Lewis Dijkstra
Biographic Data
| ID | 321778 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lewis Dijkstra |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lewis |
| FAMILY NAME | Dijkstra |
| SIGNATURE | DIJKSTRA L |
| AFFILIATIONS | European Commission |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4077-8250 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 616 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Mapping flows, shaping spaces: A review of data-driven approaches to EU cross-border regions
Knowing where, how and for what purposes people frequently cross borders has significant policy implications. However, limited data availability often hinders effective decision-making. The lack of granular, reliable and comparable data frequently leads to an underestimation of the true scale of cross-border movements within the EU. Additionally, the assessment of the socioeconomic potential of border regions does not consider the hypothetical el…
Urban–Rural Disparities in Geographic Healthcare Accessibility: A Comparative Study of Nigeria and Zambia
Geographic access to healthcare remains a critical barrier to health equity in low- and middle-income countries, where infrastructure and service provision are unevenly distributed. Using the UN-endorsed Degree of Urbanisation framework, we assessed disparities in geographic healthcare accessibility across Nigeria and Zambia in 2020. Travel times to health facilities were modeled for both walking and motorized transport at 1 km resolution, and st…
Assessing the impacts of gridded population model choice on degree of urbanisation metrics
Defining urban and rural areas is crucial for assessing the accessibility of services and opportunities that impact people worldwide. The Degree of Urbanisation framework, endorsed by the UN Statistical Commission, primarily uses population grids to classify areas through a harmonised, population-centric approach, enabling international comparisons. However, variations in the distribution of population counts at the grid-cell level across differe…
What do we owe a place? How the debate about left-behind places is challenging how we distribute public funding and the problems it should address
regional disparities, left-behind places
Rethinking City Population Growth: How Reclassification Matters
City populations grow due to natural change, migration, and areas that are reclassified as part of a city. Because a time series of city boundaries was not available, most analyses ignore reclassification. This paper measures reclassification in a harmonized and transparent manner by applying a new harmonized definition of cities, towns, and rural areas, called the degree of urbanization, to gridded population data between 1980 and 2020. Ignoring…
The Geography of EU Discontent and the Regional Development Trap
While in recent times many regions have flourished, many others are stuck —or are at risk of becoming stuck— in a development trap. Such regions experience decline in economic growth, employment, and productivity relative to their neighbours and to their own past trajectories. Prolonged periods in development traps are leading to political dissatisfaction and unrest. Such discontent is often translated into support for anti-system parties at the …
Big in the neighbourhood: Identifying local and regional centres through their network position
National city ranks do not describe a settlement's local and regional relevance adequately. We introduce a method to rank settlements' centrality based on travel time and settlement size. We investigate the relationship between a settlement's size, whether it is a local or regional centre, and its service endowment. The approach explains per capita service endowments in Europe well, adding nuances that national rankings do not fully capture. In a…
What makes cities happy? Factors contributing to life satisfaction in European cities
The purpose of this study is to identify the main factors of city life satisfaction across Europe. Data come from the recent fifth survey on quality of life in European cities and cover 83 cities located in the European Union, the European Free Trade Association countries, the United Kingdom, the Western Balkan Region and Turkey. In addition to running classical econometric analysis, we quantify the relative importance of the various determinants…
The response of regional well-being to place-based policy interventions
Enhancing the well-being of its citizens is the central remit of the EU's regional policy, but as yet, there is no analysis of the effects of EU regional policy on local well-being. The aim of this paper is to examine this relationship. To do this, we define a novel regionalised well-being measure and we exploit a dataset on regional expenditure in a continuous treatment framework. Based on both parametric and semi-parametric approaches, our anal…
Why are cities less opposed to European integration than rural areas? Factors affecting the Eurosceptic vote by degree of urbanization
Applying the Degree of Urbanisation to the globe: A new harmonised definition reveals a different picture of global urbanisation
The Degree of Urbanisation is a new definition of cities, towns and semi-dense areas, and rural areas endorsed by the UN Statistical Commission. The urban population share according to the Degree of Urbanisation is similar to the one based on national definitions in the Americas, Europe and Oceania, but considerably higher in Africa and Asia. An empirical analysis and a comparison of concepts suggest that towns are likely to be classified as rura…
