Changing Urban Form Research Articles

Impact of changing urban form and production-living-ecological space on changing ecosystem services of a smart city of Eastern India, Durgapur.

Worldwide land use land cover (LULC) transformation become a serious issue in the last few decades due to its immense importance in environmental and human well-being perspectives. Expansion of urban areas at the expense of natural land covers and changing urban form is mainly responsible for changing environmental conditions. This study focused on identifying the impacts of LULC change on environmental conditions through the assessment of changing ecosystem services (ESs) of the Durgapur Municipal Corporation (DMC) from 1990 to 2020. Changing ESs are assessed based on changing urban forms and production-living-ecological space (PLES) components. Results found that the compactness of urban areas is increasing along with the outward expansion. The core urban area of DMC has risen from 8.11% to 30.11% during 1990-2020. Similarly, living space increased from 15.57% to 42.60%, production space decreased from 53.06% to 25.59%, and ecological space fluctuated from 1990 to 2020. This transformation of PLES components negatively affects DMC's environmental condition, affecting the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These significant results may be utilized to understand changing environmental conditions and priority issues for DMC's future sustainable urban development.

Gentrification and the Changing Urban Form

The effects of gentrification on displacement are widespread in the United States today. Since 1960, the United States has provided low-income people with opportunities to live in cities and find better jobs. As a result, a large number of low-income people have flooded into cities, resulting in high-income groups being dissatisfied with the changes in the surrounding community environment and moving to the suburbs, forming a wave of counter-urbanization. Today, however, the United States is reversing this trend and reurbanizing. High-income people with knowledge and expertise are moving into big cities, while low-income people are being driven out of their original homes. This paper will analyze the causes of gentrification and its impact, and divide into four parts to answer these questions. Gentrification is a development trend, which should not be ignored but should be faced and better helped by government intervention, community assistance and welfare policies.

Obesity and environments external to the body.

Studies of environment and obesity usually use epidemiologically tractable measures that are proxies for energy balance or macronutrient composition intake, mostly to identify individual behavioural changes for prevention or reduction of obesity, or inform policy. Of environments external to the body as they relate to obesity, the built environment and the food environment are considered among the most important. Incorporating human sociality into obesity and environments research enriches the field by offering possible ways for understanding obesity production via social stress, dietary preference, food consumption and physical activity. External environments are in flux, however, especially with changing urban form and social environmental hybridity since Web 2.0, with urban polycentricity and networked and online activity influencing obesity production in new ways. While the world's rural populations are experiencing the fastest increases in obesity, large urban populations benefit from scale in setting the physical conditions for physical activity and healthy food availability, with larger and polycentric cities having lower rates of obesity than smaller monocentric or dispersed cities. It is argued that built, food and social environments set the context for obesity production or its amelioration, with sociodemographic factors being more important than new phenomena such as digital and smart technologies. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Causes of obesity: theories, conjectures and evidence (Part I)'.

Social and spatial impacts of changing urban form in Ayazağa, Turkey

The politics of spatial reproduction have been at the heart of Turkey’s economic growth over the past two decades, accelerating rapid urban change in İstanbul. In addition to the transformation of the existing building stock in the city, natural spaces are also being developed through the partial revision of master plans and reproduced through large- scale new investments. This study examines the spatial changes in the Ayazağa Neighbourhood on the northern periphery of İstanbul. The region has become one of the areas where large capital owners have invested extensively in the last decade. Most of the new spatial interventions are large- scale mixed- use buildings. Based on morphological analysis and in- depth interviews with residents, the study investigates the existing urban fabric and the new interventions through four specific cases. The reproduction of urban space in the case study areas is discussed in terms of spatial characteristics and social aspects. As a result, the lack of public open spaces, massive new buildings with privately owned public spaces, and the social and spatial segregation between the residents of the informal settlements and the new upper- class housing are addressed as problem areas.

