Polycentric urban regions in the Alpine space

This paper examines the urban structure of the Alpine region and the surrounding lowland belt from the perspective of applying the Lisbon and Gothenburg strategies to the urban and regional development of the region. Throughout history the central position of the Alps in Europe has favored the formation of a polycentric urban structure which, from the functional and political-administrative point of view, can be divided into three large zones: an inner core with a more specifically Alpine identity, a border belt whose towns depend mainly on contiguous outside urbanization, and a metropolitan outer belt where we find some major European cities. The paper argues that to achieve a relatively autonomous development the cities of the Alpine core must participate in the global knowledge economy and at the same time draw on the specific resources (natural, historical-cultural, cognitive and institutional) of the Alpine territory. Taking into account the already existing geographic conditions, the transportation network, functional gravitations and cooperation networks, it is argued that this goal can be achieved by a small number of large cross-border potential polycentric urban regions networking the cities of the Alpine core with the metropolises of the foreland.