When Greek Cities Outgrew Themselves

If there is something truly distinctive astir Greek cities, it’s the paradox of however they grow. Expansion astir ever comes archetypal — sometimes legally, by bending operation rules to their limits, and sometimes outright illegally — and lone aboriginal does the state unreserved to drawback up, reshaping its municipality and spatial plans to acceptable what’s already been built.

Elsewhere successful Europe? It’s a wholly antithetic story.

Rules and crushed person agelong been absent from the country’s municipality development, and the results are present intolerable to ignore. Take Patras, for instance. This year’s large wildfire burned done its suburbs — a predictable effect successful a metropolis that has “stretched” by 103.5% since 1985, chiefly eastward, until buildings present stand close beside forested areas.

Across Greece, what used to beryllium peri-urban zones person turned into dense cityscapes successful conscionable a fewer decades, each successful the sanction of the close to “a extortion implicit one’s head.”
The latest findings from a study by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA) overgarment a revealing picture. The probe links the changing thermal situation of selected Greek cities with the surge successful built-up surfaces betwixt 1985 and 2022.

In Ioannina, the built-up country today is astir twice what it was forty years agone — up by 188.5%. Cities such arsenic Kalamata, Lamia, and Patras person much than doubled, while Larissa and Katerini person expanded by 77.2% and 66.4% respectively.

Even cities similar Thessaloniki, Alexandroupoli, Volos, and Heraklion — where the summation is astir oregon supra 50% — stay acold much overbuilt than their European counterparts. The result? An detonation of factual that has made these cities progressively vulnerable to precocious temperatures and the heatwaves driven by the clime crisis.

When Cities Overbuild, the Heat Follows

“The excessive operation seen successful galore Greek cities has led to dense, tall buildings, often crammed on constrictive streets that restrict earthy ventilation — and to a terrible deficiency of unfastened spaces,” explains Professor Konstantinos Kartalis, biology physicist astatine NKUA and subordinate of the EU Scientific Committee connected Climate Change.
He adds that “the disappearance of parks and the replacement of earthy surfaces with factual and asphalt person created conditions that worsen the municipality climate. Buildings absorb, store, and radiate vigor into their surroundings, intensifying the ‘urban vigor land effect’.”

According to Dr. Kostas Filippopoulos, a researcher astatine NKUA, each metropolis examined done outer information shows the aforesaid pattern: a steady emergence successful mean yearly temperature since 1985, on with increasing temperature anomalies. “These anomalies,” helium notes, “refer to higher summertime aerial temperatures — particularly since 2000 — compared with the 1980–2010 clime average.”

In August, such anomalies reached oregon exceeded 2°C, with the sharpest increases recorded successful the past decade. “Coastal cities acquisition some alleviation from oversea breezes,” Filippopoulos says, “but successful places similar Thessaloniki, Volos, and Patras, tall buildings on the waterfront person partially blocked that earthy cooling effect.”
Essentially, helium adds, the rising mean and anomalous temperatures amusement the combined interaction of urbanization and clime alteration — the second unfolding faster successful the Mediterranean than astir anyplace other connected Earth.

In respective cities — Thessaloniki, Patras, Larissa, and Volos among them — researchers identified mean to strong municipality vigor islands, where aerial temperatures are consistently 1.5°C to 3°C higher successful cardinal districts than successful the surrounding countryside. According to Professor Kartalis, “when temperatures stay precocious astatine night, arsenic they bash successful cities, the quality assemblage experiences acold greater vigor stress.”

A German study analyzing the past 15 years recovered a notable emergence successful strokes linked to precocious nighttime temperatures.
The municipality vigor island, helium explains, is the measurement of a city’s thermal load — a merchandise of concrete, asphalt, quality activity, and trapped heat. And, arsenic the NKUA study makes clear, Athens is acold from unsocial successful this.

Concrete’s March connected Thessaloniki

Thessaloniki is nary exception. Within the city, researchers person identified smaller “heat islands” — districts that grounds consistently higher aerial and surface temperatures than neighboring ones. The causes, they say, are threefold: the city’s size, its dense and tall buildings, and the deficiency of greenish oregon unfastened spaces.
Across the wider metropolitan country — including Thessaloniki, Kordelio-Evosmos, Ampelokipoi-Menemeni, Neapoli-Sykies, Kalamaria, and Pylaia — the municipality cloth has expanded by 54.8% successful each directions. The sprawl is astir visible to the west, worsening traffic, and to the southeast.

Local Patterns and “Starfish” Cities

In Patras, enlargement to the eastbound has pushed operation close up against wood land. Ioannina has seen its gathering roar widen chiefly toward the university area. In Kalamata, the spread of factual has much than doubled — though, interestingly, the metropolis grew inland alternatively than on the coast.
Heraklion followed a akin pattern, expanding mostly southward.

Volos, connected the different hand, has stretched eastward on the shores of the Pagasetic Gulf, spilling past the ringing roadworthy and creeping up toward the little slopes of Mount Pelion. Larissa and Katerini person grown radially successful each directions, swallowing up adjacent settlements — their representation outlines present resembling starfish.

Data investigation by NKUA besides shows that each these cities person grown taller. Single-family houses are being replaced by flat blocks — a displacement that not lone changes their quality but besides worsens microclimatic conditions astatine street level.

The Wrong Recipe for Growth

“The improvement of determination cities successful Greece implicit the past 35 years has been decisive successful shaping some their municipality cloth and their socio-economic dynamics,” says Professor Kartalis. “But with fewer exceptions, the look has been wrong.”

Excessive building, oversized volumes connected constrictive streets and coastal fronts, constricted greenish space, and the lack of coherent municipality readying person degraded section climates, helium explains, leaving cities dangerously exposed to utmost vigor — with superior implications for nationalist wellness and prime of life.

“What’s striking,” helium adds, “is that parts of the engineering and operation assemblage still propulsion for larger gathering volumes. The NKUA study highlights the urgent request to link municipality improvement with biology and climatic parameters — and to prioritize clime adaptation plans. Cities tin nary longer spend to disregard these consequences.”

“Without a cardinal rethink of however cities are designed and function,” helium warns, “they hazard becoming ever much vulnerable and little livable — undermining not lone residents’ prime of beingness but besides their quality to accommodate to aboriginal challenges.”

The Building X-Ray

According to the 2021 gathering census published by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT), Greece has astir 4.28 cardinal buildings, of which 1.8 cardinal — much than 40% — were constructed aft 1985.
Most person reinforced factual frames (60.6%), followed by ceramic and cement blocks (19.2%), stone (17%), and metallic (1.3%).

Source: tovima.com