Geographic data quality is a complex issue requiring continuous operational improvements. Considering this to be one of the most topical research and technical issues in official statistics and environmental monitoring, this study re-connects the operational dimension of ‘geographic data quality’ with the broader issue of monitoring the quality of official statistics. By estimating the accuracy of public (spatially explicit) data, this study illustrates an operational framework with an exploratory exercise in estimating the geographic data quality characteristic of a specific information source within the official statistical system (i.e., building registry) in a given European country, namely, Italy. The results of this exercise provide a paradigmatic example of profound innovation in the activities of statistical services in Europe and specifically the Italian National Statistical Institute (Istat), transitioning from independent (and poorly connected) field surveys to an integrated system of registries. Since several studies are based on spatially explicit survey units, it is essential to estimate the quality of geographical data, especially those derived from information sources where space is topical information, such as (local, regional, or national) building registers. Thanks to the results of an empirical exercise applied to Italian building registers, the present article will discuss the issue of data accuracy, considered the main issue related to monitoring geographic data quality, from an official statistics’ perspective. Statistical indicators will be proposed for the assessment of systematic and random errors of spatially explicit measures, possibly enabling a quali-quantitative improvement in the semantic content of building registers that address the inherent requirements of official statistics. Such indicators have some positive implications for the entire system of official statistics in Italy and, for generalization, within the European Statistical System.

With settlement morphology increasingly tied with socioeconomic change in contemporary urban systems, the present study introduces an original statistical approach to analyze metropolitan growth as a result of the intrinsic transformations in the respective spatial structure and productive functions. The analysis specifically evaluates territorial transformations over a thirty-year time interval using land-use parcels as fundamental analysis’ unit and Multi-scale Geographically Weighted Regressions (MGWRs) as the statistical technique applied to metropolitan Athens, Greece—a densely populated region facing intensified human pressure along the fringe. To investigate spatial direction and model the intensity of settlement expansion vis à vis landscape change, we run local regressions with parcel area and fractal index as dependent variables separately for 1990 and 2018 on three aggregate land-use classes (urbanized, agricultural, forest/natural). Elevation, distance from selected economic nodes, infrastructures and services, distance from the city center and business district, as well as the economic status of the territory surrounding each parcel, were taken as predictors of both dependent variables. In a strictly mono-centric setting, parcel area exhibited linear dependence on the distance from city centers; a progressive departure from this relationship intensified with economic and non-economic drivers indicating urban sprawl. This approach—integrating economic and ecological dimensions of landscape analysis—helps elucidate the underlying mechanisms of metropolitan expansion within dynamic spatial equilibriums and concentric land-use models à la Von Thunen. Ultimately, the study presents new perspectives on the factors behind metropolitan growth, highlighting the need for socio-demographic and planning policies oriented toward sustainability and regional competitiveness. Supplementary materials accompanying this paper appear on-line.

To delineate new directions of urban development in a context of demographic shrinkage in Southern Europe, the present study illustrates a comparative analysis of the demographic balance in metropolitan Athens, Greece (1956–2021). The analysis delineates short-term and long-term dynamics of the natural population balance, considering the impact of the Great Recession and COVID-19 pandemic, and assuming a contemporary increase in gross mortality rates and a marked fertility reduction associated with birth postponement. To address such objectives, we have compared the natural growth of population (the ratio of the total number of births to deaths) at ten year intervals (1956, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2009, 2019, 2020, 2021) in 115 municipalities of metropolitan Athens, controlling for the local context. The empirical results of descriptive statistics, spatial analysis, correlation statistics, non-parametric inference, and exploratory multivariate techniques outline the indirect impact of COVID-19 on population dynamics, being in some ways additive to the already observed effects of the Great Recession, reinforcing demographic shrinkage in specific local contexts. The COVID-19 pandemic and the Great Crisis likely accelerated the typical outcomes (population aging and low fertility) of the second demographic transition in Greece. These dynamics are associated with more volatile (and possibly reduced) immigration flows and with enhanced emigration, fueling urban shrinkage and a progressive economic decline of metropolitan regions, as our evidence suggests for Athens. Additional research should ascertain the aggregate, indirect role of pandemics in population dynamics as a proxy of urban and regional decline in European regions exposed to long-term aging.