A Time-Series Investigation of Multi-Scale Urban Form Changes in Mountain Environment - A Case Study of Chongqing, China

Abstract

Present Chinese urban studies were heavily limited to the cities in coastal regions, while inland cities were largely unknown to outside world. A systematic understanding of spatial and temporal changes of inland cities, especially those in China's mountainous western parts, is absent so far. This research investigates the urban form changes of a inland city of Chongqing, in order to understand how a city evolves in mountain environment and under different socioeconomic background. Three levels of urban forms including city, neighborhood and building were examined based on the historical maps and satellite images. Results show that the overall urban form has become more contiguous and agglomerated. Neighborhood studies exhibit the increasing level of planning in terms of building configuration and road system. Height of the buildings, uniformly taking tower style, has kept rising along with declined building density. Urban form changes not only reaffirm the natural determinism of settlement development in mountain environment, but also indicate the disappearance of the traditional mountain urban landscape.