URBAN DESIGN

Urban structure and transportation system

Urban Structure

 interesting time to study urban structure because cities' growth patterns are
undergoing qualitative change
 many decades, even centuries, cities have been spreading out.
 process of decentralization has taken a more polycentric form
 number of concentrated employment centers making their mark on both
employment and population distributions.
 Most of these centers are subsidiary to an older central business district (CBD)
called "sub-centers.“
 Some sub-centers are older towns that gradually became incorporated into an
expanded but coherent urban area
 Others are newly spawned at nodes of a transportation network, often so far
from the urban core as to earn the appellation "edge cities“
Transportation and the Spatial
Structure
 Transportation has a strong influence on the spatial structure at the local,
regional and global levels.
 Improvements in transportation are interdependent with economic, social and
spatial changes.
 Pedestrian areas
 Roads and parking areas
 Cycling areas
 Transit systems
 Transport terminals
Introduction

 Urban form. Refers to the spatial imprint of an urban transport system as well as
the adjacent physical infrastructures. Jointly, they confer a level of spatial
arrangement to cities.
 Urban (spatial) structure. Refers to the set of relationships arising out of the urba
n
form and its underlying interactions of people, freight and information. It tries to
evaluate to what extent specific urban structures can be achieved with specific
transport systems.
 Nodes. These are reflected in the centrality of urban activities, which can be relat
ed to the spatial accumulation of economic activities or to the accessibility
to the transport system.
Terminals, such as ports, train station, railyards, and airports, are important nodes
 Linkages. These are the infrastructures supporting flows from, to and between nod
es
Scales of Spatial Organization for Transportation
Scale and Urban Spatial Structure
Types of Urban Spatial Structures

 The urban spatial structure can be characterized by its level of centralization

and clustering of value added activities
Urban Movement Patterns

 Cities can structurally be classified as polycentric (m

ore common) or monocentric and major flows as
organized or disorganized (more common).
 Cities with a higher level of reliance on public
transit tend to be monocentric with a higher level of
organized flows
 cities depending more on the automobile tend to be
polycentric with a more disorganized structure of
flows.
Evolution of Spatial Structure of a City

 The urban spatial structure basically considers the location of different

activities as well as their relationship
 Core activities are of the highest order
 Central activities, secondary area
 Central area is the cluster of core activities and central activities in a specific
location
 Emergence of CBD (central business district) has changed the urban form
drastically over the years
Pre-industrial Era

 For cities before industrial revolution, CBD was limited to a small section
 Nearby waterfront, market or site of religious or political importance
 Major transactions took place
 Required financial, warehouse, insurance, whole-sale services
Industrial Revolution

 Mass production and mass

consumption
 Emergence of district retailing and
wholesaling in CBD
 Manufacturing outside the core
 Ports and railways located near the
city cores
 This increased the need for office
space
 Over the time, major transport axis
spurred from the center to the
periphery
Contemporary Era
 Industries relocated to sub-urban areas
 Expansion of administrative and financial
activities
 Corporate and multinational companies
 New activities willing to pay more than the
retailers and hence pushing out the latter
 New retailing sub-center emerged in sub-urban
areas
 Road accessibility
 Need to service those areas
 Warehousing and transportation no longer core
activities
 Relocated to the peripheral areas
The Spatial Structure and Transportation

 Location implies the setting of a system of reference

 Distance is a measure of the friction of space
 Length
 Time
 Cost
 Effort
 Energy
 Fixedness. Since locations are fixed (absolute) disparities are incurred,
because economic, social and political conditions change in space and time
The Spatial Structure and Transportation
 Attributes. All locations have different geographical attributes.
 Resources
 Population
 Relativity. All locations are relative since they must be considered in a wider
context
 since a location is often located by drawing reference to another. The
importance of a location changes with regards to its importance relative to
other locations
 Dynamics involves three major issues
 changes at a location impact linked locations
 if a new link is created, the importance locations bound to this link will change
 whatever the nature of change, the effect will be positive or negative.
Perspectives about the Urban Spatial
Structure
Rings of Mobility

 urban transportation as a support to urban

mobility is dominantly related to density.
 figure shows three rings of increased density,
each characterized by specific mobility
considerations
 A (Core area). Often related to a CBD
representing the optimum level of urban
density and centrality.
 The pedestrian space is dominant as most
origins and destinations are close by
 Sidewalks tend to be substantial
 road space is mainly attributed to a pattern of
streets supporting local circulation.
Rings of Mobility