Has urban form become homogenizing? Evidence from cities in China

Although the evolution characteristics and drivers of urban form have received significant attention in the past, the homogenization trend of urban form has been neglected. This study examined the changing urban form of a large cohort of 1525 Chinese cities over an extended, 25-year period of rapid growth from 1990 to 2015. Landscape indices and principal component analysis were used to quantify urban form in terms of morphological and spatial complexity, as well as spatial agglomeration. Then the cosine similarity index was employed to measure the homogenization degree of urban form (HDUF) of the entire cohort and of four tiers of these cities that had been previously defined by the city tier system of China. The K-means algorithm and trajectory analysis were subsequently used to describe the homogenizing orientation of urban form. Our results indicate that the HDUF within tiers is increasing along similar trends that are offset over time. The highest tier cities began to homogenize after 1995, followed by intermediate and lower tiered cities, which began to homogenize from 2000 to 2005. The lowest tier cities began to homogenize after 2010. The homogenization trends were also apparent when analysis was conducted between different tiers. As of 1990, the orientation of urban form of more than 99% of the cities was characterized by regular form with low patch density, but by 2005, almost half of the cities were undergoing transition toward either a compact from, which was characterized by low patch number and shorter distance patch distribution, or a fragmented form, which was characterized by elevated patch number and longer distance patch distribution. The temporal pattern of homogenization and the observed bifurcated orientation of form indicate (i) that challenges currently faced by higher tier cities will confront lower tier cities in the future and (ii) that it is important to understand the mechanisms that govern the alternative trajectories toward compactness and fragmentation. Our study deepens the understanding of the urban form evolution and its driving mechanisms and provide a guiding framework to predict future urban development.

From farm to the city? Understanding the motives of entrepreneurial Javanese migration to an Indonesian outer island

AbstractThis article examines the migration motives of entrepreneurial Javanese migrants residing in the regional town of Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara—a relatively resource-poor province in Eastern Indonesia. These migrants had generally worked in agriculture in their hometowns in Java but have engaged in and/or set up informal businesses since their arrival in Kupang. Drawing on a mixed-methods approach (household survey [n = 344]; in-depth interviews [n = 28]) in 2020, we identified the diverse underlying motives of Javanese entrepreneurial migration to Kupang. Most Javanese respondents emphasised the importance of a combination of factors, including their low levels of education in Java, greater opportunities to improve their quality of life, and tolerant and welcoming locals in Kupang. Associated with these factors, others migrated to escape the difficulties of agricultural work and the need to earn more income to fund their children’s education now and in the future. Our article offers new insights into how changing social and economic conditions in rural Java are increasingly driving migration to the rapidly growing urban clusters in Indonesia’s outer islands, leading to changing urban form, economic trajectories, and social relations.

Impacts of changing urban form on ecological efficiency in China: a comparison between urban agglomerations and administrative areas

This paper explored the impacts of the changing urban form on the ecological efficiency of administrative areas and urban agglomerations in China under different regional scales using the slack-based measure of efficiency model. It also measured the morphological characteristics of cities across several regions using the Largest Patch Index (LPI), Patch Density (PD), and Fractal Dimension (FD). Using the threshold regression model, the impact mechanism of urban form on ecological efficiency was examined. Results show that the ecological efficiency of the regions show an “N” type change over time. LPI and PD show a significant impact in promoting ecological efficiency while FD inhibits ecological efficiency but is not significant until the regional scale reaches 1,352 km2. We conclude that the development of urban agglomeration is more conducive to improving regional ecological efficiency, which will give policymakers some inspiration in developing a regional development strategy.

Towards sustainability? Analyzing changing urban form patterns in the United States, Europe, and China

Urban form characterizes the spatial structure of fixed elements within a city, which affects daily life and has significant influence on environmental sustainability. Measuring the spatiotemporal characteristics of an urban form and its relationship with sustainable development is the basis of urban planning. Taking 27 large cities in the United States, Europe and China as examples, we developed a ternary graph to quantify urban forms based on the density distribution of the built-up area. The urban forms were divided into the following classes: central-compact, central-sprawl, decentralized-compact, and decentralized-sprawl. Spatially, the cities in the three regions have experienced rapid urban growth, while the urban forms vary greatly from region to region. Urban forms are dominated by decentralized-sprawl in the United States, and central-compact in Europe and China. Temporally, approximately 80% of sample cities kept the urban form class both in 1990–2000 and 2000–2014. It is noted that 40% of sample cities in China tended to grow in a more sprawling pattern in 2000–2014 than in 1990–2000. From the land-saving aspect of urban sustainable development, compact and central spatial growth can significantly reduce per capita land consumption. Population density decreases in all sample cities, but compact and central spatial growth slowed the rate of population density reduction.

