Reurbanisation and suburbia in Northwest Europe: A comparative perspective on spatial trends and policy approaches

Following decades of urban decline in many European cities, there is now an abundant literature identifying a process of reurbanisation, which has now also reached many secondary cities, including those in post-industrialised regions. Reurbanisation is an umbrella concept involving several related but distinct processes, though has its roots in spatial cycle models that consider reurbanisation to be a specific stage in the development of urban regions. Most of the emerging reurbanisation debate, however, is primarily concerned with processes in and impacts on the urban core while suburbia (the ring) is notably absent from much of this discussion. This is all the more surprising since part and parcel of many definitions of reurbanisation is the relationship between the core and the ring. This paper seeks to fill this gap, looking at four highly developed countries in Northwest Europe from a comparative perspective: England, France, Germany and the Netherlands. Far from being uniform, reurbanisation differs substantially between the countries in terms of temporal and spatial patterns due to differences in policy responses in both the urban core and suburbia.