Modelling urban form: A multidimensional typology of urban occupation for spatial analysis

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrícia Abrantes ◽  
Jorge Rocha ◽  
Eduarda Marques da Costa ◽  
Eduardo Gomes ◽  
Paulo Morgado ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Sprawl ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Spatial Planning ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Spatial Metrics ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Planning Decisions ◽  
Geographical Scale ◽  
Self Organising Map

The conceptual and methodological debate on urban form has grown in the last decades to recognize that social, economic, demographic and political processes can contribute to the development of new urban forms, especially those related to urban sprawl, as well as to find alternative methodologies for measuring them. Spatial metrics derived from landscape ecology arise as principal indicators to measure urban form. This paper proposes a typology of the urban occupation of Portuguese municipalities. It uses land use/cover data from 1990 and 2006 to extract built-up areas, and it presents five spatial metrics alongside seventeen statistical indicators from 1991 to 2011 most commonly used in the literature to characterize urban occupation. It uses a self-organising map as a visual tool to identify trends and relationships among variables and to cluster municipalities. Based on the self-organising map’s visual clustering, six types of urban occupation of Portuguese municipalities are proposed. In addition, the paper discusses the added value of using indicators that describe both the patterns and the characteristics of the municipalities for making spatial planning decisions in Portugal. The observed results show that spatial metrics are particularly adequate for measuring peri-urban municipalities (urban sprawl areas). These results represent the first multidimensional and systematic analysis of Portuguese urban occupation and they can be the first step in the integration of spatial metrics as indicators that are suitable for the analysis of spatial planning, and also for comparative purposes at a broader geographical scale.

scholarly journals Addressing Urban Sprawl from the Complexity Sciences

Urban Science ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martí Bosch ◽  
Jérôme Chenal ◽  
Stéphane Joost
Keyword(s):  
Urban Sprawl ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Spatial Interaction ◽  
Spatial Dynamics ◽  
Urban Fringe ◽  
Spatial Metrics ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Complexity Sciences ◽  
Approaches To Study

Urban sprawl is nowadays a pervasive topic that is subject of a contentious debate among planners and researchers, who still fail to reach consensual solutions. This paper reviews controversies of the sprawl debate and argues that they owe to a failure of the employed methods to appraise its complexity, especially the notion that urban form emerges from multiple overlapping interactions between households, firms and governmental bodies. To address such issues, this review focuses on recent approaches to study urban spatial dynamics from the perspective of the complexity sciences. Firstly, spatial metrics from landscape ecology provide means of quantifying urban sprawl in terms of increasing fragmentation and diversity of land use patches. Secondly, cellular automata and agent-based models suggest that the prevalence of urban sprawl and fragmentation at the urban fringe emerge from negative spatial interaction between residential agents, which seem accentuated as the agent’s preferences become more heterogeneous. Then, the review turns to practical applications that employ such models to spatially inform urban planning and assess future scenarios. A concluding discussion summarizes potential contributions to the debate on urban sprawl as well as some epistemological implications.

scholarly journals Scale, Governance, Urban Form and Landscape: Exploring the Scope for an Integrated Approach to Metropolitan Spatial Planning

2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 302-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan O'Sullivan ◽  
William Brady ◽  
Karen Ray ◽  
Evelyn Sikora ◽  
Eimear Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Urban Form ◽  
Spatial Planning ◽  
Integrated Approach

scholarly journals ASSESSMENT OF URBAN SPRAWL USING SHANNON’S ENTROPY AND FRACTAL ANALYSIS: A CASE STUDY OF ATAKUM, ILKADIM AND CANIK (SAMSUN, TURKEY)

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 264-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derya OZTURK
Keyword(s):  
Urban Sprawl ◽  
Fractal Analysis ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Entropy Method ◽  
Shannon’S Entropy ◽  
Analysis Method ◽  
Maximum Likelihood Classification ◽  
Shannon's Entropy ◽  
Box Counting

Urban sprawl is one of the most important problems in urban development due to its negative environmental and societal impacts. Therefore, the spatial pattern of urban growth should be accurately analyzed and well understood for effective urban planning. This paper focuses on urban sprawl analysis in the Atakum, Ilkadim and Canik districts of Samsun, Turkey. In this study, urban sprawl was examined over a period of 24 years using Shannon's entropy and fractal analysis based on remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS). The built-up areas in 1989, 2000 and 2013 were extracted from Landsat TM/ETM+/OLI images using the maximum likelihood classification method, and urban form changes in the 1989–2013 period were investigated. The Shannon's entropy method was used to determine the degree of urban sprawl, and a fractal analysis method based on box counting was used to characterize the urban sprawl. The results show that Atakum, Ilkadim and Canik experienced important changes and have considerable sprawl and complex characteristics now. The study also revealed that there is no monotonic relationship between Shannon's entropy and fractal dimension.

Linking processes and patterns: Spatial planning, governance and urban sprawl in the Barcelona and Milan metropolitan regions

Urban Studies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (16) ◽  
pp. 3650-3668 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sofia Pagliarin
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Urban Sprawl ◽  
Spatial Planning ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Local Planning ◽  
Land Use Patterns ◽  
Metropolitan Regions ◽  
Use Patterns ◽  
Regulatory Systems

Governance dynamics and spatial planning regulations are significant factors in the occurrence (or containment) of urban sprawl. However, qualitative investigations of the planning regulatory systems and practices, and governance arrangements that cumulatively stimulate suburbanisation, typically remain detached from land-change analyses. Based on the concept of institutional frames of spatial planning systems, this article elucidates how governance dynamics and spatial planning practices, at different scales, can partially explain suburban land-use patterns. The territorial transformations of two Southern European metropolitan regions, Barcelona and Milan, are examined through land-use data (1990–2012) at different territorial scales. Demographic (1991–2011) and administrative (2011) data are also analysed. In-depth interviews about individual and collective land management practices have been carried out, as well as document analysis concerning spatial planning laws and regulations. This research shows that the metropolitan character of urban sprawl originates from local planning practices mainly performed by municipal authorities through land-use micro-transformations. Further, it highlights the decisive role that higher-level institutions can play in land containment. Urban sprawl is hence not necessarily an unplanned phenomenon, but rather a ‘differently planned’ local and regional land-use strategy.

