Urban form in Canada at a small-area level: Quantifying “compactness” and “sprawl” with bayesian multivariate spatial factor analysis

2021 ◽  
pp. 239980832110629
Author(s):  
Hui Luan ◽  
Daniel Fuller
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Factor Analysis ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Small Area ◽  
Metropolitan Areas ◽  
Composite Index ◽  
Sustainable Urban Development ◽  
Large Area ◽  
Urban Forms ◽  
Spatial Factor

Quantifying urban forms to explore urban compactness or sprawl has become increasingly popular in multiple fields in the past decades. However, previous studies predominantly analyze the multidimensional phenomenon at large-area levels such as metropolitan areas, concealing variations that probably occur at small-area levels. Canadian studies measuring urban forms are usually conducted at the regional level with inconsistent indicators and approaches, hindering meaningful comparisons of compactness or sprawling between different regions. This study bridges a previous gap by applying Bayesian multivariate spatial factor analysis to construct a new composite urban compactness index for all Census Tracts (CT) in Canada. Nine urban form indictors representing four dimensions, density, centering, land use, and street connectivity are used in developing the index. Posterior probability is used to detect CTs that are most compact or sprawling. Results indicate that gross population and employment densities best characterize urban compactness at the CT level while land-use mix is the least central indictor to define the multi-faceted concept. Notable differences of urban compactness are detected across Canada and among different Census Metropolitan Areas (CMA). The most compact CTs usually locate in downtown or city center areas of a CMA. Larger and more populous CMAs, which also capture a larger extent of periphery areas, are not necessarily more compact and vice versa, suggesting the need to measure local variations of urban compactness. The constructed composite index allows direct urban compactness comparisons across different Canadian regions. Findings from this study can be used to guide smart and sustainable urban development in Canada.

scholarly journals Trade-Off Relationship of Arable and Ecological Land in Urban Growth When Altering Urban Form: A Case Study of Shenzhen, China

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (23) ◽  
pp. 10041
Author(s):  
Kaixuan Dai ◽  
Shi Shen ◽  
Changxiu Cheng ◽  
Sijing Ye ◽  
Peichao Gao
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Population Density ◽  
Urban Growth ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Urban Expansion ◽  
Arable Land ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Sustainable Urban Development ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Urban Forms

Over the last few decades, rapid urban expansion has spread over a great deal of arable and ecological land, leading to severe social and environmental issues. Although different urban growth scenarios cause varying types of urban forms to emerge, there is currently a lack of empirical studies and other research on these different forms. Therefore, it is important for decision-makers to have an improved understanding of the relationships between arable land and ecological land under different urban form conditions in order to implement sustainable urban development policies. This study utilized a patch-based, multilevel stochastic urban growth model to simulate Shenzhen’s urban growth until 2035. To determine the impacts of urban forms and population density on land use, we established five scenarios to simulate urban expansion and land-use changes at the sub-regional scale. The results revealed the trade-off relationships that emerge when altering the urban forms or population density, which shows that no single policy can conserve arable land and ecological land simultaneously. The results also revealed that sub-regions have distinct responses to alternative urban form scenarios compared with an entire region. Decision-makers and planners should consider the urban form in order to optimize development projects that fit local conditions and achieve more sustainable development.

scholarly journals Computing climate-smart urban land use with the Integrated Urban Complexity model (IUCm 1.0)

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 525-539 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Cremades ◽  
Philipp S. Sommer
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Urban Land ◽  
Urban Land Use ◽  
Urban Mobility ◽  
Urban Forms ◽  
Complex Features ◽  
Combat Climate Change

Abstract. Cities are fundamental to climate change mitigation, and although there is increasing understanding about the relationship between emissions and urban form, this relationship has not been used to provide planning advice for urban land use so far. Here we present the Integrated Urban Complexity model (IUCm 1.0) that computes “climate-smart urban forms”, which are able to cut emissions related to energy consumption from urban mobility in half. Furthermore, we show the complex features that go beyond the normal debates about urban sprawl vs. compactness. Our results show how to reinforce fractal hierarchies and population density clusters within climate risk constraints to significantly decrease the energy consumption of urban mobility. The new model that we present aims to produce new advice about how cities can combat climate change.

