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Urban Morphometrics (UMM) is an expanding area of urban studies that aims at representing and measuring objectively the physical form of cities to support evidence-based research. An essential step in its development is the identification of a suitable spatial unit of analysis, where suitability is determined by its degree of reliability, universality, accessibility and significance in capturing essential urban form patterns. In Urban Morphology such unit is found in the plot, a fundamental component in the morphogenetic of urban settlements. However, the plot is a conceptually and analytically ambiguous concept and a kind of spatial information often unavailable or inconsistently represented across geographies, issues that limit its reliability and universality and hence its suitability for Urban Morphometric applications. This calls for alternative methods of deriving a spatial unit able to convey reliable plot-scale information, possibly comparable with that provided by plots. This paper presents Morphological Tessellation (MT), an objectively and universally applicable method that derives a spatial unit named Morphological Cell (MC) from widely available data on building footprint only and tests its informational value as proxy data in capturing plot-scale spatial properties of urban form. Using the city of Zurich (CH) as case study we compare MT to the cadastral layer on a selection of morphometric characters capturing different geometrical and configurational properties of urban form, to test the degree of informational similarity between MT and cadastral plots. Findings suggest that MT can be considered an efficient informational proxy for cadastral plots for many of the tested morphometric characters, that there are kinds of plot-scale information only plots can provide, as well as kinds only morphological tessellation can provide. Overall, there appears to be clear scope for application of MT as fundamental spatial unit of analysis in Urban Morphometrics, opening the way to large-scale urban morphometric analysis.
Martin Fleischmann; Alessandra Feliciotti; Ombretta Romice; Sergio Porta. Morphological tessellation as a way of partitioning space: Improving consistency in urban morphology at the plot scale. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems 2019, 80, 101441 .
AMA StyleMartin Fleischmann, Alessandra Feliciotti, Ombretta Romice, Sergio Porta. Morphological tessellation as a way of partitioning space: Improving consistency in urban morphology at the plot scale. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems. 2019; 80 ():101441.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMartin Fleischmann; Alessandra Feliciotti; Ombretta Romice; Sergio Porta. 2019. "Morphological tessellation as a way of partitioning space: Improving consistency in urban morphology at the plot scale." Computers, Environment and Urban Systems 80, no. : 101441.
As cities grow in scale and complexity, the extent to which their urban forms will be able resist, adapt to or co-evolve under unpredictable circumstances and fulfil needs different from those they were originally designed for, may be crucial for the very survival of cities. In this context, the concept of resilience, originated in ecology as a way to deal with change and uncertainty in ecological systems, particularly in its ‘evolutionary’ interpretation, has gained salience in relation to urban systems where, not unlike in other kinds of complex adaptive systems, change can both be triggered by external idiosyncratic shocks and emerge gradually from internal processes of self-organisation, and is now considered as pivotal for the design and management of the built environment. Whilst several authors have tried to build a bridge between resilience thinking and urban design, the role of the morphological structure of cities in enabling or constraining resilient responses has never been addressed systematically and, indeed, evidence that the framework of evolutionary resilience can be extended to the urban form is hardly systematic. To overcome this gap, this article seeks to evidence the link between urban form and resilience theory. This is done by building a parallel between concepts, models and organisational principles developed in system ecology to explain dynamics of change in ecosystems (i.e. Adaptive Cycles, Panarchy), to analogous models developed independently in the discipline of urban morphology to describe dynamics of change in urban form (i.e. Burgage Cycle, Territorial Development Cycle, Urban Form Compositional Hierarchy). On this basis, a new theoretical model of urban form change grounded on an understanding of urban form as complex system, is formalised, substantiating the application of evolutionary resilience urban form.
Alessandra Feliciotti; Ombretta Romice; Sergio Porta. From system ecology to urban morphology: towards a theory of urban form resilience. Proceedings of IFoU 2018: Reframing Urban Resilience Implementation: Aligning Sustainability and Resilience 2018, 1 .
AMA StyleAlessandra Feliciotti, Ombretta Romice, Sergio Porta. From system ecology to urban morphology: towards a theory of urban form resilience. Proceedings of IFoU 2018: Reframing Urban Resilience Implementation: Aligning Sustainability and Resilience. 2018; ():1.
Chicago/Turabian StyleAlessandra Feliciotti; Ombretta Romice; Sergio Porta. 2018. "From system ecology to urban morphology: towards a theory of urban form resilience." Proceedings of IFoU 2018: Reframing Urban Resilience Implementation: Aligning Sustainability and Resilience , no. : 1.
