processes in place will also be highlighted as all spaces constitute revived or rebranded initiatives.
Based on research findings by the Cowork4YOUTH EEA program and the REMAKING Horizon Project, the presentation explores three research questions: the role of the spaces in fostering social innovation, the impact on the local youth, and the transformative effects on the region. The PhD researcher visited each of the spaces for 3 weeks and collected data through semi-structured interviews and focus groups with either young beneficiaries and trainers or stakeholders. This data will be analyzed through a spatial approach that aspires to reveal the dynamics that support youth employment and community engagement while taking into consideration the evolution of these spaces in time and their connection with local regeneration efforts. The objective is a meta-evaluation of collaborative spaces as ‘learning middlegrounds’ and their role in fostering social and digital innovation.

Artur Walasik (p), Edyta Szafranek-Stefaniuk

Aurélie Lalanne

Space is one of the most important resources for socio-economic development. This issue falls within the scope of spatial economics, which shapes the socio-economic system in the spatial perspective. Currently, in the context of both the reduction of undeveloped surface resources and the emerging environmental barriers to management (e.g. the deteriorating quality of the natural environment, excessive amounts of waste, too low assimilation capacity of ecosystems or the need to adapt to climate change), shaping such a system requires responsible policy and spatial management, integrated with other territorially oriented public policies. These problems are particularly important in the case of urban areas, which are places where most people live and concentrate economic activity, while the quality of spatial resources is shrinking and deteriorating and the need to meet climatic/environmental challenges. On the other, local public economics introduces a spatial dimension to the considerations concerning public finances. Considerations in the field of spatial oriented public finances fail to undertake in-depth studies on the connections between local finance and spatial economy, in the ecological aspect, focusing rather on strictly economic factors. The discussion of the confluence of scientific research programmes of urban economics and local public economics could be conducted by the assumption of the problemshift in the meaning of Lakatosian methodology of scientific research programmes. The paper attempts to determine the resilience of the hard core of scientific research programs of urban economics and local public economics to disruptions resulting from contemporary challenges facing cities, in particular those related to climate change. In connection with this, the theoretical and methodological assumptions (paradigms) of public economics and spatial economics were recorded in the context of their ability to explain policy provides by cities in the field of spatial development, especially in the conditions of growing expectations of local communities regarding an ecologically responsible local finance. Attempts were also made to formulate auxiliary hypotheses that could constitute a protective belt for local public economics and urban economics.

Aurélie Lalanne (p)

Stefanos Tsigdinos

At the end of the 18th century, the French Revolution initiated a profound restructuring of the administrative system to rationalize and unify the national territory. In 1800, 376 sub-prefectures were established alongside departmental prefectures to ensure decentralized administration and strengthen state control across the country. These sub-prefectures concentrated key administrative functions, such as courts of first instance, tax services, gendarmerie posts, and other public services, while also playing a vital economic role by stimulating local economies. As such, sub-prefectures were crucial in maintaining territorial balance.
Since their creation, only one major reform has significantly altered this administrative structure. Following World War I, amid a budgetary crisis and modernization efforts, the French government reconsidered its territorial organization. In 1926, the Poincaré decree led to the removal of 106 sub-prefectures as part of a rationalization policy aimed at reducing public expenditures. However, the long-term impact of this decree remains largely unexplored. The loss of sub-prefecture status likely diminished the economic and administrative appeal of the affected municipalities. With the disappearance of public services and the economic flows they generated, these areas may have experienced demographic decline, characterized by migration to larger cities. This trend aligns with broader patterns of rural exodus and centralization, further exacerbating territorial inequalities. Although intended to optimize administration, this reform may have had significant consequences for local demographic dynamics, highlighting the complex relationship between state administrative organization and territorial development.
This article seeks to quantify these effects using a difference-in-differences econometric approach to assess the long-term demographic impact of the reform on the affected municipalities. The study relies on an extensive database of French municipal census data spanning the period 1800–2015. This approach compares demographic trends in former sub-prefectures to two control groups: municipalities that were never sub-prefectures and those that retained their sub-prefecture status. By controlling for pre-existing trends, this methodology isolates the causal effect of losing administrative status.