Due to the attractiveness of its Mediterranean coastal location, the city region of Montpellier in Languedoc-Roussillon in the south of France is a dynamic area with a positive migration balance and a population which keeps on growing. Urban sprawl caused significant changes in the peri-urban landscape during recent decades, with individual housing plots spreading out from the cores of all the villages. New building also took place in former vineyards which used to be the characteristic land-use as result of the historical specialisation in the mass-production of table-wine. This sector has become increasingly weakened by economic problems, as have most of the other traditional agricultural sectors. The local economy now largely depends on tertiary activities, such as tourism, higher education, research, medicine, and new technologies.