The idea of cities as complex systems in constant adaptive change is finally engaging urban thinking. However, we are still far from having this idea guide practice. UN-Habitat recognised this challenge in the “New Urban Agenda”, establishing the link between configuration of places and their performance in terms of prosperity, inclusiveness and equality, and environmental sustainability. However, we lag behind in understanding how urban places work from a resilience perspective, and urban planning and design are not ready to give directions for successful place-making, and design beautiful places that work for people, the environment and the economy. The need for ideas to repair the hiatus generated in the past generation of planning ideology is growing: something practical and yet advanced enough to embrace this unique challenge. In this work we propose that designing urban places that work for all should be pursued under the new framework of spatial resilience, interpreted as a preliminary condition to sustainability, where urban form is understood as a complex adaptive system per se. On these basis, we re-frame place-making under the new light of resilience and introduce an innovative approach to place-making here defined as “masterplanning for change” which, learning from the very same rules that drove the development of adaptive and successful places in history to date, calls for an urban design practice that designs places much less and much better, with implications for policy-making. Far from an ideological manifesto, our approach is: 1) evidenced based: having learned to identify the recurrent successes of resilience from the observation of cities in history up to our days, it uses them to design the city of the future. 2) practical: it advocates a reformed process of place-making, and provides the tools to deliver it, making it an essential reference for designers and policy-makers.
Alessandra Feliciotti; Ombretta Romice; Sergio Porta. Urban form Resilience Urban Design Practice: Masterplanning for Change. Proceedings of IFoU 2018: Reframing Urban Resilience Implementation: Aligning Sustainability and Resilience 2018, 1 .
AMA StyleAlessandra Feliciotti, Ombretta Romice, Sergio Porta. Urban form Resilience Urban Design Practice: Masterplanning for Change. Proceedings of IFoU 2018: Reframing Urban Resilience Implementation: Aligning Sustainability and Resilience. 2018; ():1.
Chicago/Turabian StyleAlessandra Feliciotti; Ombretta Romice; Sergio Porta. 2018. "Urban form Resilience Urban Design Practice: Masterplanning for Change." Proceedings of IFoU 2018: Reframing Urban Resilience Implementation: Aligning Sustainability and Resilience , no. : 1.
This paper explores evidence that entrepreneurial opportunities for migrants and other lower income populations can be expanded in part through increasing the presence of fine grained scales of plots and plates along main streets, as part of a systematic urban design strategy. It describes that systematic strategy herein. The paper encompasses the study of three main streets with varying plot sizes in the inner city of Stockholm, Sweden, and examines the outcomes for different types and scales of businesses. After presenting the findings, analysis and conclusions, larger questions of urban design for more inclusive economies are discussed.
Rosa Danenberg; Michael Mehaffy; Sergio Porta; Peter Elmlund; Peter Elmund. Main street plot scale in urban design for inclusive economies: Stockholm case studies. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Urban Design and Planning 2018, 171, 258 -267.
AMA StyleRosa Danenberg, Michael Mehaffy, Sergio Porta, Peter Elmlund, Peter Elmund. Main street plot scale in urban design for inclusive economies: Stockholm case studies. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Urban Design and Planning. 2018; 171 (6):258-267.
Chicago/Turabian StyleRosa Danenberg; Michael Mehaffy; Sergio Porta; Peter Elmlund; Peter Elmund. 2018. "Main street plot scale in urban design for inclusive economies: Stockholm case studies." Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers - Urban Design and Planning 171, no. 6: 258-267.
The modern discipline of urban morphology gives us a ground for the comparative analysis of cities, which increasingly includes specific quantitative elements. In this paper, we make a further step forward towards the definition of a general method for the classification of urban form. We draw from morphometrics and taxonomy in life sciences to propose such method, which we name ‘urban morphometrics’. We then test it on a unit of the urban landscape named ‘Sanctuary Area’ (SA), explored in 45 cities whose origins span four historic time periods: Historic (medieval), Industrial (19th century), New Towns (post-WWII, high-rise) and Sprawl (post-WWII, low-rise). We describe each SA through 207 physical dimensions and then use these to discover features that discriminate them among the four temporal groups. Nine dimensions emerge as sufficient to correctly classify 90% of the urban settings by their historic origins. These nine attributes largely identify an area's ‘visible identity’ as reflected by three characteristics: (1) block perimeterness, or the way buildings define the street-edge; (2) building coverage, or the way buildings cover the land and (3) regular plot coverage, or the extent to which blocks are made of plots that have main access from a street. Hierarchical cluster analysis utilising only the nine key variables nearly perfectly clusters each SA according to its historic origin; moreover, the resulting dendrogram shows, just after WWII, the first ‘bifurcation’ of urban history, with the emergence of the modern city as a new ‘species’ of urban form. With ‘urban morphometrics’ we hope to extend urban morphological research and contribute to understanding the way cities evolve.
