Characteristics of sprawl in the Naples metropolitan area. Indications for controlling and monitoring urban transformations

Naples metropolitan area is one of the largest in Italy, located in the South of the Country with a population of about 4 million inhabitants. Several studies have proposed for this area different spatial metropolitan boundaries but, despite the presence of national regulations, the area is not still defined at administrative level. One of the main characteristics of the area is the high level of unplanned urban expansion, with the consequence of a wide level of fragmentation, an extensive illegal urban development and an incorrect use of the agricultural land. The paper analyze the urbanization process in the study area and proposes a monitoring tool of the sprawl phenomenon, with a smart spatial planning approach. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.