**The Evolution and Spatial Dynamics of Coastal Cities in Greece**

Serafeim Polyzos and Dimitrios Tsiotas *Department of Planning and Regional Development, University of Thessaly, Greece* 

### **1. Introduction**

274 Urban Development

other sympathizers of co-operative enterprise. The tendency of the Government to dominate the co-operatives as in the past should be avoided, but will play a key facilitation role. The heart of the strategy should be a pro-poor participatory co-operative development and modernization education programs that may be drawn on the positive lessons of the wide range of participatory approach based pilot projects. This may bring fundamental change of attitudes and approaches of particularly the government policy makers and other interested stakeholders including extension officers, Co-operative support institutions, co-operative movement and other sectors in the economy. Likely they will succeed to introduce appropriate changes of the mindsets and governance practices. The study concludes that towards enhancing social-solidarity economy for improved livelihoods of members within city's neighborhoods or within cooperative associations, private-public partnership (PPP) may be an important combination to be considered in urban development. If the linkages and partnerships are not well created and addressed in policy and institutional settings, it may be difficult to retrofit and may enhance urban poverty in Sub-Saharan African cities

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Kashuliza, A.K. and Tembele R. C., (1996), Tanzania Coffee Marketing Study with emphasis on Kilimanjaro Region (Final Report); Royal Norwegian Society for Development. Magigi, W,, Drescher, A. (2009), The dynamics of land use change and tenure systems in

Paul Bottelberge and Elijah Agevi (2010), Leading Change in Cooperatives and Member

leadership development, *Paper presented on September, 2010, Nairobi, Kenya*  Suleiman Chambo (2010). The Cooperative Reform Process in Tanzania and Sri Lanka,

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Economics Journal, 12:225-236.

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Dar es Salaam.

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Sub-Saharan Africa cities; learning from Himo community protest, conflict and interest in urban planning practice in Tanzania, *Habitat International Journal*,

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and rural settings.

**5. References** 

The procedure of human evolution has been always connected with the concepts of space and time. Communities that existed in the same chronological period in different geographic locations, such as communities that existed in the same geographic location at different eras, present various patterns of development. This statement indicates, on one hand, the significance of the spatial parameter to the Economic and Regional Analysis and, on the other hand, the directions that the Economic Research should be oriented to, in order to provide more complete outcomes. From the amount of spatial attributes that a geographic location may possess, the present article deals with the coastal one. Coastal areas have played diachronically a leading role to the development of human civilization, ought to their geographical characteristics, focused on to the seaside location , which provides many transportation advantages, such as development of ports (Li, 2003), commodity (trade development) (Cori, 1999) and also environmental advantages, such as mild climate and natural beauty (Yeung, 2001). The purpose of this chapter is to study the evolution and the spatial dynamics of coastal cities, through a spatial, statistical and regional analytic approach, in order to recognize and to interpret the patterns that describe this evolution, under the regional economic and policy perspective.

In particular, the chapter focuses on the case of Greek coastal cities (Polyzos et al., 2011), as it follows. First of all, this choice is considered by the authors to be a challenge, since the case of Greek coastal cities lies under the individuality of not presenting extended population coverage, agglomeration or demographic mega phenomena. This fact differentiates the performance of the Greek coastal system from other cases' and sets an inverse scaling transformation to the until now research findings of this field (Yeung, 2001; Sheng Han and Yan, 1999; Li, 2003; Sekovski et al., 2011). Secondly, the case of studying a recent Greek spatial and economic system is particularly up to date, by the time that Greece is currently being subjected to an economic crisis (considered from many to be an introducing crisis to the European economic system), fact that is expected to reveal some vital axes in order to comprehend the developmental potentials of the Country. Another reason is the authors' Greek parentage, which sets the Greek case to be a familiar research field. Finally, although the research on coastal cities' dynamics presents an efficient scientific matter (Miller & Auyong, 1991; Cori, 1999; Yeung, 2001; Li, 2003), so in Global as in

The Evolution and Spatial Dynamics of Coastal Cities in Greece 277

status (Roberts, 1989). Urbanization suggested the phenomenon of abandoning the rural areas and settling in cities, under the prospect of exploiting better employment opportunities (Long et al., 2009) and, in general, higher level of life quality, ought to population's agglomeration acts (Ο' Sullivan, 2003). When urbanization came into prominence (Roberts, 1989; Ο' Sullivan, 2003), which was placed in the last century (Li, 2003)and presented its peak the period from 1960s to 1980s (Cohen, 2004; Satterthwaite, 2005 (Sekovski et al., 2011)), global population distribution altered and led to the formation of significant urban concentrations, mainly into places that were benefited from environmental, mineral sources, transportation and geographical privileges. These dense residential entities were transformed to cities and further to megacities, consisting