Jacob Dibble; Alexios Prelorendjos; Ombretta Romice; Mattia Zanella; Emanuele Strano; Mark Pagel; Sergio Porta. On the origin of spaces: Morphometric foundations of urban form evolution. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science 2017, 46, 707 -730.
AMA StyleJacob Dibble, Alexios Prelorendjos, Ombretta Romice, Mattia Zanella, Emanuele Strano, Mark Pagel, Sergio Porta. On the origin of spaces: Morphometric foundations of urban form evolution. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science. 2017; 46 (4):707-730.
Chicago/Turabian StyleJacob Dibble; Alexios Prelorendjos; Ombretta Romice; Mattia Zanella; Emanuele Strano; Mark Pagel; Sergio Porta. 2017. "On the origin of spaces: Morphometric foundations of urban form evolution." Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science 46, no. 4: 707-730.
Ombretta Romice; Sergio Porta; Alessandra Feliciotti; Gordon Barbour; Husam AlWaer; Barbara Illsley. Masterplanning for change: design as a way to create the conditions for time-sensitive placemaking. Rethinking Masterplanning: Creating Quality Places 2017, 195 -207.
AMA StyleOmbretta Romice, Sergio Porta, Alessandra Feliciotti, Gordon Barbour, Husam AlWaer, Barbara Illsley. Masterplanning for change: design as a way to create the conditions for time-sensitive placemaking. Rethinking Masterplanning: Creating Quality Places. 2017; ():195-207.
Chicago/Turabian StyleOmbretta Romice; Sergio Porta; Alessandra Feliciotti; Gordon Barbour; Husam AlWaer; Barbara Illsley. 2017. "Masterplanning for change: design as a way to create the conditions for time-sensitive placemaking." Rethinking Masterplanning: Creating Quality Places , no. : 195-207.
The sheer complexity and unpredictability characterising cities challenges the adequacy of existing disciplinary knowledge and tools in urban design and highlights the necessity to incorporate explicitly the element of change and the dimension of time in the understanding of, and intervention on, the form of cities. To this regard the concept of resilience is a powerful lens through which to understand and engage with a changing world. However, resilience is currently only superficially addressed by urban designers, and an explicit effort to relate elements of urban form to resilience principles is still lacking. This represents a great limit for urban designers, as the physical dimension of cities is the matter they work with in the first place. In this paper, we combine established knowledge in urban morphology and resilience theory. We firstly look at resilience theory and consistently define five proxies of resilience in urban form, namely diversity, redundancy, modularity, connectivity and efficiency. Secondly, we discuss the configuration of, and interdependencies between, several constituent elements of the physical city, as defined in urban morphology and design, in light of the mentioned five proxies. Finally, we conduct this exploration at five scales that are relevant to urban morphology and design: plot, street edge, block, street and sanctuary area / district.
Alessandra Feliciotti; Ombretta Romice; Sergio Porta. Design for Change: Five Proxies for Resilience in the Urban Form. Open House International 2016, 41, 23 -30.
AMA StyleAlessandra Feliciotti, Ombretta Romice, Sergio Porta. Design for Change: Five Proxies for Resilience in the Urban Form. Open House International. 2016; 41 (4):23-30.
Chicago/Turabian StyleAlessandra Feliciotti; Ombretta Romice; Sergio Porta. 2016. "Design for Change: Five Proxies for Resilience in the Urban Form." Open House International 41, no. 4: 23-30.
The content of this chapter deals with those aspects of the design of cities, which have been shown to affect aspects of quality of life. Whilst direct correlations between the role of physical space on well-being and experience are often difficult to be established, physical space does play a significant part in how we experience, react, and engage with it; this will be increasingly so, with predictions on urbanization levels growing, principally in conditions of informality. The aim of this chapter is to gather relevant and recent research which highlights advancements in the study of the reciprocal effect between urban form and urban life and use this to draw together an agenda for future thinking, research and practice in the field of socially sustainable urban design
Ombretta Romice; Kevin Thwaites; Sergio Porta; Mark Greaves; Gordon Barbour; Paola Pasino. Urban Design and Quality of Life. Handbook of Community Well-Being Research 2016, 241 -273.
