In recent decades, there has been considerable debate in the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona regarding the role of spatial planning in influencing general land-use trends. There is a widespread belief amongst geographers, environmentalists, planners and some politicians that spatial planning of the metropolitan region has not been particularly successful in reducing urban pressures on rural areas. The aim of this study is to explore the apparent links between urban sprawl, spatial planning and changing land use in the rural-urban fringe of Barcelona. The paper demonstrates that the main impacts of sprawl have been concentrated in agricultural areas, and that the planning system has not been capable of containing urban growth.

This research compares two location-based methods of evaluating public transport accessibility and applies them in Helsinki. After discussing a series of methodological aspects, the authors calculate the Structural Accessibility Layer (SAL) public transport indicator and the Public Transport and Walking Accessibility Index (PTWAI) for a grid with 8,325 zones, comparable in size to the smallest census unit. Both methods are operational for urban planners and policy makers interested in a relatively straightforward way of quantifying the accessibility of sustainable transport modes such as public transport. The results display similar accessibility patterns when moving from larger to smaller isochrones (60 to 38 min). However, the findings are inconclusive between SAL and PTWAI: SAL (38 min) displays good accessibility by public transport (more than 94 % of the population living within two-thirds of the metropolitan area has very high and high access to public transport), but PTWAI indicates that 35 % of the population, primarily households with children (43 %), experience low and very low access. The contrasting results are mainly due to the derivation of the two indicators and have considerable implications for policy making. The findings of this research imply that PTWAI is preferable to planning assessments regarding public transport, given its relatively richer content. However, for multi-mode-based accessibility categorization, SAL appears more appropriate. It is the analyst’s role to understand the objective and contents of each index and choose the tool fit for their purpose. Then, a judgement should be made on the trade-off between the detail of the measures and results and the computational burden. Given the sensitivity of the models to various input parameters and assumptions, cross-validation and replication are key for ascertaining the credibility and usefulness of the models.

The boundary between Spain and Portugal is supposed to be one of the most – if not the most – fixed and stable borders in the world, with some authors stating that it has a history of almost a thousand years. However, this paper demonstrates that this is not the case by arguing that it has a mobile nature. After formulating a theoretical framework on borders and border studies, this contribution focuses on the raia between Galicia and Portugal as a specific section of the international Spanish-Portuguese border; several questions elucidating the mobile nature of the raia are answered, embracing historic, geographic, social, cultural, linguistic and economic issues. The paper finishes by considering the effects of the new period of European integration and by providing some concluding remarks.