필리핀 마닐라의 도시성장 특성에 관한 해석 : 운하도시에서 광역도시로의 변화 형태를 중심으로

본 연구는 마닐라 만의 역사 항구도시인 필리핀 마닐라의 성장궤적을 도시의 확장 형태 중심으로 추적하여 성장특성을 고찰한다. 이를 통해 본 연구는 마닐라의 성장 및 진화가 운송교통체계의 조성과 거점개발의 결과임을 확인하고, 도시정책의 의미를 도출한다. 이러한 마닐라의 도시확장은 무엇보다 지배세력이었던 스페인 정부, 미국 정부, 필리핀-마닐라 정부가 각각의 개발목적을 갖고 주도해온 세 단계의 변화과정인 (1)운하와 항구-성당-시장, (2)항구-철도와 철도역-시장-대학, (3)메트로-외곽순환도로와 메트로역-군부대-쇼핑센터를 중심으로 진행된 단계별 다핵도시로의 진화로 이해되었다. 한편 운송교통체계 중심의 도시변화는 하나의 광역도시권 내에 각 교통체계를 중심으로 집중된 소득, 인종, 문화 간의 분리를 유도하는 다수의 ‘상호 독립된’ 도시거점들을 양산해왔다. 이러한 마닐라의 도시구조적 변화특성은 동남아 도시들이 공통적으로 공유하는 도시정책의 주요 이슈이며, 광역도시권 내에서 상호 독립되어 기능해온 일련의 운송교통체계와 거점들 간의 물리적인 기능연계가 시급한 과제임을 확인해준다.

Quantifying the sustainability of urban growth and form through time: An algorithmic analysis of a city's development

Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, households and cities have changed dramatically. Dense urban developments have given way to lower density suburbanization, while the changing face of the typical family has led to different household makeups. Analyzing how changing urban form influences the sustainability of cities is important for planning future ways in which society aggregates itself. Using current data layers, such as urban boundaries and building footprints, along with past aerial photographs of the city and census data, a detailed reconstruction of the city of Pocatello, Idaho was possible for 1941 for both urban form and population. Using these data sources an algorithmic analysis of various aspects of the city, clustering, compactness, connectivity, and density, was performed on a decadal basis. Results showed an overwhelming trend toward less sustainable development for the city, larger blocks, measured by intersection density, larger distances between houses, fewer people utilizing more space, a more irregularly shaped urban form, an average greater distance from the city center for development, and decreased connectivity, as measured by intersection density. Because the data sources used for this study are readily available to most planning municipalities, the same analysis could be performed on various cities and metros across the United States.

Energy Resilient Urban Form: A Design Perspective

The paper introduces a design perspective of making energy resilient urban form, an approach to promoting energy performance through changing urban physical form. Existing urban energy research is often limited to performance analysis based on a positive question such as: “how urban systems function in energy efficiency”. The paper raises a normative question: “how urban form should be designed or changed to achieve better energy performance and system resiliency”. A research framework is suggested, including 1) energy flows in Euclidean geometry, 2) Gibson and Lynch's perceptual environment, 3) material flows and embodied energy, and 4) cross-scale dynamics. A test case of urban district is conducted, which demonstrates how performance analysis and design are connected. The paper concludes that urban design can be conceived as a forward-looking modeling method for synthesizing complex and uncertain energy problems in cities. It contributes to the agenda of creating a “normal science of urban energy modeling”.