Does Cohesion Policy reduce EU discontent and Euroscepticism
Some regions in Europe that have been heavily supported by the European Union’s Cohesion Policy have recently opted for parties with a strong Eurosceptic orientation. The results at the ballot box have been put forward as evidence that Cohesion Policy is ineffective for tackling the rising, European-wide wave of discontent. However, the evidence to support this view is scarce and often contradictory. This paper analyses the link between Cohesion …
Mapping accessibility to generic services in Europe: A market-potential based approach
An important goal of land use and transport policies is improving accessibility to services. Access to services differs significantly between different territories, and regional development policies, including Cohesion Policy, are often used to improve accessibility where it is too low. Unfortunately, comprehensive data on facility locations is not available in Europe, making it difficult to evaluate, ex-ante, the direct or indirect effects of po…
The geography of EU discontent
Support for parties opposed to European Union (EU) integration has risen rapidly, and a wave of discontent has taken over the EU. This discontent is purportedly driven by the very factors behind the surge of populism: differences in age, wealth, education, or economic and demographic trajectories. This paper maps the geography of EU discontent across more than 63,000 electoral districts in the EU-28 and assesses which factors push anti-EU voting.…
Regional Definition and Classification
After outlining the development of regional classification in the European Union, two recent regional and two recent local classifications created by the European Commission using the population grid are explained. Each regional classification is linked to a local one. The first pair is the urban–rural regional typology and the (local) degree of urbanization. The second consists of the city and commuting zone (local) definition and the metro regi…
Travel speed changes along the European core road network for the period 1960–2030: An application of octilinear cartograms
This study presents the evolution of travel speeds in the European Core road network, between 1960 and 2030. Speeds are represented in octilinear cartograms which constitutes one of the novelties of this study. Octilinear cartograms have the advantage of simplifying the geographical representation of transport networks, while emphasizing the connections (nodes) and the links between those nodes. The geographical accurateness is no longer importan…
The effects of the global financial crisis on European regions and cities
Growth before and especially after the crisis differed from large-city-led growth pattern. The crisis has led to big contractions especially in urban regions and in remote rural regions, while intermediate and rural regions close to a city displayed more resilience. In some countries, the capital metro region had much higher economic growth prior to the crisis, but this pattern was inverted by the crisis. Capital cities are now central to the pro…
Mapping the Regional Divide in Europe: A Measure for Assessing Quality of Government in 206 European Regions
The Economic Performance of European Cities and City Regions: Myths and Realities
The ever-increasing concentration of people and economic growth in the largest cities relative to the rest of the country has slowed down or even reversed in many of the developed European countries over the last decade. This trend contradicts what the global cities, urban economics and new economic geography literature would predict. This trend can be interpreted from two points of view: (1) the trend is due to large obstacles to further large c…
Why investing more in the capital can lead to less growth
This article argues that investing in a wide range of city sizes, or a portfolio of places, can be more conducive to growth than primarily investing in the largest city. A range of cities allows each firm to find its optimal city. This reduces the needed size of cities and thus congestion costs. Less-developed European Union Member States have large and growing productivity gaps between their capitals compared with the rest of the country. More-d…
Regional Governance Matters: Quality of Government within European Union Member States
Charron N., Dijkstra L. and Lapuente V. Regional governance matters: quality of government within European Union member states, Regional Studies. This study presents novel data (European QoG Index – EQI) on the ‘quality of government’ (QoG) – understood as low corruption, impartial public services and rule of law – for national and sub-national levels in twenty-seven European Union countries. The EQI shows notable within-country variations: while…
Promoting Safe Walking and Cycling to Improve Public Health: Lessons From The Netherlands and Germany
Objectives. We examined the public health consequences of unsafe and inconvenient walking and bicycling conditions in American cities to suggest improvements based on successful policies in The Netherlands and Germany. Methods. Secondary data from national travel and crash surveys were used to compute fatality trends from 1975 to 2001 and fatality and injury rates for pedestrians and cyclists in The Netherlands, Germany, and the United States in …
The geography of EU discontent
