8,585 research outputs found
Spatial sustainability in cities: organic patterns and sustainable forms
Because the complexity of cities seems to defy description, planners and urban designers have
always been forced to work with simplified concepts of the city. Drawn from natural language, these
concepts emphasize clear hierarchies, regular geometries and the separation of parts from wholes,
all seemingly at variance with the less orderly complexity of most real cities. Such concepts are now
dominating the debate about sustainability in cities. Here it is argued that space syntax has now
brought to light key underlying structures in the city, which have a direct bearing on sustainability in
that they seem to show that the spatial form of the self-organised city, as a foreground network of
linked centres at all scales set into a background network of mainly residential space, is already a
reflection of the relations between environmental, economic and socio-cultural forces, that is
between the three domains of sustainability. Evidence that this is so in all three domains is drawn
from recent and new research, and a concept of spatial sustainability is proposed focused on the
structure of the primary spatial structure of the city, the street network
A Decade of Urban History: The Historical Urban Studies Series
The first half of the 1990s was a pivotal period in the development and growth of urban history in Europe. In Britain the Urban History Group began to convene again after a decade in abeyance, work commenced on the three-volume Cambridge Urban History of Britain, the Urban History Yearbook became Urban History whilst the European Association of Urban Historians organized their first conference. It was in this climate that Ashgate Publishing commissioned a new monograph series, Historical Urban Studies, under the editorship of Richard Rodger, editor of Urban History, and Jean-Luc Pinol, the leading French urban historian and a key figure in the European Association of Urban Historians (EAUH). The aim of the series was and is to be comparative over both time and space, drawing on multiple locations to explore what is common and what distinctive about the urban experience of diverse towns and nations. The broad agenda for the series was shaped by an overarching concern with the administration and governance of the city which underpinned attempts to manage the social, economic and political challenges wrought by 300 years of urban change. In particular, the editors stress the importance of the comparative element which should allow historians to distinguish âwhich were systematic factors and which were of a purely local natureâ. The editors set themselves an ambitious agenda and this essay aims to explore how the series has developed over the ten or so years since it commenced publication; the degree to which it has provided a platform for advancing the sub-discipline of urban history; and to consider some future directions which urban history might take
Towards a theory of natural occupation: developing theoretical, methodological and empirical support for the relation between plot systems and urban processes
Plot systems (or âplotsâ, âlotsâ, âparcelsâ, âland divisionsâ) is a commonly recognised structural component of urban form along with streets and buildings. They play a critical role in understanding urban processes in cities, not least of all because they link directly between the physical world and institutions, such as property rights.The role of plots and plot systems in urban processes is addressed in this thesis as the theory of natural occupation. The theory argues that the structure of plot systems is the driver of a process of economic concentration and diversification of economic activity in cities, as described in the burgage cycle concept (temporal evolution of built form) and the spatial capacity concept (link between plot shape and urban diversity).However, plot systems remain the least studied component of urban form, which this thesis contributes to on two levels. Firstly, by developing more precise quantitative descriptions of plots and plot systems by way of morphological measures and plot types. Secondly, by making use of these descriptions and empirically testing some central ideas in urban morphology, such as urban diversity. The thesis thus contributes to methodological and theoretical development in the field of urban morphology. However, it also demonstrates how these ideas on urban morphology can be a central contribution to theories in other fields addressing urban processes, such as urban planning and especially urban economics.\ua0The research design of the thesis involves the development of a generic method to spatially represent plot systems, the identification of three key morphological variables of plots based on extensive literature review in the field of urban morphology, the development of analytical plot types using statistical methods of data-driven classifications and finally, empirical testing of the theory of natural occupation (by correlating the morphological variables and plot types with the concentration and diversification of economic activity in five European cities).\ua0The empirical studies provide support for a direct relation between the shape and structure of plot systems and economic processes in cities and are an important contribution to urban design and planning practice
Exploring dynamic street vendors and pedestrians through the lens of static spatial configuration in Yuncheng, China
Extensive studies have demonstrated the relationship between static street networks and dynamic pedestrian movement. Street vendors temporarily appear in a vibrant space, closely engaging with numerous pedestrians. Is street vending distribution related to street network configuration? And if so, in what ways? This study investigates the heterogeneous relationships between pedestrians, vendors and the urban and suburban places they inhabit in Yuncheng by contrasting two different types of pedestrian-driven maps. The vending distribution map was identified via semi-structured interviews with urban managers (n = 11) in 2017. The spatial network configuration was examined through space syntax segment angular analysis, containing Integration, Choice and Combined Centrality properties at macro-, meso- and micro-scales. By overlapping the distribution map to the syntactic maps in the Quantum Geographic Information System (QGIS) platform, our results show that street vending distribution is most related to the Choice property at the meso-scale. Using semi-structured interviews (n = 53) and observations at two specific sites, we further found relationships tend to be opposed in urban and suburban areas. The study provides an alternative approach to integrating quantitative and qualitative data, expanding the theoretical and empirical understanding of spatial configuration and urban street activities related to walking and vending. This understanding has the potential to contribute to the design of more liveable street spaces
Do the suburbs exist? Discovering complexity and specificity in suburban built form