Urban Forms is Changing from Transport and Land Use

2014 ◽  
Vol 496-500 ◽  
pp. 2967-2970
Author(s):  
Chia Nung Li ◽  
Kuo Cheng Hsu ◽  
Chien Wen Lo ◽  
Yi Kai Hsieh
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
The Other ◽  
Transit Oriented Development ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Urban Forms ◽  
Related Development ◽  
Literature Reviews ◽  
The World

Urban forms are shaped under transport-land use connection. According to literature reviews, urban forms can be divided into six kinds from 1880 to 1990, traditional walking city, industrial transit city, automobile-oriented development city (compact or sprawl), transit-related development city and transit-oriented development city (TOD). Although many cities in the world had attempted to shape their urban forms like TOD in the 1990s, they didnt have definite goals and strategies to achieve it. On the other hand, there is neither systematic discussion nor comparative analysis concerning how to determine the original urban form of these cities. In this case, it is unlikely for them to become a TOD city in effective and suitable ways. As a sequence, this paper aims at reviewing literature , designing two sets of strategies to shape TOD urban form for policy-makers reference.

scholarly journals Improving an Urban Cellular Automata Model Based on Auto-Calibrated and Trend-Adjusted Neighborhood

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 688
Author(s):  
Xinhao Pan ◽  
Zichen Wang ◽  
Miao Huang ◽  
Zhifeng Liu
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Neighborhood Effects ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Urban Expansion ◽  
Original Model ◽  
Sustainable Urban Development ◽  
Cellular Automata Model ◽  
Land Use Scenario ◽  
Improved Model ◽  
Expansion Model

Accurately simulating urban expansion is of great significance for promoting sustainable urban development. The calculation of neighborhood effects is an important factor that affects the accuracy of urban expansion models. The purpose of this study is to improve the calculation of neighborhood effects in an urban expansion model, i.e., the land-use scenario dynamics-urban (LUSD-urban) model, by integrating the trend-adjusted neighborhood algorithm and the automatic rule detection procedure. Taking eight sample cities in China as examples, we evaluated the accuracies of the original model and the improved model. We found that the improved model can increase the accuracy of simulated urban expansion in terms of both the degree of spatial matching and the similarity of urban form. The increase of accuracy can be attributed to such integration comprehensively considers the effects of historical urban expansion trends and the influences of neighborhoods at different scales. Therefore, the improved model in this study can be widely used to simulate the process of urban expansion in different regions.

Evaluation of Compaction Index to Achieve Sustainable Urban Development Using AHP: Two Case Studies

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 98
Author(s):  
Sona Bikdeli
Keyword(s):  
Urban Development ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Sustainable Transportation ◽  
Sustainable Urban Development ◽  
Archival Studies ◽  
Compact City ◽  
Urban Forms ◽  
Common Term ◽  
Mixed Land Use

The search for an ideal city, which can express both technological advantages and healthy spirit of rural life based on enlightening ideas of social justice, has long been the major concern of most philosophers, social reformers, writers, architects and urban planners. Urban form is known as a source of environmental problems. The emergence of "sustainable development" as a common term has raised many discussions on urban forms. Different types of urban forms (corridor, compact, marginal and edge) have been evaluated for sustainable urban development. It is revealed that compact city is more sustainable than other forms. There is disagreement on potential effects of compaction. Using archival studies, surveys and questionnaires, the author evaluates the environmental sustainability of Yousefabad as a dense neighborhood, compared to Garnet Hill, by AHP to prove that compaction alone cannot bring the expected advantages. To achieve advantages of compaction in urban design, the author emphasizes that four basic criteria of compact city, density, sustainable transportation, mixed land-use and diversity, should be interrelated.

Categorizing Urban Form for the Largest Metro Regions in the U.S. Using the Excessive Commuting Framework

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 450-461 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Schleith ◽  
M. J. Widener ◽  
C. Kim ◽  
M. W. Horner
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Planning ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Travel Demand ◽  
Urban Forms ◽  
Mixed Use ◽  
Clustering Approach ◽  
Excess Commuting ◽  
The U.S

The degree to which U.S. cities, metro regions, and general urbanized areas have distinct centres of economic activity has been a matter of debate for many decades. In the jobs–housing literature, there is related debate about whether having many distinct mixed-use centres in cities leads to longer or shorter commutes. The excess commuting framework has been increasingly refined and applied to assess urban areas' jobs–housing balance. The framework has expanded over the years but an issue in the present research is whether its various theoretical measurements and efficiency calculations might be used to assess the degree of poly- or mono-centricity of a region, thereby contributing to debates about what kind of urban form facilitates shorter commutes. In this paper, a suite of excess commuting (EC) measures are calculated for fifty-three of the largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) in the U.S. From there a hierarchical clustering approach is developed and applied to demonstrate which of these metrics are most useful in describing urban form. We examine how these metrics perform for particular built environments, which gives further insights into commuting and land use trends. Results of the research show how various urban forms have specific commuting outcomes: specifically, that polycentric urban forms have shorter average commute distances than sprawling ones. This should inform policy questions about the most effective land-use planning strategies to pursue in efforts to manage travel demand via built environment interventions.

