The purpose of WP2 is to detect and understand the local events and rationale involved in the emergence of urban sprawl, its relevance in the decisional agenda of local authorities and experts, and the overall level of awareness of this particular urban phenomenon. Such goals are achieved by analysing interviews conducted with local authorities' representatives and experts in the six case cities of Bristol, Brussels, Helsinki, Milan, Stuttgart and Rennes.

WP2, by adopting a qualitative analysis approach based on semi-structured interviews, offers an in-depth and complementary understanding of the mechanisms of urban sprawl, notably the local and inherent events that triggers urban sprawl and the actual role of planning interventions.

The adopted methodology comprises 2 stages:

• designing a common interview framework

• synthesis of the interviews

The results of WP1 are used as the reference framework and the bank of information for the development of the map of concepts which inform the interview framework. The map represents the key variables and variables' relationships that needed to be investigated in the interviews.

The synthesis is based on the concepts and categories, which have emerged during the analysis of the interviews, some of which had not been pre-determined in the interview framework. As a result the original areas of investigations (awareness and mechanisms of urban sprawl) have been redesigned into:

• a general knowledge problem

• factors determining location choices