Abstract
Although densification of urban areas is being proposed as a sustainable urbanisation strategy, frameworks for detailed large-scale analysis of densification potentials and their evaluation are lacking. A geospatial simulation framework is presented to assess and evaluate densification potentials at the neighbourhood level of already built-up residential areas. The focus is on post-war neighbourhoods, which are particularly promising for sustainable densification. Neighbourhoods are localised using geospatial analysis and based on literature and architectural designs, potentials are estimated for different neighbourhood archetypes and densification strategies. Potentials are simulated at a national scale using supervised archetype classification. The embeddedness into current mobility infrastructure is used as a proxy for evaluating the sustainability of neighbourhood densification. The developed framework is tested for Switzerland. Depending on the densification strategy, the simulated additional inhabitants for populating post-war urban neighbourhoods range between 4–15 % of the current population. More than half of this potential is located in central areas and is well connected by public transportation. The presented approach is suitable for assessing spatially explicit densification potential and for prioritising densification locations. We show that in countries with a high number of post-war neighbourhoods in well-connected locations, considerable densification opportunities could be realised in already built-up residential areas.
Highlights
Densification has been put forward as an urbanization strategy for the efficient use of limited space for living, to intensify the built form and to realise compact cities as opposed to sprawling cities (Jenks & Burgess, 2000; Jenks, Burton, & Williams, 1996)
Our focus on neighbourhoods potentially enables integrated planning whilst realising densification potentials, which opens up possibilities to reap long-term sustainability impacts (Boverket, 2017; Rohe, 2009; UN Habitat, 2015). We argue that this focus on post-war neighbourhoods allows a more realistic estimation of densification potentials and com plements the densification literature more generally focusing on urban form or single buildings
A first general finding is that potential areas with currently low densities and high densification potentials are on average less suited from a locational and sustainability point of view
Summary
Densification ( urban consolidation or redensification) has been put forward as an urbanization strategy for the efficient use of limited space for living, to intensify the built form and to realise compact cities as opposed to sprawling cities (Jenks & Burgess, 2000; Jenks, Burton, & Williams, 1996). As a first response to the call for increased densification, undeveloped existing building zones in urban areas have been the first focus of analysis In many places, this was accompanied by urban transformation efforts considering the conversion of industrial wastelands or brownfield areas to residential neighbourhoods by the replacement with new buildings ( known as grey recycling). We argue that our focus of analysis considering neighbourhoods, geographic location and building age al lows for more realistic densification potentials estimation and we hy pothesize, that there is considerable potential for densification in postwar neighbourhoods We test this hypothesis at a national scale for Switzerland and include further constraining factors that limit the practicability of densification projects when assessing densification potentials of residential post-war urban neighbourhoods
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