Support for parties opposed to European Union (EU) integration has risen rapidly, and a wave of discontent has taken over the EU. This discontent is purportedly driven by the very factors behind the surge of populism: differences in age, wealth, education, or economic and demographic trajectories. This paper maps the geography of EU discontent across more than 63,000 electoral districts in the EU-28 and assesses which factors push anti-EU voting.…
Regional Governance Matters: Quality of Government within European Union Member States
Charron N., Dijkstra L. and Lapuente V. Regional governance matters: quality of government within European Union member states, Regional Studies. This study presents novel data (European QoG Index – EQI) on the ‘quality of government’ (QoG) – understood as low corruption, impartial public services and rule of law – for national and sub-national levels in twenty-seven European Union countries. The EQI shows notable within-country variations: while…
Mapping the Regional Divide in Europe: A Measure for Assessing Quality of Government in 206 European Regions
Promoting Safe Walking and Cycling to Improve Public Health: Lessons From The Netherlands and Germany
Objectives. We examined the public health consequences of unsafe and inconvenient walking and bicycling conditions in American cities to suggest improvements based on successful policies in The Netherlands and Germany. Methods. Secondary data from national travel and crash surveys were used to compute fatality trends from 1975 to 2001 and fatality and injury rates for pedestrians and cyclists in The Netherlands, Germany, and the United States in …
The effects of the global financial crisis on European regions and cities
Growth before and especially after the crisis differed from large-city-led growth pattern. The crisis has led to big contractions especially in urban regions and in remote rural regions, while intermediate and rural regions close to a city displayed more resilience. In some countries, the capital metro region had much higher economic growth prior to the crisis, but this pattern was inverted by the crisis. Capital cities are now central to the pro…
Does Cohesion Policy reduce EU discontent and Euroscepticism
Some regions in Europe that have been heavily supported by the European Union’s Cohesion Policy have recently opted for parties with a strong Eurosceptic orientation. The results at the ballot box have been put forward as evidence that Cohesion Policy is ineffective for tackling the rising, European-wide wave of discontent. However, the evidence to support this view is scarce and often contradictory. This paper analyses the link between Cohesion …
Why are cities less opposed to European integration than rural areas? Factors affecting the Eurosceptic vote by degree of urbanization
Applying the Degree of Urbanisation to the globe: A new harmonised definition reveals a different picture of global urbanisation
The Degree of Urbanisation is a new definition of cities, towns and semi-dense areas, and rural areas endorsed by the UN Statistical Commission. The urban population share according to the Degree of Urbanisation is similar to the one based on national definitions in the Americas, Europe and Oceania, but considerably higher in Africa and Asia. An empirical analysis and a comparison of concepts suggest that towns are likely to be classified as rura…
The Geography of EU Discontent and the Regional Development Trap
While in recent times many regions have flourished, many others are stuck —or are at risk of becoming stuck— in a development trap. Such regions experience decline in economic growth, employment, and productivity relative to their neighbours and to their own past trajectories. Prolonged periods in development traps are leading to political dissatisfaction and unrest. Such discontent is often translated into support for anti-system parties at the …
Why investing more in the capital can lead to less growth
This article argues that investing in a wide range of city sizes, or a portfolio of places, can be more conducive to growth than primarily investing in the largest city. A range of cities allows each firm to find its optimal city. This reduces the needed size of cities and thus congestion costs. Less-developed European Union Member States have large and growing productivity gaps between their capitals compared with the rest of the country. More-d…
Rethinking City Population Growth: How Reclassification Matters
City populations grow due to natural change, migration, and areas that are reclassified as part of a city. Because a time series of city boundaries was not available, most analyses ignore reclassification. This paper measures reclassification in a harmonized and transparent manner by applying a new harmonized definition of cities, towns, and rural areas, called the degree of urbanization, to gridded population data between 1980 and 2020. Ignoring…
What do we owe a place? How the debate about left-behind places is challenging how we distribute public funding and the problems it should address
regional disparities, left-behind places
Big in the neighbourhood: Identifying local and regional centres through their network position
National city ranks do not describe a settlement's local and regional relevance adequately. We introduce a method to rank settlements' centrality based on travel time and settlement size. We investigate the relationship between a settlement's size, whether it is a local or regional centre, and its service endowment. The approach explains per capita service endowments in Europe well, adding nuances that national rankings do not fully capture. In a…
What makes cities happy? Factors contributing to life satisfaction in European cities