AMA StyleOmbretta Romice, Kevin Thwaites, Sergio Porta, Mark Greaves, Gordon Barbour, Paola Pasino. Urban Design and Quality of Life. Handbook of Community Well-Being Research. 2016; ():241-273.
Chicago/Turabian StyleOmbretta Romice; Kevin Thwaites; Sergio Porta; Mark Greaves; Gordon Barbour; Paola Pasino. 2016. "Urban Design and Quality of Life." Handbook of Community Well-Being Research , no. : 241-273.
Research in Urban Morphology has long been exploring the form of cities and their changes over time, especially by establishing links with the parallel dynamics of these cities’ social, economic and political environments. The capacity of an adaptable and resilient urban form to provide a fertile environment for economic prosperity and social cohesion is at the forefront of discussion. Gentrification has emerged in the past few decades as an important topic of research in urban sociology, geography and economy, addressing the social impact of some forms of urban evolution. To some extent, these studies emphasize the form of the environment in which gentrification takes place. However, a systematic and quantitative method for a detailed characterization of this type of urban form is still far from being achieved. With this article, we make a first step towards the establishment of an approach based on ‘urban morphometrics’. To this end, we measure and compare key morphological features of five London neighbourhoods that have undergone a process of piecemeal gentrification. Findings suggest that these five case studies display similar and recognizable morphological patterns in terms of their built form, geographical location of main and local roads and physical relationships between street fronts and street types. These initial results, while not implying any causal or universal relationship between morphological and social dynamics, nevertheless contribute to (a) highlight the benefits of a rigorous quantitative approach towards interpreting urban form beyond the disciplinary boundaries of Urban Morphology and (b) define the statistical recurrence of a few, specific morphological features amongst the five cases of gentrified areas in London.
Alessandro Venerandi; Mattia Zanella; Ombretta Romice; Jacob Dibble; Sergio Porta. Form and urban change – An urban morphometric study of five gentrified neighbourhoods in London. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science 2016, 44, 1056 -1076.
AMA StyleAlessandro Venerandi, Mattia Zanella, Ombretta Romice, Jacob Dibble, Sergio Porta. Form and urban change – An urban morphometric study of five gentrified neighbourhoods in London. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science. 2016; 44 (6):1056-1076.
Chicago/Turabian StyleAlessandro Venerandi; Mattia Zanella; Ombretta Romice; Jacob Dibble; Sergio Porta. 2016. "Form and urban change – An urban morphometric study of five gentrified neighbourhoods in London." Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science 44, no. 6: 1056-1076.
Understanding urban growth is one with understanding how society evolves to satisfy the needs of its individuals in sharing a common space and adapting to the territory. We propose here a quantitative analysis of the historical development of a large urban area by investigating the spatial distribution and the age of commercial activities in the whole city of Rome. We find that the age of activities of various categories presents a very interesting double exponential trend, with a transition possibly related to the long-term economical effects determined by the oil crisis of the Seventies. The diversification of commercial categories, studied through various measures of entropy, shows, among other interesting features, a saturating behaviour with the density of activities. Moreover, different couples of commercial categories exhibit over the years a tendency to attract in space. Our results demonstrate that the spatio-temporal distribution of commercial activities can provide important insights on the urbanisation processes at work, revealing specific and non trivial socio-economical dynamics, as the presence of crisis periods and expansion trends, and contributing to the characterisation of the maturity of urban areas.
Alessandro Fiasconaro; Emanuele Strano; Vincenzo Nicosia; Sergio Porta; Vito Latora. Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Micro Economic Activities in Rome Reveals Patterns of Mixed-Use Urban Evolution. PLOS ONE 2016, 11, e0151681 .
AMA StyleAlessandro Fiasconaro, Emanuele Strano, Vincenzo Nicosia, Sergio Porta, Vito Latora. Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Micro Economic Activities in Rome Reveals Patterns of Mixed-Use Urban Evolution. PLOS ONE. 2016; 11 (3):e0151681.