The most rapid urbanization process has been conducted mostly at the past century, so as to be considered, (in this rapid scale) also known as "urban sprawl" (Sekovski et al., 2011), a historical event. In 1900, not more than the 14% of the world's population lived in urban centers, whereas in 2000, it is estimated that more than the 50% of the world's population lived in one of at least 16–17 world's biggest megacities, each having population over 10 million people, with the majority of these to occur in the developing world (Li, 2003). Today, the phenomenon of urbanization is still present, in different or transformed patterns, but it is significantly lower (Sekovski et al., 2011). Because of this procedure, coastal areas suggested attractive destinations for the acts of colonization. At the modern metaurbanization period, the urban centers were saturated, regarding population density, and another act of population shifting occurred and favored the coastal cities development. These demographic pressures detonated through the act of locomotion from a dense city to a rarer, under the terms of acquiring better life quality (Cori, 1999). Furthermore, these pressures, in conjunction with the consequent continuous need for expansion of urban cores (Beriatos & Papageorgiou, 2010), usually took place through a city's projection along its coastal forehead (Cori, 1999), which rendered the evolution of coastal cities to be considered

Greece is a country that is characterized by high coastal concentration and it is estimated that almost the 57% of the country's population live in coastal areas (Polyzos et al., 2011). This considerable coastal concentration oughts its existence to the urbanization procedure, as also to meta-urbanization peripheral shifting. The demographic pressures, observed at the modern meta-urbanization period, were detonated through the act of locomotion from a dense city to a rarer, under the terms of acquiring life quality (Cori, 1999). These detonation trends constituted a parameter in the Hellenic seaside towns' development, during the

The developmental significance of coastal areas is strongly correlated with the seaside location. The adjacency of coastal areas to the sea, suggests an attribute that provides a set of advantages to the residential units, which are placed near the sea. The most important facilities that coastal areas provide and direct to respective economical opportunities are transportation (Li, 2003), commodity (Cori, 1999) environmental and cultural (Yeung, 2001;

Sekovski et al., 2011), supply and touristic (Sekovski et al., 2011).

considerable population vertices of the universal urban network.

a multivariable spatial phenomenon.

period 1961 – 2001.

**1.3 Spatial characteristics** 

Mediterranean scale, the analogue Greek research can be characterized springtime, fact that sets the utility of this chapter to be considered introducing.

#### **1.1 Definitions and conceptual framework**

The concept of "coastal city" includes two semantic components, at first the significance of "coastal" and secondly the concept of "city". Consequently, a single definition of a coastal city cannot be easily derived, since it suggests a synthetic notion, which depends on the concessions that regard the corresponding components (Sekovski et al., 2011). The coastal component refers to a residential entity's spatial attribute, which depends on the distance and the elevation that this entity possess from the sea. This definition contains, a priori, a degree of subjectivity that is based on the conventions held each time (Klein et al., 2003). In international level, coastal regions suggest a 40-mile wide zone from the coastline (Cori, 1999), but this definition lacks from spatial rigidity. Regarding Greece, the elevation parameter does not suggest a concern, because Greek coastal morphology does not present, in the majority of instances, precipitate and inaccessible shapes, so as the most of the coastal city formations have direct projections to the seaside. The distance parameter was studied for Greece in the past and concluded to a classification (Kiousopoulos, 2008), under which coastal areas can be divided into three (3) categories: (a) the spatial units that have direct contact with the sea (are littoral), (b) spatial units that lack direct contact but are adjacent to littoral (having an easy access to the sea) and (c) these spatial units which are deprived of any contact with the sea.

As far as it concerns the conceptual component of "cities", similar problems of subjectivity arise. In the international literature, there is an inconsistency about the volume of the population threshold that classifies a (coastal) city to be considered "megacity". Some suggestive values for this threshold are recorded to be 1, 8, and 10 million inhabitants (Cross, 2001). Regarding the Greek case, the urban units of "Athens" and "Thessaloniki" fulfill the population criteria of the first mentioned threshold value, so as to be considered "megacities". In the present study "Athens" and "Thessaloniki" are not defined as megacities, so as the component cities of these units can be examined separately, ought to the limited scale effect of Greece.

