Changing accessibility and mobility patterns in reconfigured rural metro-adjacent regions. The case of Castilla-La Mancha in the context of the Madrid polycentric urban region

SUMMARY Summary During the last decades, traditional monocentric metropolitan systems are evolving to polycentric ones, characterized by externalities shared among a collection of close-by and linked cities (either with or without a main city still exerting a principal role). As a result, and partially supported by transport networks improvements (especially road infrastructures), metropolitan centers are expanding their influence towards wider contexts leading to an interweaving of the metropolitan systems and their adjacent regions? urban systems. Moreover, emerging urban systems no longer meet relational hierarchical or monocentric logics but also periphery-periphery or center-periphery ones. While these metropolitan reorganizations have been extensively explored, until now, studies have focused on large and global cities and their close by surrounding peri-urban areas. Motivated by the need of in depth explorations on whether these changes are also transforming other types of rural areas further away from metropolitan centers, the main contribution of this thesis is the proposal of a combined morphological and functional methodological approach (which addresses accessibility and mobility analyses) to understand urban reconfigurations within rural metro-adjacent regions traditionally characterized by their leaderless and without internal functional cohesion character. A special attention is paid to assess to what extent the scale shift of metropolitan territories (overflowing their influence/effects towards wider areas) and the changes brought about by a state rescaling are conditioning transformations on these regions? urban systems and functional coherence and favoring the consolidation of a more cohesive regional urban structure. The empirical analyses of this thesis focus on Castilla-La Mancha, a Spanish rural region under the influence of the Madrid Metropolitan Region, and compare the current situation (2011/2012) with that previous to the Spanish state re-scaling (1981). These time scenarios allow considering two transport investments rationales: the traditional national one and the recent `national-regional? one. Findings reveal that the reorganization processes initiated during the 1970s and the increasing metropolitan dynamics overflow beyond the traditional administrative limits have led to morphological and relational changes not only within the traditional metropolitan areas but also within their adjacent rural regions, shaping their rural settlement systems and conforming new regional organization patterns. MOHINO, I. , 2015 CHANGING ACCESSIBILITY AND MOBILITY PATTERNS IN RECONFIGURED RURAL METRO-ADJACENT REGIONS In these significant rural metro-adjacent regions? transformations, the promotion of tangential transport infrastructures (connecting internally the region) in contrast to the traditional radial ones (connecting the region with the metropolitan center) have played a key role. On the one hand, by enlarging catchment areas and fostering potential interconnections not only with the metropolitan center but also among regional territories. On the other, by strengthening internal cohesion, which means more balanced development with fewer disparities and territorial imbalances. These transport improvements have also motivated a relational change. This is evidenced by a growth in the number of flows, which allow a regional transformation from a predominantly rural behavior towards a more urban, or even metropolitan, one. The relational change is also evidenced by a reorganization of functional linkages (commuting) towards more complex spatial distributions characterized by: a) internal articulation reinforcement; b) metropolitan influence strengthening; and c) inter-regional interactions decrease (excluding those with the adjacent metro region). All this has evidenced that recently reconfigured rural metro-adjacent regions (highly influenced by the extension of metropolitan dynamics) are overcoming their traditional acephalic/leaderless and without functional cohesion character and are becoming a polycentric urban system. Nonetheless, this polycentric configuration is still weak and fragmented/dispersed in contrast to that concentrated in the close proximity to the metropolitan center.