ABSTRACT
Although much of the United States and Western Europe was already heavily industrialized by the onset of the Second World War, the period 1945-70 saw continued and rapid population growth across much of this region. The most densely urbanized countries saw new urban growth away from the traditional core areas of heavy industry. In the United States for example this second wave of urbanization occurred in the 'rim areas' of the northeast seaboard; Florida, Texas, Arizona and California (Miller 1973). In the UK, we have witnessed the growth of urban areas in the south and southeast at the expense of the core manufacturing regions of the north and Midlands (Lewis and Townsend 1987; Champion and Townsend 1990). Elsewhere in Europe the pattern is not dissimilar, with growth in newer areas and great problems of decline within an industrial corridor running from Turin and Genova in northwest Italy, through east and north France, the Saar and the Ruhr and south Belgium, to the Midlands and north of England and on to Glasgow and Belfast (Van den Berg et al. 1982; Cheshire and Hey 1988).