The purpose of this study is to identify the main factors of city life satisfaction across Europe. Data come from the recent fifth survey on quality of life in European cities and cover 83 cities located in the European Union, the European Free Trade Association countries, the United Kingdom, the Western Balkan Region and Turkey. In addition to running classical econometric analysis, we quantify the relative importance of the various determinants…
Promoting Safe Walking and Cycling to Improve Public Health: Lessons From The Netherlands and Germany
Objectives. We examined the public health consequences of unsafe and inconvenient walking and bicycling conditions in American cities to suggest improvements based on successful policies in The Netherlands and Germany. Methods. Secondary data from national travel and crash surveys were used to compute fatality trends from 1975 to 2001 and fatality and injury rates for pedestrians and cyclists in The Netherlands, Germany, and the United States in …
The Economic Performance of European Cities and City Regions: Myths and Realities
The ever-increasing concentration of people and economic growth in the largest cities relative to the rest of the country has slowed down or even reversed in many of the developed European countries over the last decade. This trend contradicts what the global cities, urban economics and new economic geography literature would predict. This trend can be interpreted from two points of view: (1) the trend is due to large obstacles to further large c…
Why investing more in the capital can lead to less growth
This article argues that investing in a wide range of city sizes, or a portfolio of places, can be more conducive to growth than primarily investing in the largest city. A range of cities allows each firm to find its optimal city. This reduces the needed size of cities and thus congestion costs. Less-developed European Union Member States have large and growing productivity gaps between their capitals compared with the rest of the country. More-d…
Regional Governance Matters: Quality of Government within European Union Member States
Charron N., Dijkstra L. and Lapuente V. Regional governance matters: quality of government within European Union member states, Regional Studies. This study presents novel data (European QoG Index – EQI) on the ‘quality of government’ (QoG) – understood as low corruption, impartial public services and rule of law – for national and sub-national levels in twenty-seven European Union countries. The EQI shows notable within-country variations: while…
Mapping the Regional Divide in Europe: A Measure for Assessing Quality of Government in 206 European Regions
The effects of the global financial crisis on European regions and cities
Growth before and especially after the crisis differed from large-city-led growth pattern. The crisis has led to big contractions especially in urban regions and in remote rural regions, while intermediate and rural regions close to a city displayed more resilience. In some countries, the capital metro region had much higher economic growth prior to the crisis, but this pattern was inverted by the crisis. Capital cities are now central to the pro…
Travel speed changes along the European core road network for the period 1960–2030: An application of octilinear cartograms
This study presents the evolution of travel speeds in the European Core road network, between 1960 and 2030. Speeds are represented in octilinear cartograms which constitutes one of the novelties of this study. Octilinear cartograms have the advantage of simplifying the geographical representation of transport networks, while emphasizing the connections (nodes) and the links between those nodes. The geographical accurateness is no longer importan…
Regional Definition and Classification
After outlining the development of regional classification in the European Union, two recent regional and two recent local classifications created by the European Commission using the population grid are explained. Each regional classification is linked to a local one. The first pair is the urban–rural regional typology and the (local) degree of urbanization. The second consists of the city and commuting zone (local) definition and the metro regi…
Mapping accessibility to generic services in Europe: A market-potential based approach
An important goal of land use and transport policies is improving accessibility to services. Access to services differs significantly between different territories, and regional development policies, including Cohesion Policy, are often used to improve accessibility where it is too low. Unfortunately, comprehensive data on facility locations is not available in Europe, making it difficult to evaluate, ex-ante, the direct or indirect effects of po…
The geography of EU discontent
Support for parties opposed to European Union (EU) integration has risen rapidly, and a wave of discontent has taken over the EU. This discontent is purportedly driven by the very factors behind the surge of populism: differences in age, wealth, education, or economic and demographic trajectories. This paper maps the geography of EU discontent across more than 63,000 electoral districts in the EU-28 and assesses which factors push anti-EU voting.…
Does Cohesion Policy reduce EU discontent and Euroscepticism
Some regions in Europe that have been heavily supported by the European Union’s Cohesion Policy have recently opted for parties with a strong Eurosceptic orientation. The results at the ballot box have been put forward as evidence that Cohesion Policy is ineffective for tackling the rising, European-wide wave of discontent. However, the evidence to support this view is scarce and often contradictory. This paper analyses the link between Cohesion …