Arcology, Arcosanti and the Green Urbanism Vision

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 56-62
Author(s):  
Ruth A. Rae
Keyword(s):  
Urban Sprawl ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Steering Committee ◽  
Natural Landscape ◽  
The Past ◽  
Green Urbanism ◽  
Pedestrian Transportation ◽  
The City ◽  
Central Arizona

Arcosanti is a prototype city being built based on the visionary architect Paolo Soleri’s principles of Arcology which integrates architecture with ecology. Arcology proposes a compact three-dimensional urban form to provide a lean alternative to the unsustainable urban sprawl city form found in most of America. In its reduction of dependence on the automobile, reliance on pedestrian transportation, proximity to nature and proposal to have agriculture integrated into the city, Arcology is a vision of Green Urbanism. The design of Arcosanti incorporates Biophilic principles that preserve the biodiverse natural landscape, has a compact organic form, and functions with a circular metabolism that is analogous to nature when complete. Arcosanti, located in central Arizona, was begun in 1970 as an urban laboratory, and has been constructed by over 7,000 workshop volunteers over the past 45 years. Following Soleri's death in 2013, the Cosanti Foundation has established a Strategic Planning Steering Committee to help guide the continued development of Arcosanti as a prototype Arcology. The Strategic Plan will provide a framework for future organization and development. This article examines how the concept of Arcology and the development of the Arcosanti prototype encompasses principles of Green Urbanism and sustainable development.

Spatial metrics of urban form

2018 ◽  
pp. 189-209
Author(s):  
Chenghe Guan
Keyword(s):  
Urban Form ◽  
Spatial Metrics

Monitoring Urban Sprawl and Sustainable Urban Development Using the Moran Index

2018 ◽  
pp. 561-581
Author(s):  
Walter Musakwa ◽  
Adriaan van Niekerk
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Spatial Statistics ◽  
Urban Sprawl ◽  
Sustainable Urban Development ◽  
Planning Decisions ◽  
Spatial Weight ◽  
Cold Spots ◽  
Local Moran

The management of urban sprawl is fundamental to achieving sustainable urban development. Monitoring urban sprawl is, however, challenging. This study proposes the use of two spatial statistics, namely global Moran and local Moran to indentify statistically significant urban sprawl hot and cold spots. The findings reveal that the Moran indexes are sensitive to the distance band spatial weight matrices employed and that multiple bands should be used when these indexes are used. The authors demonstrate how the indexes can be used in combination with various visualisation methods to support planning decisions.

scholarly journals Between Abundance and Constraints: The Natural Resource Equation of Asia’s Diverging, Higher-Income City Models

Land ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 426
Author(s):  
Philipp Rode ◽  
Alexandra Gomes ◽  
Muhammad Adeel ◽  
Fizzah Sajjad ◽  
Andreas Koch ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resource ◽  
Resource Use ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Urban Spatial Structure ◽  
Energy Prices ◽  
Planning Decisions ◽  
Common Resource ◽  
Building Cooling

This paper investigates how natural resource conditions impact the physical development of cities and how, once built, the urban spatial structure leads to different patterns of resource use. The point of departure for this research is the common “resource urbanisms” assumption that cities are directly affected by the availability and costs of natural resources, and that in turn, different urbanisms result in substantial differences in resource use and consequent impact on the environment. Considering extreme and divergent, higher-income urban models of Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong and Singapore, the paper focusses on two resources, land and energy, and the case of building cooling and transport energy demand. The research uses a mixed methods approach which includes qualitative methods such as expert interviews, analysis of planning documents and historic planning decisions, alongside quantitative methods such as remote sensing, GIS and data analysis and energy modelling. The paper suggests that land availability is a major driver of urban form while energy prices may play a secondary role. It also finds that urban form-induced energy efficiencies for transport and cooling energy diverge in the four cities by a factor of five and two, respectively.

A Remote Sensing Based Calibration Framework for the MOLAND Urban Growth Model of Dublin

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Van de Voorde ◽  
Johannes van der Kwast ◽  
Frank Canters ◽  
Guy Engelen ◽  
Marc Binard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Model Calibration ◽  
Remote Sensing Data ◽  
Model Output ◽  
Spatial Metrics ◽  
Change Models ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
And Function

Land-use change models are useful tools for assessing and comparing the environmental impact of alternative policy scenarios. Their increasing popularity as spatial planning instruments also poses new scientific challenges, such as correctly calibrating the model. The challenge in model calibration is twofold: obtaining a reliable and consistent time series of land-use information and finding suitable measures to compare model output to reality. Both of these issues are addressed in this paper. The authors propose a model calibration framework that is supported by information on urban form and function derived from medium-resolution remote sensing data through newly developed spatial metrics. The remote sensing derived maps are compared to model output of the same date for two model scenarios using well-known spatial metrics. Results demonstrate a good resemblance between the simulation output and the remote sensing derived maps.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document