Chicago/Turabian StyleAlessandro Fiasconaro; Emanuele Strano; Vincenzo Nicosia; Sergio Porta; Vito Latora. 2016. "Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Micro Economic Activities in Rome Reveals Patterns of Mixed-Use Urban Evolution." PLOS ONE 11, no. 3: e0151681.
Understanding urban growth is one with understanding how society evolves to satisfy the needs of its individuals in sharing a common space and adapting to the territory. We propose here a quantitative analysis of the historical development of a large urban area by investigating the spatial distribution and the age of commercial activities in the whole city of Rome. We find that the age of activities of various categories presents a very interesting double exponential trend, with a transition possibly related to the long-term economical effects determined by the oil crisis of the Seventies. The diversification of commercial categories, studied through various measures of entropy, shows, among other interesting features, a saturating behaviour with the density of activities. Moreover, different couples of commercial categories exhibit over the years a tendency to attract in space. Our results demonstrate that the spatio-temporal distribution of commercial activities can provide important insights on the urbanisation processes at work, revealing specific and not trivial socio-economical dynamics, as the presence of crisis periods and expansion trends, and contributing to the characterisation of the maturity of urban areas.
Alessandro Fiasconaro; Emanuele Strano; Vincenzo Nicosia; Sergio Porta; Vito Latora. Spatio-temporal analysis of micro economic activities in Rome reveals patterns of mixed-use urban evolution. 2016, 1 .
AMA StyleAlessandro Fiasconaro, Emanuele Strano, Vincenzo Nicosia, Sergio Porta, Vito Latora. Spatio-temporal analysis of micro economic activities in Rome reveals patterns of mixed-use urban evolution. . 2016; ():1.
Chicago/Turabian StyleAlessandro Fiasconaro; Emanuele Strano; Vincenzo Nicosia; Sergio Porta; Vito Latora. 2016. "Spatio-temporal analysis of micro economic activities in Rome reveals patterns of mixed-use urban evolution." , no. : 1.
Adel M. Remali; Sergio Porta; Ombretta Romice; Huyam Abudib. Street Quality, Street Life, Street Centrality. Suburban Urbanities 2015, 104 -129.
AMA StyleAdel M. Remali, Sergio Porta, Ombretta Romice, Huyam Abudib. Street Quality, Street Life, Street Centrality. Suburban Urbanities. 2015; ():104-129.
Chicago/Turabian StyleAdel M. Remali; Sergio Porta; Ombretta Romice; Huyam Abudib. 2015. "Street Quality, Street Life, Street Centrality." Suburban Urbanities , no. : 104-129.
The organization of modern city planning into “neighborhood units” – most commonly associated with the Clarence Perry proposal of 1929 – has been enormously influential in the evolution of modern city form, and at the same time has also been the subject of intense controversy and debate that continues to the present day. New issues under debate include social and economic diversity, maintenance of viable pedestrian and public transit modes, viability of internalized community service hubs, and efficient use of energy and natural resources, including greenhouse gas emissions. We trace the history of this controversy up to the present day, and we discuss new developments that may point the way to needed reforms of best practice.
Michael W. Mehaffy; Sergio Porta; Ombretta Romice. The “neighborhood unit” on trial: a case study in the impacts of urban morphology. Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability 2014, 8, 199 -217.
AMA StyleMichael W. Mehaffy, Sergio Porta, Ombretta Romice. The “neighborhood unit” on trial: a case study in the impacts of urban morphology. Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability. 2014; 8 (2):199-217.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMichael W. Mehaffy; Sergio Porta; Ombretta Romice. 2014. "The “neighborhood unit” on trial: a case study in the impacts of urban morphology." Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability 8, no. 2: 199-217.
We compare the structural properties of the street networks of ten different European cities using their primal representation. We investigate the properties of the geometry of the networks and a set of centrality measures highlighting differences and similarities between cases. In particular, we found that cities share structural similarities due to their quasiplanarity but that there are also several distinctive geometrical properties. A principal component analysis is performed on the distributions of centralities and their respective moments, which is used to find distinctive characteristics by which we can classify cities into families. We believe that, beyond the improvement of the empirical knowledge on streets' network properties, our findings can open new perspectives into the scientific relationship between city planning and complex networks, stimulating the debate on the effectiveness of the set of knowledge that statistical physics can contribute for city planning and urban-morphology studies.
Emanuele Strano; Matheus Viana; Luciano Da Fontoura Costa; Alessio Cardillo; Sergio Porta; Vito Latora. Urban Street Networks, a Comparative Analysis of Ten European Cities. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 2013, 40, 1071 -1086.
