Impact of urban pattern on operating costs of public services: quantification through the economic weight of services ‘to property’

ABSTRACT Research has shown the existence of strong links between physical configuration of the urban settlements and the economic metabolism of public services. However, this relationship has a different intensity depending on the nature of each service, resting exclusively on the services ‘to property’, that is, those ensuring smooth functionality of the buildings and public spaces. In such services, the operating cost per unit developed area largely depends on representative variables of the urban pattern. For instance, the length of roads per unit developed area impacts the operating costs of linear services, such as street lighting, street cleaning and, together with housing density, on the operating costs of water cycle, waste collection and disposal. Moreover, the maintenance costs of pavements, parks, and gardens are directly proportional to the dimension of the public space. Therefore, the economic weight of services ‘to property’ in the current budget of public administration highlights how vulnerable these budgets are against changes in the urban pattern and determines the expected maximum economic impact of any measure adopted through urban planning. Thus, the main objective of this study is to define, from a theoretical perspective, an indicator representative of the economic weight of the operating cost of the services ‘to property’ upon public administration budgets, capable of delimiting the relationship between the budgets and urban patterns. In addition, to show its utility, this urban-economic indicator has been computed for a sample of medium-sized Spanish cities, showing that, on an average, a quarter of the operating cost of urban public services is directly linked to urban patterns, highlighting the potential impact of urban planning decisions on the economic sustainability of urban settlements.