Vacant land is a ubiquitous urban phenomenon. The existence of vacant land in a neighborhood can either lower or heighten nearby housing values, depending on its relative development potential. However, this condition has rarely been examined longitudinally, nor has it been examined thoroughly across different socioeconomic conditions. This research examines the impact of vacant lots on housing premiums

Zones, cells, and parcels have long been regarded as the main units of analysis in urban modeling. However, only limited attention has been paid to street-level urban modeling. The emergence of fine-scale open and new data available from various sources has created substantial opportunities for research on urban modeling at the street level, particularly for modeling the spatiotemporal process of urban

Immersive virtual reality is a promising technology for planning participation. The paper contributes to the literature by comparing the latest virtual reality technology using head-mounted display with conventional graphic representation (pictures of rendered three-dimensional environments in this case) in terms of the effects on the participants’ preferences for the plans and their underlying decision

Origin–destination datasets representing millions of travel desire lines and routes are common in transport planning, but visualising such datasets is challenging. Existing methods often produce illegible results, low spatial resolution, or only a relative indication of the variation of flow on each road. This paper presents a new open-source algorithm called overline along with an accompanying method

It is shown that a virtual collapse in the space–time structure of a geographically distributed system may induce changes in the information flow field of the system and lead to instability. A case study of the commercial banking system of New York City demonstrates how a virtual collapse in the space–time structure of its check clearing process led to a transformed information flow environment in

The rise of the term ‘big data’ has contributed to recent advances in computational analysis techniques, such as machine learning and more broadly, artificial intelligence, which can extract patterns from large, multi-dimensional datasets. In the field of urban planning, it is pertinent to understand both how such techniques can advance our understanding of cities, and how they can be embedded within

This paper analyses the Spanish city size distribution from a new perspective, focusing on the role played by distance. Using un-truncated data from all cities in 1900 and 2011, we study the spatial distribution of cities and how the city size distribution varies with distance. First, K-densities are estimated to identify different spatial patterns depending on city size, with significant patterns

Spatial optimization represents a set of powerful spatial analysis techniques that can be used to identify optimal solution(s) and even generate a large number of competitive alternatives. The formulation of such problems involves maximizing or minimizing one or more objectives while satisfying a number of constraints. Solution techniques range from exact models solved with such approaches as linear

Recognizing urban functions is crucial for understanding urban spatial structures and urban planning. Previous work has investigated urban functions based on human activities that were derived from mobile phone positioning data, check-in data, taxi data, etc. However, urban functions can only be comprehensively sensed from both human activities and the physical environment together. To do so, a deep

We show how increasing returns to scale in urban scaling can artificially emerge, systematically and predictably, without any sorting or positive externalities. We employ a model where individual productivities are independent and identically distributed lognormal random variables across all cities. We use extreme value theory to demonstrate analytically the paradoxical emergence of increasing returns

The jobs–housing balance and urban spatial structure are naturally connected, and understanding the connection is important for urban planning, geography, and transport studies. Using smartcard data in Beijing and Shanghai, this research employs a comparative approach to reveal spatial distribution patterns of jobs–housing balance in terms of transit commuters and derive the implied urban spatial structures

China’s urban villages have distinct characteristics compared with the ones in western countries. Identifying urban villages provides a basis for policymakers to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of urban planning in China and other developing countries. However, perhaps due to limitations of data acquisition among others, few urban studies have successfully identified urban villages at the building

While most of us take wayfinding and orientation for granted, instinctively utilizing our visual channels to do so, millions of blind people around the world face challenges and obstacles when attempting to perform the most basic tasks, such as walking to the corner store or using public transportation. As blind pedestrians lack critical information about the space they traverse outside the familiarity

There is a long history of engaging citizens in planning processes, and the intention to involve them actively in planning is a common objective. However, the reality of doing so is rather fraught and much empirical work suggests poor results. Partly in response an increasingly sophisticated toolkit of methods has emerged, and, in recent years, the deployment of various creative and digital technologies

In this paper, we provide an update of recent developments and forthcoming challenges in the field of planning support systems, following earlier reviews in 2003 and 2009. The rationale for this update is the rapid development of information and communication technologies and their impact on planning support systems. After a brief retrospective assessment of past planning support system developments

Urban researchers have long debated the extent to which metropolitan employment is monocentric, polycentric, or diffuse. In this paper I use high-resolution data based on unemployment insurance records to show that employment in US metropolitan areas is not centralized but is spatially concentrated. Unlike residents, who form a continuous surface covering most parts of each metropolitan area, jobs

Although urban scenario planning is widely applied for exploring various directions of urban development, it often has high requirements on the medium of quantitative information analysis and transformation. Thus, this study establishes a method of combining scenario planning with a spatial dynamic planning support system to predict urban growth. Specifically, a scenario-based spatial dynamic modelling