AMA StyleEmanuele Strano, Matheus Viana, Luciano Da Fontoura Costa, Alessio Cardillo, Sergio Porta, Vito Latora. Urban Street Networks, a Comparative Analysis of Ten European Cities. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design. 2013; 40 (6):1071-1086.
Chicago/Turabian StyleEmanuele Strano; Matheus Viana; Luciano Da Fontoura Costa; Alessio Cardillo; Sergio Porta; Vito Latora. 2013. "Urban Street Networks, a Comparative Analysis of Ten European Cities." Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 40, no. 6: 1071-1086.
Urbanisation is a fundamental phenomenon whose quantitative characterisation is still inadequate. We report here the empirical analysis of a unique data set regarding almost 200 years of evolution of the road network in a large area located north of Milan (Italy). We find that urbanisation is characterised by the homogenisation of cell shapes, and by the stability throughout time of high–centrality roads which constitute the backbone of the urban structure, confirming the importance of historical paths. We show quantitatively that the growth of the network is governed by two elementary processes: (i) ‘densification’, corresponding to an increase in the local density of roads around existing urban centres and (ii) ‘exploration’, whereby new roads trigger the spatial evolution of the urbanisation front. The empirical identification of such simple elementary mechanisms suggests the existence of general, simple properties of urbanisation and opens new directions for its modelling and quantitative description.
Emanuele Strano; Vincenzo Nicosia; Vito Latora; Sergio Porta; Marc Barthélemy. Elementary processes governing the evolution of road networks. Scientific Reports 2012, 2, 296 .
AMA StyleEmanuele Strano, Vincenzo Nicosia, Vito Latora, Sergio Porta, Marc Barthélemy. Elementary processes governing the evolution of road networks. Scientific Reports. 2012; 2 (1):296.
Chicago/Turabian StyleEmanuele Strano; Vincenzo Nicosia; Vito Latora; Sergio Porta; Marc Barthélemy. 2012. "Elementary processes governing the evolution of road networks." Scientific Reports 2, no. 1: 296.
The paper examines the geography of three street centrality indices and their correlations with various types of economic activities in Barcelona, Spain. The focus is on what type of street centrality (closeness, betweenness and straightness) is more closely associated with which type of economic activity (primary and secondary). Centralities are calculated purely on the street network by using a multiple centrality assessment model, and a kernel density estimation method is applied to both street centralities and economic activities to permit correlation analysis between them. Results indicate that street centralities are correlated with the location of economic activities and that the correlations are higher with secondary than primary activities. The research suggests that, in urban planning, central urban arterials should be conceived as the cores, not the borders, of neighbourhoods.
Sergio Porta; Vito Latora; Fahui Wang; Salvador Rueda; Emanuele Strano; Salvatore Scellato; Alessio Cardillo; Eugenio Belli; Francisco Càrdenas; Berta Cormenzana; Laura Latora. Street Centrality and the Location of Economic Activities in Barcelona. Urban Studies 2011, 49, 1471 -1488.
AMA StyleSergio Porta, Vito Latora, Fahui Wang, Salvador Rueda, Emanuele Strano, Salvatore Scellato, Alessio Cardillo, Eugenio Belli, Francisco Càrdenas, Berta Cormenzana, Laura Latora. Street Centrality and the Location of Economic Activities in Barcelona. Urban Studies. 2011; 49 (7):1471-1488.
Chicago/Turabian StyleSergio Porta; Vito Latora; Fahui Wang; Salvador Rueda; Emanuele Strano; Salvatore Scellato; Alessio Cardillo; Eugenio Belli; Francisco Càrdenas; Berta Cormenzana; Laura Latora. 2011. "Street Centrality and the Location of Economic Activities in Barcelona." Urban Studies 49, no. 7: 1471-1488.
This paper examines the relationship between street centrality and land use intensity in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Street centrality is calibrated in terms of a node's closeness, betweenness and straightness on the road network. Land use intensity is measured by population (residential) and employment (business) densities in census tracts, respectively and combined. Two CIS-based methods are used to transform data sets of centrality (at network nodes) and densities (in census tracts) to one unit for correlation analysis. The kernel density estimation (KDE) converts both measures to raster pixels, and the floating catchment area (FCA) method computes average centrality values around census tracts. Results indicate that population and employment densities are highly correlated with street centrality values. Among the three centrality indices, closeness exhibits the highest correlation with land use densities, straightness the next and betweenness the last. This confirms that street centrality captures location advantage in a city and plays a crucial role in shaping the intraurban variation of land use intensity. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
Fahui Wang; Anzhelika Antipova; Sergio Porta. Street centrality and land use intensity in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Journal of Transport Geography 2011, 19, 285 -293.
