Abstract
Spatial structure is a fundamental characteristic of cities that influences the urban functioning to a large extent. While administrative partitioning is generally done in the form of static spatial division, understanding a more temporally dynamic structure of the urban space would benefit urban planning and management immensely. This study makes use of a large-scale mobile phone positioning dataset to characterize the diurnal dynamics of the interaction-based urban spatial structure. To extract the temporally vibrant structure, spatial interaction networks at different times are constructed based on the movement connections of individuals between geographical units. Complex network community detection technique is applied to identify the spatial divisions as well as to quantify their temporal dynamics. Empirical analysis is conducted using data containing all user positions on a typical weekday in Shenzhen, China. Results are compared with official zoning and planned structure and indicate a certain degree of expansion in urban central areas and fragmentation in industrial suburban areas. A high level of variability in spatial divisions at different times of day is detected with some distinct temporal features. Peak and pre-/post-peak hours witness the most prominent fluctuation in spatial division indicating significant change in the characteristics of movements and activities during these periods of time. Findings of this study demonstrate great potential of large-scale mobility data in supporting intelligent spatial decision making and providing valuable knowledge to the urban planning sectors.
Highlights
The arrangement of urban space is of paramount importance to effective management and governance of cities
This study aims at characterizing the dynamics of urban spatial structure by identifying the diurnal variations in spatial division
Due to the fact that individual movement traces were aggregated to a certain geographical unit (TAZ in this study) in order for a meaningful exploration, inevitable concerns would be raised on the potential effect of the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem (MAUP) [42]
Summary
The arrangement of urban space is of paramount importance to effective management and governance of cities. While the hope is for the urban residents to conduct daily activities in accordance with the planning schemes and maintaining a balanced structure in terms of the spatial interactions among different urban zones, the actual situation of urban spatial interactions and the resultant spatial divisions is difficult to measure. Such knowledge and information is desired in order to evaluate the existing schemes as well as to modify future planning. Interaction-based structure is time-varying and dynamic as opposed to the planned structure and administrative zoning which are static in the short term
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