Today we are going to talk about The Blue Banana. Blue bananas are also known as the Liverpool – Milan Axis and the European Megalopolis. The Blue Banana is an anti-urbanization corridor across Western and Central Europe. The Blue Banana has a population of about 111 million. The concept was developed in 1989 by RECLUS, a group of French geographers led by Roger Brunet. So let us gather a little more information on The Blue Banana.
The Blue Banana is found almost extending from Greater London to the Benelux States and the German Rhineland, southern Germany, Alsace in France to the west and Switzerland in the south to northern Italy. The name "Blue Banana" in Italy was created twice by Jack Jacques Chérèque and an artist added a graphic to the article by Josette Alia in Le Nouvel Observateur. The color blue for The Blue Banana refers to the flag of the European Community or the blue collar of the factory workers in the area.
In his analysis of The Blue Banana, Brunet excluded other French conurbations due to French urban areas and French economic abnormalities. The Blue Banana was intended to further economic integration in Europe, but they felt that France had lost this alliance as a result of the Huguenots and the repression of centralization in Paris by the 17th century.
Researchers criticized the idea of a blue banana as a desirable creation in the context of a 1991 study by the European Commission in support of regional policy. The study of the history of The European Megalopolis as a fiction suggests the Commission's study of mistakenly rejecting blue bananas from the original concept of brunettes. From research conducted on behalf of the Commission, The European Megalopolis represented the main part developed at the expense of the perimeter, while Brunet saw the ancient blue banana as a field of development beyond the French border and around the perimeter of Paris.
A French government minister noted that the borders of the corridor made it look like a banana. The media promoted the name Blue Banana for this corridor and the concept has grown over the years with the media and local officials trying to market the areas included in it as key areas for investment. Like most investments, third parties also came and they ignored the boundaries of The Blue Banana in an attempt to market the areas they wanted to develop outside the borders, and Benet was opposed to The Blue Banana as intended to raise criticism of French economic practices.
Some of the areas comparable to this corridor include the golden banana between Genoa and Valencia, as well as the Mediterranean coastline known as the European Sunbelt. There is another Blue Banana present in northern Germany that starts from the North Sea coast to Denmark and ends in southern Scandinavia.
The Blue Banana has attracted immigrants who prefer to settle in a region with economic and good population density. This corridor is a great place for investors but then The Blue Banana has some negative effects. Focusing more on the areas located in The Blue Banana leads to neglect of areas outside of it and over time it is believed that The Blue Banana could lead to economic division in Europe.
The term Golden Banana is derived from the word Sun Belt by analysts when discussing urbanization in the European context. Golden Banana refers to an area of high population density located along the coast between Valencia in the west and Genoa in the east. The Mediterranean is defined by the European Commission's "Europe 2000" report in 1995 and is used to equate blue bananas.
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