Applying the Degree of Urbanisation to the globe: A new harmonised definition reveals a different picture of global urbanisation
The Degree of Urbanisation is a new definition of cities, towns and semi-dense areas, and rural areas endorsed by the UN Statistical Commission. The urban population share according to the Degree of Urbanisation is similar to the one based on national definitions in the Americas, Europe and Oceania, but considerably higher in Africa and Asia. An empirical analysis and a comparison of concepts suggest that towns are likely to be classified as rura…
The response of regional well-being to place-based policy interventions
Enhancing the well-being of its citizens is the central remit of the EU's regional policy, but as yet, there is no analysis of the effects of EU regional policy on local well-being. The aim of this paper is to examine this relationship. To do this, we define a novel regionalised well-being measure and we exploit a dataset on regional expenditure in a continuous treatment framework. Based on both parametric and semi-parametric approaches, our anal…
Why are cities less opposed to European integration than rural areas? Factors affecting the Eurosceptic vote by degree of urbanization
Big in the neighbourhood: Identifying local and regional centres through their network position
National city ranks do not describe a settlement's local and regional relevance adequately. We introduce a method to rank settlements' centrality based on travel time and settlement size. We investigate the relationship between a settlement's size, whether it is a local or regional centre, and its service endowment. The approach explains per capita service endowments in Europe well, adding nuances that national rankings do not fully capture. In a…
What makes cities happy? Factors contributing to life satisfaction in European cities
The purpose of this study is to identify the main factors of city life satisfaction across Europe. Data come from the recent fifth survey on quality of life in European cities and cover 83 cities located in the European Union, the European Free Trade Association countries, the United Kingdom, the Western Balkan Region and Turkey. In addition to running classical econometric analysis, we quantify the relative importance of the various determinants…
What do we owe a place? How the debate about left-behind places is challenging how we distribute public funding and the problems it should address
regional disparities, left-behind places
Rethinking City Population Growth: How Reclassification Matters
City populations grow due to natural change, migration, and areas that are reclassified as part of a city. Because a time series of city boundaries was not available, most analyses ignore reclassification. This paper measures reclassification in a harmonized and transparent manner by applying a new harmonized definition of cities, towns, and rural areas, called the degree of urbanization, to gridded population data between 1980 and 2020. Ignoring…
The Geography of EU Discontent and the Regional Development Trap
While in recent times many regions have flourished, many others are stuck —or are at risk of becoming stuck— in a development trap. Such regions experience decline in economic growth, employment, and productivity relative to their neighbours and to their own past trajectories. Prolonged periods in development traps are leading to political dissatisfaction and unrest. Such discontent is often translated into support for anti-system parties at the …
Assessing the impacts of gridded population model choice on degree of urbanisation metrics
Defining urban and rural areas is crucial for assessing the accessibility of services and opportunities that impact people worldwide. The Degree of Urbanisation framework, endorsed by the UN Statistical Commission, primarily uses population grids to classify areas through a harmonised, population-centric approach, enabling international comparisons. However, variations in the distribution of population counts at the grid-cell level across differe…
Mapping flows, shaping spaces: A review of data-driven approaches to EU cross-border regions
Knowing where, how and for what purposes people frequently cross borders has significant policy implications. However, limited data availability often hinders effective decision-making. The lack of granular, reliable and comparable data frequently leads to an underestimation of the true scale of cross-border movements within the EU. Additionally, the assessment of the socioeconomic potential of border regions does not consider the hypothetical el…
Urban–Rural Disparities in Geographic Healthcare Accessibility: A Comparative Study of Nigeria and Zambia
Geographic access to healthcare remains a critical barrier to health equity in low- and middle-income countries, where infrastructure and service provision are unevenly distributed. Using the UN-endorsed Degree of Urbanisation framework, we assessed disparities in geographic healthcare accessibility across Nigeria and Zambia in 2020. Travel times to health facilities were modeled for both walking and motorized transport at 1 km resolution, and st…
Geography (16 works) · Political science (12 works) · Economic geography (11 works) · Economics (11 works) · Regional science (10 works) · Regional Development and Policy (9 works) · Business (8 works) · Demography (6 works) · European union (6 works) · Population (6 works)