Functional and structural features of Suceava and Botoșani metropolitan areas

The development of metropolitan areas is a natural process of urban expansion, achieved through exurbanisation and suburbanisation, whereby urban functions extend into the rural periurban environment. The expansion of the concept of the urban metropolitan area to second tier urban areas encompassing regional hubs is driven by the urban-rural and functional territorial development in the proximity of Suceava and Botoșani municipalities in northern Moldova, which have always evolved in conjunction. The study aimed to identify the relevance of human development indicators and to assess the socio-economic development potential and the ranking of communes that are part of the Association of Botoșani and Suceava Metropolitan areas, amid the development of joint projects and of a metropolitan-type association between the two urban areas. The unfolding of evolutionary metropolitan-type mechanisms in this paired territorial setup is linked to general trends in functional and residential urban expansion into the periurban, to the establishment of periurban hypermarket platforms and, ultimately, to the merging of urban and rural space in an integrated territorial corpus, with prospects for urban and functional development through joint projects. Moreover, the study exposes genetic-evolutionary types of metropolitan spaces in the two areas, differentiated by their size and the urban hub status of each of the two municipalities.