Metropolitan Regions All Over the EU: Location - Strengths - Weaknesses

Metropolises keep gaining importance. Some predictions or visions see innovations, economy, and culture as mainly taking place in metropolises. Metropolises should have economic appeal for entire economies. In the EU, metropolitan regions also hold a key position for the development of the EU. The number of metropolises continues to grow, even within the EU. More and more regions try to become affiliated with existing metropolitan regions or be recognised as a metropolitan region themselves. Reports on this subject sometimes give the impression of an inflation of metropolises. Yet the term metropolis or metropolitan region is not clearly defined. What is a metropolitan region? Where are metropolitan regions within the EU? What makes a region a metropolitan region? What are the strengths of metropolitan regions within the EU? What are the weaknesses of metropolitan regions within the EU? These are questions this study will focus on. The study analysis 1,303 EU regions and ultimately unveils the 108 regions with metropolitan functions. Strengths and weaknesses of these regions can easily be determined using the data of 43 location factors and the location profiles determined for these variables. The publisher of these studies, Henner Lüttich, is well-known for his highly respected and published domestic and international studies as well as his consulting activities in the field of siting, location- and structural analysis.