 B. Represents areas of medium to high densities, often adjacent to core areas

 walking space has lost some of its importance but still support mobility
around major nodes
 C (Peripheral / suburban area). Mobility is dominantly provided by road
transportation
 walking and cycling servicing residual functions, often leisure-oriented
 Space consuming terminal activities, such as airport occupy significant
amounts of land
Ring Road

 a common infrastructure in the development of large metropolitan areas

 impact on the urban spatial structure is mainly through radial development
pattern
 and the setting of commercial, residential and industrial activities nearby
highway interchanges
 decreasing dynamism of central areas is often linked with the emergence of
peripheral centers
 delays mainly imposed by having to go through the central area (e.g. narrow
roads, speed restrictions, traffic lights, etc.)
Ring Road
One Hour Commuting

 relationship between t
he form and structure
of cities
 theoretical urban form
which is the summation
of successive transport
influences
One Hour Commuting

 Walking. Assuming a willingness to commute for one hour, a pedestrian

walking at 5 km per hour could cross about 5 km.
 The space / time relationship of such a commute would be a circle of roughly
10 km in diameter.
 This helps explain why prior to motorization, cities were compact since most
of the mobility took place by walking.
 The majority of cities present prior to the industrial revolution have kept a
high density urban core
One Hour Commuting

 Streetcar: travel around 15 km per hour along fixed lines

 the space / time relationship would be to reflect the me spent walking to the
streetcar line that has to be deducted to the total travel me
 Cycling: approximately the same speed as that of a streetcar
 no fixed line limitations
 space / time relationship of commuting by bicycle would be a circle of
15 km in diameter.
 influence of the bicycle on urban form was tenuous and short lived
 Many cities have bike paths and parking areas
One Hour Commuting

 Driving (no freeways): driving speed of about 30 km per hour (taking into acco
unt stops, congestion and parking),an automobile creates a spherical space /
time relationship of about 30 km in diameter
 formation of the first car-oriented suburbs, many of which serviced by buses
 Driving (with freeways): fixed infrastructure
 driving speed is doubled to 60 km per hour along the main freeway axis
 The space / time relationship is therefore star shaped with 60 km of
diameter along its axis
Pedestrian, Cycling and Road Spaces

 alternative forms of urban transportation.

 allocation of space along right of
ways devoted to urban circulation
 corridor of circulation located just at the
outskirts of Amsterdam's central area
 pedestrian and cycling spaces occupy as
much space as the road
 entirely separated by a linear green space
Urban Hierarchy

 Christaller Model
 dominance is established between several orders of the hierarchy
 center of a lower order must rely on a center of higher order for goods and
services not being locally supplied.
Urban Hierarchy
 Pred Model
 more flexible
 reflect more complex interactions
 centers of the same order are not necessarily at the same hierarchical level
 some centers offer more diversified goods and services than other centers, even if they
are of the same size population-wise
 Interdependency
implies that central places can exchange similar goods and services since they are
competing in an open market allowing several producers
 Complementarity enables several centers of a similar order to specialize in specific
activities and be supplied in goods and services they do not have from other centers.
Transport and the Environment
 Direct impacts. The immediate consequence of transport activities on the
environment
 noise and carbon monoxide emissions
 Indirect impacts. The secondary (or tertiary) effects of transport activities on
environmental systems.
 higher consequence than direct impacts
 relationships are often misunderstood and more difficult to establish
 particulates are mostly the outcome of incomplete combustion in an internal
combustion
engine are indirectly linked with respiratory and cardiovascular problems
 Cumulative impacts. The additive, multiplicative consequences of transport
activities
 varied effects of direct and indirect impacts on an ecosystem
 unpredicted
 Climate change
THANK YOU