Urban expansion form is the most direct manifestation of urban expansion in space. Although it has been widely and vigorously studied, relatively little attention has been paid to reveal its spatiotemporal characteristics at the administrative level over a long timeframe. In this study, 31 Chinese municipalities and provincial capitals were selected as subjects to identify the urban expansion f...

It is the living conditions in the cities that determine the future of our livelihood. “To change life, we must first change space”Henri Lefebvre. Sustainable development is a utopian aspiration for South African cities (especially the case study of the Gauteng City Region), which are currently characterized by unplanned growth and increasing urban sprawl. While the reasons for poor environment...

A quantitative understanding of complex urban growth patterns and processes is crucial to sustainable land management and urban development planning in cities. The spatial organization of urban patterns can be treated as fractals and can be characterized with fractal dimension. However, the calculation of fractal dimension of urban form is often constrained by imperfect and incomplete higher te...

In this paper we determine the relationship between developmental patterns and the incidence of traffic accidents. We evaluate the accident data for four intersections, which inhabit two different developmental typologies of the urban environment. Key-Words: urban core, sprawl development, arterial thorough fares, crash incidence, neighborhood scale.

Climate-urban form research tends to identify vernacular (traditional) forms as a successful combination of architecture, urban design and climate. This theory, which draws a parallel between climate and adaptive urban form, is supported by the accepted common belief that harsh climates, such as hot-arid ones, confront those who live in them with unique challenges. These challenges are answered...

This study explores the combined application of remote sensing, spatial metrics and spatial modeling to the analysis and modeling of urban growth in Santa Barbara, California. The investigation is based on a 72-year time series data set compiled from interpreted historical aerial photography and from IKONOS satellite imagery. Spatial metrics were used both specifically to assess the impact of u...

In the late nineteenth century Chinese residents of Dihua (Urumqi), the desert capital of China’s Xinjiang Province, referred to the large, fortified gateway which separated the walled Chinese settlement from the walled Muslim settlement as the “gate which divides heaven from earth.” In so distancing themselves from their near neighbors, with whom they were inextricably linked through the econo...