Polycentricity and accessibility in mountain areas: the Alpine case

The concept of centrality focuses on fair accessibility to services of general interest. This is a considerable challenge in mountain regions due to low population density and morphological context. However, the centrality debate has hardly taken morphology into account, even though mountain areas require a specific form of spatial organization – a lower level of accessibility leads either to longer distances and travel times or (in the better case) to increased service supply in smaller settlements. In this paper, we examine small Alpine towns’ polycentricity at a micro scale and respond to the key question: What role does accessibility play in the centrality of small towns in the Alps? Our study builds on a comprehensive accessibility mapping of 780 towns in the Alps with more than 3,000 inhabitants. The study shows that the size of a settlement and its role in the settlement system are linked in a less linear way than polycentricity models postulate. Many small towns have to provide key functions for large catchment areas. We quantify this dimension by measuring population catchment intensities. Our approach combines demographic and accessibility analyses and is potentially applicable to other areas with geographical specificities that are relevant objects of cohesion policy.