Urban spatial structure and environmental emissions: A survey of the literature and some empirical evidence for Italian NUTS 3 regions

This paper addresses the relationship between urban spatial structure and emissions. Surveying the most relevant literature, first we discuss the concept of spatial structure, focusing in particular on polycentricity and dispersion, and then we summarise the possible links between spatial structure and emissions. The survey provides the framework to explore the empirical evidence for Italy concerning CO2 and PMs emissions originating from private transport and residential heating. Our results suggest that spatial structure affects CO2 emissions from private transport and PMs from housing emissions. There is no evidence for polycentricity to reduce emissions.

Published in Cities vol. 49, december 2015