Urban areas privilege manufacturing says EU study

(ANSA) - ROME, JAN 31 - (By Alessandra Briganti) Industry has only partly abandoned urban centres in Europe and what was thought to be a relic of the 20th century continues to characterize the economic fabric with new features that traditional analyses are failing to detect, says the MISTA project, carried out by the European cooperation programme ESPON, which specializes in regional analysis.
    In particular, major urban areas continue to be a privileged location for manufacturing: more than half (54%) of European industry's workforce, equal to around 19.8 million people, is employed in metropolitan regions and generates an added value of around 1.7 billion euros and almost two thirds (64%) of the industrial production of the entire EU.
    Within these regions, the largest and most densely populated cities are fundamental places for industrial production: here, 8.4 million industrial workers generate some 30% of European industrial production.
    The importance of metropolitan areas as industrial locations does not appear to have diminished over the last quarter of a century: the percentage of manufacturing workers employed in metropolitan regions has fallen by just 3% since 1995, compared with an increase in industrial production of 1%.
    "Traditional analyses," explains Valeria Fedeli, a lecturer in urban planning and policy at the Politecnico University in Milano, "are not able to capture this picture for several reasons.
    "In the first place, they refer to the main city and not to the surrounding urban area: if you broaden your gaze and consider the latter dimension too, you realize that industry has remained".
    In other words, there is a closer functional relationship between urban centres and their surrounding areas which underlies a more widespread industrial model in local areas.
    "Manufacturing, furthermore, is very different from the past and is marked by high integration with services and the third sector," Fedeli adds.
    In short, for a part of industry that has migrated, another part has arrived and seeks in urban areas its base of reference.
    The new kind of urban industry is based on creative and personalised production, of high knowledge intensity, but not only that.
    "There are fundamental sectors like urban logistics or the provision of services - water, energy, waste treatment, for example - that function as fully fledged advanced manufacturing sectors," the professor goes on to explain.
    This is a paradigm shift that also has an impact on employment.
    "Those who work in this type of industry are no longer blue collar, but a more specialised worker, and it is difficult to re-employ people who have different skills from those required by the new manufacturing. And that," Fedeli concludes, "represents one of the biggest challenges for cities, especially those with a great manufacturing past". (ANSA).