Urban form, car ownership and activity space in inner suburbs: A comparison between Beijing (China) and Chicago (United States)

Accompanied by higher levels of car ownership, suburbanisation in Western countries has a significant impact on motorised travel and long-distance trips. Chinese cities share some of the suburbanisation trends and patterns of the United States as well as an increasing number of cars, while there are still great contextual variations. Through a comparative study of activity space in two inner suburban areas with different built environments, Beijing in China and Chicago in the US, this paper examines how suburbanisation influences individuals’ activity-travel behaviour. The results indicate that changing urban form has a significant impact on activity space. However, the determinants of activity space in Beijing are quite different from those in Chicago. In Beijing, increasing car ownership leads to more differentiation among suburban residents. In Chicago, encouraging high-density land use patterns may lead to more localised activity space.

Changing Urban Form and Transport CO2 Emissions: An Empirical Analysis of Beijing, China

Decentralization development and changing urban form will increase the mobility and contribute to global CO2 emissions, in particular for developing countries which are experiencing rapid economic growth and urban expansion. In this paper, an integrated analytical framework, which can quantify the impact of changing urban form on commuting CO2 emissions, is presented. This framework simultaneously considers two emission dependent factors, commuting demand and modal share based on the concept of excess commuting and accessibility analysis, and ensures its applicability to other cities where the detailed individual travel data is not available. A case study of Beijing from 2000 to 2009 is used to illustrate this framework. The findings suggest that changing urban form in Beijing did have a significant impact on commuting CO2 emission increase. Changing to a more decentralized urban form in Beijing had a larger impact on commuting distance and increased usage of cars, which resulted in a significant rise in CO2 emissions. There is a larger space and an urgent need for commuting CO2 emission reduction, in 2009 in Beijing, by planning and by strategic measures in order to promote sustainable transport.

Memory and place on the Liverpool waterfront in the mid-twentieth century

ABSTRACTThis article explores the changing urban form and society of waterfront Liverpool in the last generation of the city's role as a traditional general cargo seaport. Deriving much of its evidence from a collaborative public history project, it demonstrates the continuing vitality of the near waterfront zone into the 1960s, and interprets the subsequent sudden collapse of the district with the closure of the south docks in 1972. Interviewees identified sites of memory that cast light on both the routine working of the district and the nature of its fall into dereliction and abandonment.

Habitat Composition and Connectivity Predicts Bat Presence and Activity at Foraging Sites in a Large UK Conurbation

BackgroundUrbanization is characterized by high levels of sealed land-cover, and small, geometrically complex, fragmented land-use patches. The extent and density of urbanized land-use is increasing, with implications for habitat quality, connectivity and city ecology. Little is known about densification thresholds for urban ecosystem function, and the response of mammals, nocturnal and cryptic taxa are poorly studied in this respect. Bats (Chiroptera) are sensitive to changing urban form at a species, guild and community level, so are ideal model organisms for analyses of this nature.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe surveyed bats around urban ponds in the West Midlands conurbation, United Kingdom (UK). Sites were stratified between five urban land classes, representing a gradient of built land-cover at the 1 km2 scale. Models for bat presence and activity were developed using land-cover and land-use data from multiple radii around each pond. Structural connectivity of tree networks was used as an indicator of the functional connectivity between habitats. All species were sensitive to measures of urban density. Some were also sensitive to landscape composition and structural connectivity at different spatial scales. These results represent new findings for an urban area. The activity of Pipistrellus pipistrellus (Schreber 1774) exhibited a non-linear relationship with the area of built land-cover, being much reduced beyond the threshold of ∼60% built surface. The presence of tree networks appears to mitigate the negative effects of urbanization for this species.Conclusions/SignificanceOur results suggest that increasing urban density negatively impacts the study species. This has implications for infill development policy, built density targets and the compact city debate. Bats were also sensitive to the composition and structure of the urban form at a range of spatial scales, with implications for land-use planning and management. Protecting and establishing tree networks may improve the resilience of some bat populations to urban densification.

