This research approachesthe phenomenon of scattered urban functions on the outskirts of the city, and the weakening effect this has upon the determination and control of its boundaries. It focuses on the causes that prompt the residential development in these areas and the policies adopted by the local and central authorities in their effort to manipulate or direct these tendencies

Nicosia is used as an example, because during the last 30 years it has undergone a sharp, intense demographic growth, which has affected the city and its satellite settlements, transforming the city of Nicosia into the larger urban structure of the province of Nicosia.

The study examines the phenomenon of the scattered residential functions in the perimeter of Nicosia’s urban structure either in sparsely built-up residential areas or in protected "agricultural" grounds. It notes the abuse of the agricultural land and examines the efforts of the central authorities to define a model for the urban expansion and to establish specific building regulations and restrictions for the protection of agricultural land and the "natural" space in the perimeter, or within, the extended urban structure. 

Finally, the repercussions of these proposals in the municipality of Latsia, part of Nicosia’s urban structure, are discussed – where the phenomenon of violent urbanization and the scattering of residential functions in its agricultural areas is felt more intensely. The efforts to control this phenomenon and protect the abused agricultural land, met intense reactions from the effected owners, which are supported by the local authority and the political parties, showing thus the contradictions and the deadlocks of the development of the contemporary city.