Abstract

This paper focuses on the specificities in the evolution of the 14 metropolitan cities identified by the 2014 Delrio Law within the Italian urban hierarchy. We verify whether features explaining structural leaps along the urban hierarchy have more importance for cities defined «metropolitan» according to the Delrio law. Results suggest that the 14 metropolitan cities on average follow the same laws of evolution as all other cities. Greater (although limited) heterogeneity of results is obtained by breaking down metropolitan cities by location and size.