Exploring the Experience of Hierarchy in Street Networks

People familiar with an urban environment share common spatial knowledge enabling, for instance, successful communication about places and routes. Mental representations of this spatial knowledge, as well as reasoning and communication processes are organized hierarchically. This paper introduces a hierarchical model of urban street networks motivated by shared experience of space. This model is supported by network connectivity measures, as street connectivity influences the pattern of urban movement and thus determines the intensity of learning the urban layout. The approach shows that hierarchical network models present a necessary input for the generation of hierarchical route directions.