Urban Development as a Continuum: A Multinomial Logistic Regression Approach

Urban development is a complex process influenced by a number of driving forces, including spatial planning, topography and urban economics. Identifying these drivers is crucial for the regulation of urban development and the calibration of predictive models. Existing land-use models generally consider urban development as a binary process, through the identification of built versus non-built areas. This study considers urban development as a continuum, characterized by different level of densities, which can be related to different driving forces. A multinomial logistic regression model was employed to investigate the effects of drivers on different urban densities during the past decade in Wallonia, Belgium. Sixteen drivers were selected from sets of driving forces including accessibility, geo-physical features, policies and socio-economic factors. It appears that urban development in Wallonia is remarkably influenced by land-use policies and accessibility. Most importantly, our results highlight that the impact of different drivers varies along with urban density.