Urban primacy for Gozo : a case study of its capital Victoria

Abstract

Victoria, the capital city of Gozo, has evolved as the location where many of main activities of the island take place. Situated in the geographic centre of the island, Victoria has since the earliest times, been the main hub of the island. The primacy of Victoria is being analysed firstly from a historical perspective. Various rulers have governed this island, all of whom having concentrated their power and administration in Victoria. Due to the fact that pirates and corsairs started to attack Mediterranean islands, including Gozo, Gozitan residents resided within the fortifications standing in Victoria, also because of a decree who obliged Gozitans to sleep within the walls. As the attacks started diminishing, new coastal towers started being built and as the decree was removed, people started moving out of Victoria and establishing themselves in other settlements. The research also delves into the indicators for a primate city and in particular how Jefferson's criteria have been developed by various authors. These include the concentration of various economic operators; the settlement needs to be the capital city which has a colonial background; the concentration of transport network; monopoly over various functions (in particular if the country is small in size) and the location of government premises and agencies. Since various authors claim that the factors which contribute to urban primacy is not only population size but a collection of other indicators, these are thoroughly investigated. Data was collected from various sources and included: an analysis of how the Gozitan population evolved throughout the years; the location of retail outlets, specialised services, government services and leisure industry, positioning of banks, the public transport linkages and a study on property prices of Gozitan settlements. The obtained results, which are analysed through a statistics programme, confirm how Victoria is in fact the primate city of the island of Gozo. The various results also confirm that Victoria's primacy in various sectors is not attributed to chance.