scholarly journals Computing Climate-Smart Urban Land Use with the Integrated Urban Complexity Model (IUCm 1.0)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Cremades ◽  
Philipp Sommer
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Urban Land ◽  
Urban Land Use ◽  
Urban Forms ◽  
Complex Features ◽  
Combat Climate Change ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Change Mitigation

Abstract. Cities are fundamental to climate change mitigation, and although there is increasing understanding about the relationship between emissions and urban form, this relationship has not been used to provide planning advice for urban land use so far. Here we present the Integrated Urban Complexity model (IUCm 1.0), which computes climate-smart urban forms, which are able to cut in half emissions from urban transportation. Furthermore, we show the complex features that go beyond the normal debates about urban sprawl vs. compactness. Our results show how to reinforce fractal hierarchies and population density clusters within climate risk constraints to significantly decrease the energy consumption used for transportation in cities. The new model that we present aims to produce new advice about how cities can combat climate change.

scholarly journals Effects of Urban Forms on Separate Drainage Systems: A Virtual City Perspective

Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 758 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jia ◽  
Sitzenfrei ◽  
Rauch ◽  
Liang ◽  
Liu
Keyword(s):  
Urban Form ◽  
Domestic Wastewater ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
Drainage Systems ◽  
Urban Forms ◽  
Storm Water Management Model ◽  
Wastewater Systems ◽  
Performance Dimensions

The development of urban drainage systems is challenged by rapid urbanization; however, little attention is paid to the urban form and its effects on these systems. This study develops an integrated city-drainage model that configures typical urban forms and their associated drainage infrastructures, specifically domestic wastewater and rainwater systems, to analyze the relationship between them. Three typical types of urban forms were investigated: the square, the star, and the strip. Virtual cities were designed first, with the corresponding drainage systems generated automatically and then linked to a model herein called the Storm Water Management Model (SWMM). Evaluation was based on 200 random configurations of wastewater/rainwater systems with different structures or attributes. The results show that urban forms play more important roles on three dimensions of performance, namely economic efficiency, effectiveness, and adaptability, of the rainwater systems than of the wastewater systems. Cost is positively correlated to the effectiveness of rainwater systems among the different urban forms, while adaptability is negatively correlated to the other two performance dimensions. Regardless of the form, it is difficult for a city to make its drainage systems simultaneously cost-effective, efficient, and adaptable based on the virtual cities we investigated. This study could inspire the urban planning of both built-up and to-be-built areas to become more sustainable with their drainage infrastructure by recognizing the pros and cons of different macroscale urban forms.

scholarly journals Urban access across the globe: an international comparison of different transport modes

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hao Wu ◽  
Paolo Avner ◽  
Genevieve Boisjoly ◽  
Carlos K. V. Braga ◽  
Ahmed El-Geneidy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Road Network ◽  
Urban Economics ◽  
Metropolitan Areas ◽  
Transport Infrastructure ◽  
Compact Development ◽  
Unit Of Measurement ◽  
In Transit ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
American Cities

AbstractAccess (the ease of reaching valued destinations) is underpinned by land use and transport infrastructure. The importance of access in transport, sustainability, and urban economics is increasingly recognized. In particular, access provides a universal unit of measurement to examine cities for the efficiency of transport and land-use systems. This paper examines the relationship between population-weighted access and metropolitan population in global metropolitan areas (cities) using 30-min cumulative access to jobs for 4 different modes of transport; 117 cities from 16 countries and 6 continents are included. Sprawling development with the intensive road network in American cities produces modest automobile access relative to their sizes, but American cities lag behind globally in transit and walking access; Australian and Canadian cities have lower automobile access, but better transit access than American cities; combining compact development with an intensive network produces the highest access in Chinese and European cities for their sizes. Hence density and mobility co-produce better access. This paper finds access to jobs increases with populations sublinearly, so doubling the metropolitan population results in less than double access to jobs. The relationship between population and access characterizes regions, countries, and cities, and significant similarities exist between cities from the same country.

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