This acceptance was held due to the previous megacity threshold argument and due to the fact that, if it is considered that these two Greek city clusters of "Athens" and "Thessaloniki" as urban units, then the coastal cities number, with a significant population coverage, is considerably being reduced. Furthermore, the criteria of defining residential units as "cities" are respectively fuzzy. This subjectivity is managed in international and national levels through conventional acts, such as laws. According to the United Nations' perspective for large scale cities, the term "megacities" regards urban agglomerations with at least 10 million inhabitants (Sekovski et al., 2011). In the Greek legislation status, the corresponding conventional act that defines Greek cities and provides a city sizing discrimination is the Act 3643/2006.

#### **1.2 History**

The developmental dynamics of coastal cities became significant at the period that urbanization trends appeared, with a result to rearrange the spatial population distribution

Mediterranean scale, the analogue Greek research can be characterized springtime, fact that

The concept of "coastal city" includes two semantic components, at first the significance of "coastal" and secondly the concept of "city". Consequently, a single definition of a coastal city cannot be easily derived, since it suggests a synthetic notion, which depends on the concessions that regard the corresponding components (Sekovski et al., 2011). The coastal component refers to a residential entity's spatial attribute, which depends on the distance and the elevation that this entity possess from the sea. This definition contains, a priori, a degree of subjectivity that is based on the conventions held each time (Klein et al., 2003). In international level, coastal regions suggest a 40-mile wide zone from the coastline (Cori, 1999), but this definition lacks from spatial rigidity. Regarding Greece, the elevation parameter does not suggest a concern, because Greek coastal morphology does not present, in the majority of instances, precipitate and inaccessible shapes, so as the most of the coastal city formations have direct projections to the seaside. The distance parameter was studied for Greece in the past and concluded to a classification (Kiousopoulos, 2008), under which coastal areas can be divided into three (3) categories: (a) the spatial units that have direct contact with the sea (are littoral), (b) spatial units that lack direct contact but are adjacent to littoral (having an easy access to the sea) and (c) these spatial units which are deprived of

As far as it concerns the conceptual component of "cities", similar problems of subjectivity arise. In the international literature, there is an inconsistency about the volume of the population threshold that classifies a (coastal) city to be considered "megacity". Some suggestive values for this threshold are recorded to be 1, 8, and 10 million inhabitants (Cross, 2001). Regarding the Greek case, the urban units of "Athens" and "Thessaloniki" fulfill the population criteria of the first mentioned threshold value, so as to be considered "megacities". In the present study "Athens" and "Thessaloniki" are not defined as megacities, so as the component cities of these units can be examined separately, ought to

This acceptance was held due to the previous megacity threshold argument and due to the fact that, if it is considered that these two Greek city clusters of "Athens" and "Thessaloniki" as urban units, then the coastal cities number, with a significant population coverage, is considerably being reduced. Furthermore, the criteria of defining residential units as "cities" are respectively fuzzy. This subjectivity is managed in international and national levels through conventional acts, such as laws. According to the United Nations' perspective for large scale cities, the term "megacities" regards urban agglomerations with at least 10 million inhabitants (Sekovski et al., 2011). In the Greek legislation status, the corresponding conventional act that defines Greek cities and provides a city sizing discrimination is the Act

The developmental dynamics of coastal cities became significant at the period that urbanization trends appeared, with a result to rearrange the spatial population distribution

sets the utility of this chapter to be considered introducing.

**1.1 Definitions and conceptual framework** 

any contact with the sea.

the limited scale effect of Greece.

3643/2006.

**1.2 History** 

status (Roberts, 1989). Urbanization suggested the phenomenon of abandoning the rural areas and settling in cities, under the prospect of exploiting better employment opportunities (Long et al., 2009) and, in general, higher level of life quality, ought to population's agglomeration acts (Ο' Sullivan, 2003). When urbanization came into prominence (Roberts, 1989; Ο' Sullivan, 2003), which was placed in the last century (Li, 2003)and presented its peak the period from 1960s to 1980s (Cohen, 2004; Satterthwaite, 2005 (Sekovski et al., 2011)), global population distribution altered and led to the formation of significant urban concentrations, mainly into places that were benefited from environmental, mineral sources, transportation and geographical privileges. These dense residential entities were transformed to cities and further to megacities, consisting considerable population vertices of the universal urban network.

