Veronika Tóth, Miriam Šebová (p)

Gustavo Castro

With over half the world’s population residing in cities, urban centres face unique vulnerabilities due to the concentration of people and economic activities. While international and national efforts to combat climate change exist, cities play a crucial role in tackling this unprecedented challenge. Altered land cover surfaces in these areas exacerbate microclimatic phenomena, such as the urban heat island and reduced infiltration capacity leading to flash floods. Climate change is expected to have severe consequences for human health, social inequality, economic prosperity, ecosystems, and more.
In Slovakia, extreme heat poses a significant threat, particularly to vulnerable populations. As climate conditions worsen, adaptation becomes increasingly expensive. Efficient allocation of scarce resources becomes critical. This research addresses the need to prioritize adaptation measures in the most vulnerable cities. The study presents a composite index which incorporates climate, land cover, socioeconomic, and governance indicators and provides a comprehensive assessment of extreme heat vulnerability in Slovak cities. The selection of indicators was guided by the discourse on social equity in urban resilience planning, outlined e.g. in (Meerow et al., 2019). The need to address vulnerable groups, prioritize those with fewer financial resources, or account for citizen participation was reflected in the final set of relevant variables. The final database includes 15 partial indicators for each of the 141 Slovak cities.
The general methodological approach used in this study follows a widely used and accepted Handbook on Constructing Composite Indicators by the OECD (2008). The specific methodology applied for this case mimics the one used in the study dedicated to adaptation in Slovakia (OECD, 2023). The result identifies the most and the least vulnerable cities in Slovakia, which could be relevant information for decision-makers to provide informed adaptation measures for climate change.

Gustavo Castro (p), Carlos Azzoni (p)

Laura Iacob

Urban shrinkage, characterized by population decline, and urban sprawl, defined as disordered territorial expansion, have become growing concerns in several regions worldwide, raising questions about their economic implications. These phenomena have significant economic implications, as population decline can lead to a shrinking tax base, declining public revenues, and underutilized infrastructure, while urban sprawl may increase infrastructure costs, reduce economic density, and weaken agglomeration economies. One of the key concerns is their impact on labor productivity, as shrinking cities may experience a mismatch between labor supply and demand, reduced firm competitiveness, and declining returns to scale, while urban sprawl can further dilute economic activity over a larger area, weakening productivity gains. This study investigates this paradox between urban shrinkage and sprawl in Brazilian municipalities, using data from the 2010 and 2022 Demographic Censuses to assess their joint effects on labor productivity.
We use a dummy variable for municipalities that experienced population decline between 2010 and 2022. We measure urban sprawl as the growth rate of urban area (in hectares) using satellite imagery data. Historical climatic shocks (drought anomalies) are used as an Instrumental Variable (IV) to urban shrinkage and sprawl.
We find that urban shrinkage significantly increases labor productivity, but this effect is mitigated in municipalities with higher urban sprawl. The interaction term between shrinkage and sprawl is consistently negative across all IV specifications, indicating that spatial expansion resulted in productivity losses in shrinking cities. Robustness checks, including the inclusion of regional, socioeconomic, geographic, and infrastructure controls, confirm the validity of the results.
These findings contribute to the literature by highlighting the trade-off between population decline and spatial expansion. While urban sprawl may initially compensate for economic downturns in shrinking areas, its long-term effects on productivity appear to be negative. Policymakers should consider these dynamics when designing strategies for urban resilience and regional development.

Laura Iacob (p), Flavia Lucia Ghencea, Noemia Bessa Vilela

Minas Angelidis

Since the beginning, the Smart City concept has been mainly associated with the use of information, communication, technology to improve the different areas of city management (mobility, administration, health, education and so on).
This article aims at analyzing the governance related with the implementation of Smart Cities in Romania and to identify if there are any intergovernmental coordination. For smart cities to function efficiently, multiple levels of government (local, regional, national, and even supranational) must align their policies, resources, and technologies. Without coordination, country ends up with fragmented initiatives, redundant infrastructure, and a whole lot of wasted taxpayer money.
Political actors play an integral part in fostering or hindering the success of intergovernmental coordination. Ideally, such coordination allows governmental actors to increase both the effectiveness and legitimacy of public decisions. But, in Romania the consultation procedure and policy advice are formal rather than practical, so the public policies coordination system focused more on procedural dimension of public policy formulation.
Despite Romanian IT&C sector has experienced continuous growth over the last decade, government digitalization failed his target of implementation. Efforts have been made to digitize administrative processes, such as online business registration and digital public service. Romania has introduced open data platforms to improve government transparency and citizen engagement, but the process but the process faced the reluctance of some institutions that were self-financing from the funds accumulated based on access to their information.
Romania must learn from Estonia that created a single, unified e-Government platform, X-Road, that integrates all public services supported by a national AI and cybersecurity framework for digital trust.
Poland is ahead because it has a national Smart City strategy and stronger regional cooperation.
Romania lags in funding utilization, while Poland efficiently absorbs EU grants for urban tech projects. Both countries struggle with intergovernmental coordination, but Poland’s larger cities actively push smart solutions.
Some suggestions to improve the Romanian governance are: the development of an administrative culture which promotes horizontal cooperation; dissemination of the good practices of a city in implementing a project; the consultation procedure and political advice become a real practice and not just a check-off procedure, based on a systematic dialogue between the actors; a strategic framework for public policies vertically coordinated so that the achievement of the objectives has the support of the necessary resources; mechanisms for mediation and solving the conflicts or the divergences between actors involved; a solid consultation with stakeholders.

Minas Angelidis (p)

Miriam Šebová

The paper discusses the evolution of the Greek urban system and its constituent cities after 2010: during the periods of the Greek economic crisis, the covid-19 pandemic and Ukraine war, in the frame of the European Union (EU) territory. The paper also explores the resilience of this system seen in the frame of the policy of the EU and its strategy towards a Green and Digital future. Emphasis is given to the major cities of the urban system. The paper uses, among other things, data from the 2021 population census, which significantly enhances the evidence of the research work.
Our basic position is that, in the period under review, the Greek urban system was significantly transformed under the influence of exogenous and endogenous economic and social changes and especially of the Community policies for Greece.
Specifically, the following issues are examined: (α) the changes in Greece in the period under review in the context of the evolution of the European Union and its policies for Greece. (b) The evolution of the structure of the national urban system as well as of the structures and the roles of its constituent cities. (c) The specific change of the sectors related to the Greek cities’ smart, inclusive and green development (d) The urban system inability to enough support the health system during the Covid-19 pandemic (e) The expected implications of the EU strategy and policies towards recovery and a Green and Digital future to the Greek urban system (f) Proposals for a Greek urban system’ strategy and key actions in order to utilize the new policies to upgrade and contribute to the smart, green and inclusive development of the country.
References: Indicatively: (1) National / regional reports and publications on regional and urban development in Greece (2) Ministers for Spatial Planning - EU (2020) Territorial Agenda 2030 - A future for all places. Lisboa, Directorate-General for Territory (DGT) (3) Greek Statistical Authority, Population census 2021