In human geography cities are routinely acknowledged as complex and dynamic built environments. This description is rarely extended to the suburbs, which are generally regarded as epiphenomena of the urbs and therefore of little intrinsic theoretical interest in themselves. This article presents a detailed critique of this widely held assumption by showing how the idea of 'the suburban' as an essentially non-problematic domain has been perpetuated from a range of contrasting disciplinary perspectives, including those that directly address suburban subject matter. The result has been that attempts to articulate the complex social possibilities of suburban space are easily caught between theories of urbanisation that are insensitive to suburban specificity and competing representations of the suburb that rarely move beyond the culturally specific to consider their generic significance. This article proposes that the development of a distinctively suburban theory would help to undermine one-dimensional approaches to the built environment by focusing on the relationship between social organisation and the dynamics of emergent built form
INTEGRATED URBAN ENVIRONMENT EFFECT ANALYSIS OF INFRASTRUCTURAL TRANSFORMATIONS
The report presents the method developed within the research project âStadsmilj\uf6analys- Analys av t\ue4tbebyggda milj\uf6er i infrastrukturprojektâ, funded by Trafikverket (Swedish Transport Authority). This project sets up an integrated methodology for analysing and estimating the local impact of road and rail infrastructure projects in urban environments, either by way of new infrastructure or by way of retrofits, focusing on socioeconomic, environmental, and cultural-historical effects. While the focus is on national transport infrastructure investments, the method addresses local effects. This stems from the acknowledgement that each infrastructure investments results in a redistribution of accessibility where increasing accessibility on a regional and interurban scale might create encroachments on a local scale including the reduction of the usability of areas near to the infrastructure due to emissions and noise, risk of accidents, negative impacts on wildlife as well as barrier effects. It is these encroachments this method aims to highlight with the aim to reduce negative trade-offs of new or transformed transport infrastructure and recognize both local opportunities and sensitivities.\ua0In this project the direct effects of infrastructure projects in relation to the three perspectives (socioeconomic, environmental, and cultural-historical are described and measured in a precise manner through a series of spatial analyses. The cumulative, indirect, effects and broader consequences are also assessed, in relation to the sustainable development goals. The overall assessment methodology is based on a before-and-after analysis workflow, systematically comparing the existing situation (how it is, how it functions, how it affects people) to the future scenarios proposed by planning. The methodology is showcased using two infrastructural transformations projects in S\uf6derk\uf6ping and M\uf6lndal, Sweden, as case studies. \ua0\ua0The overarching goal of the research project is to contribute to an improved integration between infrastructure and local urban areas and communities in projects initiated and developed by the Swedish Transport Authority,\ua0Trafikverket. The presented methodology builds on the ILKA (Integrerad landskapskarakt\ue4rsanalys) method, currently used by the Swedish Transport Authority. While ILKA focuses mainly on the inventory of the current landscape on a regional scale, this project widens the scope to also address urban areas and to include, besides the ecological descriptions, also socio-economic and cultural-historical analysis that are currently less emphasized.\ua0Such an integrated method can improve the ability of the Swedish Transport Authority to develop projects that contribute to sustainable urban development and, furthermore, create a unified work procedure in the organization
How does spatial structure affect psychological restoration? A method based on Graph Neural Networks and Street View Imagery
The Attention Restoration Theory (ART) presents a theoretical framework with
four essential indicators (being away, extent, fascinating, and compatibility)
for comprehending urban and natural restoration quality. However, previous
studies relied on non-sequential data and non-spatial dependent methods, which
overlooks the impact of spatial structure defined here as the positional
relationships between scene entities on restoration quality. The past methods
also make it challenging to measure restoration quality on an urban scale. In
this work, a spatial-dependent graph neural networks (GNNs) approach is
proposed to reveal the relation between spatial structure and restoration
quality on an urban scale. Specifically, we constructed two different types of
graphs at the street and city levels. The street-level graphs, using sequential
street view images (SVIs) of road segments to capture position relationships
between entities, were used to represent spatial structure. The city-level
graph, modeling the topological relationships of roads as non-Euclidean data
structures and embedding urban features (including Perception-features,
Spatial-features, and Socioeconomic-features), was used to measure restoration
quality. The results demonstrate that: 1) spatial-dependent GNNs model
outperforms traditional methods (Acc = 0.735, F1 = 0.732); 2) spatial structure
portrayed through sequential SVIs data significantly influences restoration
quality; 3) spaces with the same restoration quality exhibited distinct spatial
structures patterns. This study clarifies the association between spatial
structure and restoration quality, providing a new perspective to improve urban
well-being in the future.Comment: 33 pages, 7 figures, Under revie
The role of street network metrics in shaping distance distributions in a residential neighbourhood
Walkability studies often rely on physical proximity metrics for destination accessibility. However, some recent studies argue that configuration (topological) distance provides a more accurate reflection of the actual distances experienced by individuals. This study therefore aims to test the extent to which an association exists between network-metric proximity to several destinations and two main measures of space syntax â integration and choice â in a dendriform network structure such as Putrajaya city (Malaysia). Using GIS, multiple buffer-service areas were generated around each housing unit (N = 2,392). Interpolation and space syntax analyses were conducted to assess metric and topological distance at local and global levels for each buffer. The statistical analysis showed that distances to commercial areas, transportation and average distances to all destinations were strongly affected by the syntactical properties of the neighbourhood. Moreover, global measures were more powerful in detecting metric-distance changes compared to local measures. Aligned with natural movement theory, these results support the idea that the spatial properties of urban form have a significant impact on distance distributions within residential settings, specifically distances to commercial areas. Therefore, policies that promote mixed-use development, especially in areas with good transportation access, should consider the impact of syntactical accessibility of the network
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