The most rapid urbanization process has been conducted mostly at the past century, so as to be considered, (in this rapid scale) also known as "urban sprawl" (Sekovski et al., 2011), a historical event. In 1900, not more than the 14% of the world's population lived in urban centers, whereas in 2000, it is estimated that more than the 50% of the world's population lived in one of at least 16–17 world's biggest megacities, each having population over 10 million people, with the majority of these to occur in the developing world (Li, 2003). Today, the phenomenon of urbanization is still present, in different or transformed patterns, but it is significantly lower (Sekovski et al., 2011). Because of this procedure, coastal areas suggested attractive destinations for the acts of colonization. At the modern metaurbanization period, the urban centers were saturated, regarding population density, and another act of population shifting occurred and favored the coastal cities development. These demographic pressures detonated through the act of locomotion from a dense city to a rarer, under the terms of acquiring better life quality (Cori, 1999). Furthermore, these pressures, in conjunction with the consequent continuous need for expansion of urban cores (Beriatos & Papageorgiou, 2010), usually took place through a city's projection along its coastal forehead (Cori, 1999), which rendered the evolution of coastal cities to be considered a multivariable spatial phenomenon.

Greece is a country that is characterized by high coastal concentration and it is estimated that almost the 57% of the country's population live in coastal areas (Polyzos et al., 2011). This considerable coastal concentration oughts its existence to the urbanization procedure, as also to meta-urbanization peripheral shifting. The demographic pressures, observed at the modern meta-urbanization period, were detonated through the act of locomotion from a dense city to a rarer, under the terms of acquiring life quality (Cori, 1999). These detonation trends constituted a parameter in the Hellenic seaside towns' development, during the period 1961 – 2001.

### **1.3 Spatial characteristics**

The developmental significance of coastal areas is strongly correlated with the seaside location. The adjacency of coastal areas to the sea, suggests an attribute that provides a set of advantages to the residential units, which are placed near the sea. The most important facilities that coastal areas provide and direct to respective economical opportunities are transportation (Li, 2003), commodity (Cori, 1999) environmental and cultural (Yeung, 2001; Sekovski et al., 2011), supply and touristic (Sekovski et al., 2011).

The Evolution and Spatial Dynamics of Coastal Cities in Greece 279

and, secondary, Croatia suggests the leading countries in a possible process of west-east shifting of international tourism within the Mediterranean area (Cori, 1999). Greece, in order to take advantage of its liberal touristic dynamics, should coordinate the potentialities of its archeological and artistic heritage with the traditional sea-sun-shore appeal, investing on its small islands, as recommended by Agenda 21, through a combined procedure of economic

This chapter is organized as it follows; section 2 presents the study area and the available data in the case study of Greek coastal cities, section 3 describes the research methods taken under consideration to model the case, section 4 presents the results and the evaluation and,

The initial approach, into the analysis of coastal cities developmental performance, was based on a systemic point of view. The term "systemic" has a wide conceptual range and refers to this class of methodologies that aspires to model, on a theoretical basis, the structural components of the study object and to describe its operations, under the perspective that it suggests a subsystem of a wider systemic environment. In the case of this paper, the study object refers to a manifold of chosen Greek coastal cities, which are distributed over the geographic area of Greece and suggest a spatial system. The total of coastal cities is grouped, by a geographical division, into administrative clusters, which suggest the Greek prefectures, as defined before the act of "Kallikratis" (Act 3852/2010). Consequently, the spatial units that are studied in this paper refer, on one hand, to each coastal city (spatial monad) and, on the other hand, to the pre-"Kallikrateian" Greek

The theoretic framework of the systemic approach was inspired from the Drivers-Pressures-State-Impacts-Responses (DPSIR) model (Sekovski et al., 2011). The DPSIR model suggests a chain framework of (the five title) concepts that describe, on a step (discrete) way, the inputoutput mechanism of a socio-economic phenomenon with its geographic dimensions. Given a short description, the Drivers (motivation of acts) lead to pressures on the geographical system, pressures that result to a state (balance status). The conducted operations, targeting to achieve the balance, may have environmental and economic impacts on the wider including system. Finally, the Responses present a set of societal and policy makers' prioritizations, in order to reduce the undesired impacts and, in general, to improve the performance of the system. The schematic framework of the DPSIR model, adopted to the

case of Greek coastal cities and to the needs of this study, is presented at figure 1.