AMA StyleFahui Wang, Anzhelika Antipova, Sergio Porta. Street centrality and land use intensity in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Journal of Transport Geography. 2011; 19 (2):285-293.
Chicago/Turabian StyleFahui Wang; Anzhelika Antipova; Sergio Porta. 2011. "Street centrality and land use intensity in Baton Rouge, Louisiana." Journal of Transport Geography 19, no. 2: 285-293.
This essay outlines how to incorporate morphological rules within the exigencies of our technological age. We propose using the current evolution of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technologies beyond their original representational domain, towards predictive and dynamic spatial models that help in constructing the new discipline of “urban seeding”. We condemn the high-rise tower block as an unsuitable typology for a living city, and propose to re-establish human-scale urban fabric that resembles the traditional city. Pedestrian presence, density, and movement all reveal that open space between modernist buildings is not urban at all, but neither is the open space found in today’s sprawling suburbs. True urban space contains and encourages pedestrian interactions, and has to be designed and built according to specific rules. The opposition between traditional self-organized versus modernist planned cities challenges the very core of the urban planning discipline. Planning has to be re-framed from being a tool creating a fixed future to become a visionary adaptive tool of dynamic states in evolution.
Pietro Pagliardini; Sergio Porta; Nikos Salingaros. Geospatial Analysis and Living Urban Geometry. Cities between Competitiveness and Cohesion 2010, 99, 331 -353.
AMA StylePietro Pagliardini, Sergio Porta, Nikos Salingaros. Geospatial Analysis and Living Urban Geometry. Cities between Competitiveness and Cohesion. 2010; 99 ():331-353.
Chicago/Turabian StylePietro Pagliardini; Sergio Porta; Nikos Salingaros. 2010. "Geospatial Analysis and Living Urban Geometry." Cities between Competitiveness and Cohesion 99, no. : 331-353.
URBAN DESIGN International is a scholarly publication with a strong practitioner emphasis. It is relevant for all of those involved in architectural and planning education and practice. It is relevant for urban designers, architects, planners, surveyors and landscape architects and all professionals concerned with urban development and design.
Michael Mehaffy; Sergio Porta; Yodan Rofe; Nikos Salingaros. Urban nuclei and the geometry of streets: The ‘emergent neighborhoods’ model. URBAN DESIGN International 2010, 15, 22 -46.
AMA StyleMichael Mehaffy, Sergio Porta, Yodan Rofe, Nikos Salingaros. Urban nuclei and the geometry of streets: The ‘emergent neighborhoods’ model. URBAN DESIGN International. 2010; 15 (1):22-46.
Chicago/Turabian StyleMichael Mehaffy; Sergio Porta; Yodan Rofe; Nikos Salingaros. 2010. "Urban nuclei and the geometry of streets: The ‘emergent neighborhoods’ model." URBAN DESIGN International 15, no. 1: 22-46.
Multiple Centrality Assessment (MCA) is a methodology of mapping centrality in cities that applies knowledge of complex network analysis to networks of urban streets and intersections. This methodology emerged from research initiated some six years ago at Polytechnic of Milan, Italy, and now continuing at University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, through a close partnership and collaboration between scholars in urban planning and design and in the physics of complex networks. After six years and many publications, it is probably time for us to make a point on what has been achieved and what remains to be achieved in the future. As most of the whole research has already been published, we forward the reader to those publications for more detailed information. The scope of this paper is to provide the overall sense of this experience so far and a road-map to its main results.
Sergio Porta; Vito Latora; Emanuele Strano. Networks in Urban Design. Six Years of Research in Multiple Centrality Assessment. Network Science 2010, 107 -129.
AMA StyleSergio Porta, Vito Latora, Emanuele Strano. Networks in Urban Design. Six Years of Research in Multiple Centrality Assessment. Network Science. 2010; ():107-129.
Chicago/Turabian StyleSergio Porta; Vito Latora; Emanuele Strano. 2010. "Networks in Urban Design. Six Years of Research in Multiple Centrality Assessment." Network Science , no. : 107-129.