#Most populous cities in europe series

Indeed, the past fifty years have seen far-reaching changes to the way the European urban system is organised. Around 26% of residents live in cities with populations between 1 million and 5 million, and around 14% of Europeans live in cities with populations of over 5 million.īut Europe has not always been so urban.

In Europe, cities with a population of below 250,000 account for 28% of city residents, lower than in Africa (33%), but higher than in North America (17%). By all of these definitions, third-tier cities include all those cities not classified as second-tier.) (The European Spatial Planning Observation Network defines first-tier cities as European capitals, and second-tier cities as “those cities outside the capital whose economic and social performance is sufficiently important to affect the potential performance of the national economy.” Some studies refine this definition, by making Zürich Switzerland’s first-tier city, for example, rather than Bern, or by recognising a city as first-tier if it has a larger GDP than its capital-e.g. Of these third-tier cities, half are located in Germany, France and the UK. In 2012, the OECD and the European Commission reported that in the EU (plus Switzerland, Croatia, Iceland and Norway), there were 828 cities, including two global cities (London and Paris), six large urban centres in which the main city has around 3 million inhabitants (Athens, Berlin, Madrid, Barcelona, Milan and Naples), 18 second-tier metropolitan areas (1–2 million people), and 38 third-tier cities (500,000 to 1 million people). But the wider city-regions of London, Paris, and Milan each have more than 10 million.

There is no single municipal area with more than 10 million people. By most definitions, Europe has no megacity. What have been the ingredients and recipes of urban transformation in Europe so far, and what part has investment played in helping our cities to adapt? Where has this transformative investment come from? And how can finance and investment know-how be applied into the future to help Europe’s cities make this new urban trek successful and complete?Įurope’s urban system today consists of a mixture of small, medium, and large cities, which can be seen to play distinctive roles and be at different points in their life cycles. We start the story of these cities by asking how they have evolved and changed in the past fifty years. With these sharp imperatives, Europe’s cities have become a critical platform for action and innovation. Whether Europe’s cities have the tools and financing they need will in turn depend upon how capable and stable our political systems will be in addressing the challenges of dynamic capital markets, global insecurity, geo-political disruption, and populism. How well we can use the new spatial concentration of people and activity, combined with machine learning and exponential technologies, to address key challenges of economic inclusion and planetary sustainability may well depend upon how our cities perform. The great quest of our time-to address planetary warming and arrest climate change-will be played out through this urbanising century. A new generation of technologies will make living smarter, vehicles more autonomous, and work more automated. Within this metropolitan century we also expect to see human population growth tail off. Europe will be at the vanguard of this change, around 90% urbanised.

By the time this century is complete, the world’s population will be 80% urbanised. From roughly 1980 to 2080, humankind is on a great trek to the cities. The world has entered an age of urbanisation, a metropolitan century, that is already one third complete. In this essay series, we will reveal how Europe’s cities have emerged over the past fifty years, and what their prospects are. Europe’s cities win on many measures of liveability and resilience, and these advantages are increasingly relevant in a world challenged by climate change, instability, and economic transition. Though they lack the clout that comes with ten million-plus populations or the headquarters of the world’s largest firms, on important international agendas such as cultural production, public health, knowledge and education, and sustainability, the European metropolis leads. The findings, interpretations and conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Investment Bank.Įurope’s cities are global leaders.

#Most populous cities in europe series

Read an overview of the cities we’ll examine in depth as our series unfolds. How the system of cities involved: Adaptation and investment in European cities.By Greg Clark, Tim Moonen, and Jake Nunley.