ABSTRACT
By contrast with stagnation in the 1930s and devastation during the Second World War, Western Europe was characterized by substantial growth over the greater part of the period 1945-73 but both economic and demographic conditions have changed substantially since then. In the post-war years urbanization has taken on new forms and has acquired a new ‘mix’ of functions. Historic cities have been outpaced by rapidly expanding suburbs, and urban activities have become more strongly associated with providing services than with manufacturing goods. Economic recovery has been paralleled by the rise of mass car ownership after 1950 and new dimensions of residence and recreation have been offered to growing numbers of Western Europeans. At the same time, inherited systems of settlement and communication have been subjected to serious and previously unimagined strains. Employment centres have exerted broadening control of their surrounding space, with individual towns and cities becoming bound together by roads, railways and pipelines to give rise to dynamic city regions and axes of movement and economic activity. This kind of transformation has, in itself, given rise to serious regional problems. Remote areas appear to have become even more deprived lacking the stimulus of good communications to encourage employment growth. ¡But such areas still retain the real or latent advantage of having relatively unspoiled environments! City regions, for all their apparent affluence, are beset by problems of congestion and pollution, not only in coal-based industrial areas that are now losing their raison d’etre, but also in industrial and urban zones that experienced important growth earlier in the present century but are now equally plagued by spiralling costs of housing and service provision.