The analytic approach suggests a supplementary or further analysis of the systemic modeling, which was presented above. It targets to describe, under a quantitative perspective, the parts that synthesize the study system and to quantify the systemic mechanisms. Regarding the case of Greek coastal cities, the quantitative tools that are used for the research derive from the scientific sectors of Spatial Analysis, Regional Economics

development with environmental solicitude (Cori, 1999).

prefectures (spatial units consisting groups of spatial monads).

finally, in section 5 some conclusions are given.

**2. Methodological approach** 

**2.1 Systemic methodology** 

**2.2 Analytic approach** 

In the majority of the cases, when a coastal residential unit reaches the critical population threshold, the coastal urban concentration leads to the formation of harbors (Polyzos, 2011; Sekovski et al., 2011). Since harbors exist in most coastal cities, maritime transport and the related economic accessory facilities are particularly significant factors for their development. The harbor-based economies of coastal cities, suggest an engine of economic growth, which can be expressed in variable ways, such as composition of employment centers, attraction of investment and trade and creation of production and market places for commodities and consumption (Li, 2003). Of course, the seaside location privilege diachronically entailed the risk of attacks in the history, such as piracies (Birnie, 1987; Anderson, 1995). Today coastal cities suggest a vital source of income for national economies (Li, 2003), fact that is obviously observed even in the case of Greece (Polyzos et al., 2011).

The environmental facile of coastal cities, suggests also a powerful developmental axis. Many coastal cities are located and being developed at places where additional (to seaside) physical facilities, energy source and raw material deposits exist (Decker et al., 2002), factors that are supposed to be essential for the reinforcement of the coastal city's economy. For example, the existence of water supplies and arable lands consist considerable criteria for the location of cities in general. Many coastal cities were either located (when possible) near to river endings, where potable and irrigation water supplies are plentiful so as their hydroenergy exploitation is more accessible. The deltaic end of the Greek "Evros" river represents a characteristic paradigm for the coastal city of "Alexandroupolis" environmental vantage. Regarding raw material deposits, the coastal city of "Kavala" in Greece, which is located in a geographic position plenty of marble deposits, suggest an indicant example. Environmental amenities of coastal cities also operate as an axis of cultural development and education, as an absorbent mechanism of surplus rural population, as well as the nursery for civic spirit and social harmony (Li, 2003). History of Greece can indicate various paradigms of coastal cities (suggestively at regions of "Attica", "Ionian Islands", "Crete", "Dodekanisa" etc.) that consisted cultural centers and cores of science and arts development.

The touristic facility constitutes a fundamental developmental factor to coastal cities and this statement seems to be more significant in the case of Greece, by the time that the country posses a coastline greater than 10.000 km (Cori, 1999). Nowadays, the coastal cities dynamics are mainly directed by the developmental axis of touristic utilization (Cori, 1999; Miller & Auyong, 1991), revealing a considerable amount of profitable potentials for the economy of a country. The touristic development, considered as a respond variable, on depends on other economic variables, such as the increase of peoples' leisure time (at least in developed countries), the communication and transportation improvement (Sekovski et al., 2011), the environmental, cultural and coastal attraction etc., which suggest motivations and render coastal areas to comprise obvious spatial destinations for the conduction of the touristic procedure.

The concept of coastal tourism includes, in its definition, the full range of tourism, leisure, and recreationally oriented activities that take place in the coastal zone and in the offshore coastal waters (Hall, 2001). Coastal tourism is considered one of the faster evolving forms of contemporary tourism, and, in the case of Greece, it seems to be the most promising developmental potential that the country should exploit, in order to overpass its modern economic problems. Moreover, considering the above in a larger scale framework, Greece and, secondary, Croatia suggests the leading countries in a possible process of west-east shifting of international tourism within the Mediterranean area (Cori, 1999). Greece, in order to take advantage of its liberal touristic dynamics, should coordinate the potentialities of its archeological and artistic heritage with the traditional sea-sun-shore appeal, investing on its small islands, as recommended by Agenda 21, through a combined procedure of economic development with environmental solicitude (Cori, 1999).

This chapter is organized as it follows; section 2 presents the study area and the available data in the case study of Greek coastal cities, section 3 describes the research methods taken under consideration to model the case, section 4 presents the results and the evaluation and, finally, in section 5 some conclusions are given.