The Neoliberal Agenda and the Changing Urban Form of Istanbul

In the new era of competition among cities – globally – Istanbul has become once again the focus of Turkey's economic development effort. The dissolution of the Soviet Bloc and the growth of economic and cultural linkages between the Turkic-speaking states, plus the turbulent dynamics of the Middle East, have created a new macro-regional environment. There is no other major city centre to compete with Istanbul in a vast area stretching from the Balkans to the Caucasus, the Ukraine to Lebanon. Istanbul's size, history and location meant it was bound to play an increasingly prominent role as regional trade, networks and incomes became more interconnected. Although Istanbul is not the formal capital of Turkey, it is far and away Turkey's largest and most important urban concentration. As such, the Turkish state has allocated it central role in its vision for economic and cultural transformation. This paper traces the footprints in Istanbul of the unfolding ‘project’ of Turkish integration with the world economy. Following a brief outline of the history of the city since the nineteenth century, it focuses on recent attempts to reposition the country in the global arena, and highlights their ramifications for the urban form of Istanbul.

International students as urban agents: International education and urban transformation in Auckland, New Zealand

This paper discusses connections between the internationalisation of education, and in particular the growth in international students, and processes of urban transformation. The research is centred in Auckland, New Zealand, a city where the number of international students has grown rapidly over the last decade leading to significant impacts on the urban form and experience of the city’s CBD. This includes growth in educational services such as language schools and other private training establishments, new residential geographies characterised by low-cost and low-quality high-rise developments, and new ethnic economies of food, service and entertainment businesses that explicitly target international students. The paper draws on research with South Korean international students and a range of secondary materials to interrogate the connections between student mobilities and changing urban form. In doing so the paper contributes to emerging scholarship on student geographies and the role of students as urban agents through the inclusion of an international dimension that has largely been absent in the extant literature. The findings illustrate that while international students themselves clearly play a significant role in the transformation of urban spaces their influence cannot easily be separated from the contribution of a range of other actors including educational businesses, property developers, transnational migrants and local and national state actors.

Measuring Canadian urban expansion and impacts on work-related travel distance: 1966–2001

This article presents measurement of the dynamics and impacts of Canadian urban growth during 1966–2001 derived from information assimilation of Landsat satellite image interpretations and historical land use maps. We have examined key variables characterizing the urban expansion process, such as urban land area, dwelling density, population density and natural land loss. For major Canadian urban areas, dwelling densities in newly developed areas are found to have decreased over time. The trends suggest that low-density residential suburbanization is the dominant urban expansion process in Canada. While population densities in major metropolitan areas have remained constant or increased over the past 15 years, densities in smaller communities have decreased. A by-product of Canadian urban expansion has been modified intra-urban travel behaviour. The impacts of road network connectivity and changing urban form on attributes of urban transportation are discussed through a series of case studies.

Evidence of the Impacts of Urban Sprawl on Social Capital

Sprawl opponents have blamed sprawl for weakening linkages among the residents and social capital but there is a lack of empirical evidence to support their argument. This study examines the relationship between the county sprawl index and social-capital factors from the 2000 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey data. Using 3-level hierarchical models, this study shows that for the US, urban sprawl may support some types of social capital while negatively impacting the others. Furthermore, changing urban form via population density and street accessibility at the county level may not be ideal to improve social capital.

Mapping the relationship between transport energy consumption and urban form characteristics for the Greater Dublin Area

Please click here to download the map associated with this article. Energy consumption and emissions from the transport sector continue to rise, adding to growing concerns about the environmental impacts caused by transport systems and related land-use patterns. Transportation and land-use are a function of one another, therefore it is often hypothesized that changing urban form will result in changes in transport energy consumption. This paper intends to explore further the relationship between urban form and transport energy consumption. It is hypothesised in this research that more compact neighbourhoods result in more sustainable communities, with lower transport energy consumption. The theory is to an extent premised on urban containment, to provide a concentration of socially sustainable mixed uses, that will concentrate development and reduce the need to travel, thus reducing transport energy consumption. Using the Census of Population of Ireland 2006 Place of Work—Census of Anonymised Records (POWCAR) Dataset it is intended to examine urban form factors in terms of their influence on journey to work energy consumption. To examine the hypothesis, the transport energy consumption of different urban forms will be found, thus allowing the most sustainable urban forms in the Greater Dublin Area to be identified. The results of this research can then be used to assess the transport energy consumption of future development plans and therefore allow greater transport sustainability to be achieved through improved design of the location and form of major new development.