Urban spatial structure and environmental emissions: a survey of the literature and some empirical evidence for Italian NUTS-3 regions

This paper addresses the relationship between urban spatial structure and emissions.By surveying the most relevant literature, firstly we discuss the concept of spatial structure, focusing in particular on polycentricity and dispersion, then we summarise the possible links between spatial structure and emissions. The survey provides the framework to explore the empirical evidence for Italy concerning CO2 and PMs emissions originating from private transport and house heating. Results suggest that spatial structure affects CO2 emissions from private transport and PMs from housing emissions. There is no evidence that polycentricity reduces emissions