This study presents the spatial analysis of walking accessibility to a public facility in a hilly, multi-level urban environment. Our spatial database includes street topography, physical impedances, formal crossings, and designated access points in assessing the network distance of all private residential buildings to public open space in Hong Kong. Pedestrian movement of uneven speed on walkways

The implementation of smart governance in government policies and practices is criticised for its dominant focus on technology investments, which leads to a rather technocratic and corporate way of ‘smartly’ governing cities and less consideration of actual user needs. To help prevent a mismatch between the demand for and the supply of technology, this paper explores what smart governance can learn

The role of urban planning in sound environments has recently received increased research attention. This study aims to examine the relationship between the rate of noise complaints and urban development patterns concerning planning and landscape at city/region level. Open-source government data sets are used for statistical analysis across all district and unitary local authorities in England. The

China has experienced rapid urbanization for over 40 years, posing a significant challenge to the ecological environment and urban sustainability, which is especially critical in cities in Western China. To critically measure the impact of ecological security on urban sustainability, we developed a quantitative approach to obtain evaluation results for decision-making. Taking Xi’an, one of the central

If I look back over 40 years of these editorials, what is striking is how new ideas about cities and their planning have emerged without premonition, ideas that at the time they were articulated had not even appeared on the horizon. When the journal was founded in 1974, the editor Lionel March and his colleagues which included myself, believed in the inherent predictability of the science that we were

There is a decided bent toward finding an optimal solution to a given facility location problem instance, even when there may be multiple optima or competitive near-optimal solutions. Identifying alternate solutions is often ignored in model application, even when such solutions may be preferred if they were known to exist. In this paper we discuss why generating close-to-optimal alternatives should

As the urban development continues, different parts of a city can grow or decay by varying degrees due to natural deterioration or changes in governmental policies. City is the center for business, culture, and social activities; is the place that reflects geography, commerce, society, and culture context; is a complex whole that is woven by “people,” “activity,” and “space” “People” in the “space”

Land use–transportation interaction models can be useful planning support systems to assess the long-term implications of emerging transportation technologies like mobility-on-demand and automated vehicles. We propose an agent-based simulation framework (SimMobility Long-Term) that uses econometrically robust behavioral models to model the potential impacts of accessibility changes in “car-lite” communities

The conformance approach is frequently used to evaluate the effectiveness of spatial plans in containing urban sprawl. However, non-conformances are widely considered inevitable. Prior conformance-based evaluations fail to answer the essential question of whether plans influence non-conforming situations. To address this gap, we built a framework for conformance measurement to reveal how plans affect

Urban form at the district scale is defined as a unique combination of the following basic spatial objects: road networks, plot patterns and building configurations. In particular, a plot represents one of the most important basic spatial objects of urban form. In recent theoretical and empirical work from downtown districts in Tokyo, it was found that (1) plot sizes and frontages approximately follow

Urban vitality, as a metric, measures the attractiveness and competitiveness of a city and is a driver of development. As the physical and social space of human activities, the urban landscape has close connections with urban vitality according to classical theories. However, limited quantitative criteria for the urban landscape and gaps between macro urban planning and micro design create difficulties

Abstract In the digital era of big data, data analytics and smart cities, a new generation of planning support systems is emerging. The Rapid Analytics Interactive Scenario Explorer is a novel planning support system developed to help planners and policy-makers determine the likely land value uplift associated with the provision of new city infrastructure. The Rapid Analytics Interactive Scenario Explorer

Planning for cycling is often made difficult by the lack of detailed information about when and where cycling takes place. Many have seen the arrival of new forms of data such as crowdsourced data as a potential saviour. One of the key challenges posed by these data forms is understanding how representative they are of the population. To address this challenge, a limited number of studies have compared

Many times in these editorials over the last 30 years have I speculated on how we might think about cities in terms of their dynamics. The central constructs in such thinking involve ways in which cities can be disrupted by new technologies, and how a myriad of networks define the way energy, materials, people and information come together to generate levels of complexity, unimaginable before the industrial

This paper proposes that urban informatics can represent a flow of information from diverse and voluminous data into and back from the planning process. We present a proof-of-concept of how an urban informatics approach can improve public understanding of essential information in the planning process, and we propose a theoretical construct of how it can make planning processes more democratic and participatory

In order to contain commuting distance growth and relieve traffic burden in mega-city regions, it is essential to understand journey-to-work patterns and changes in those patterns. This research develops a planning support model that integrates increasingly available mobile phone data and conventional statistics into a theoretical urban economic framework to reveal and explain commuting changes. Base-year

This paper introduces a type of graph called ‘homeomorphically irreducible tree’ (HIT) and explores its analytical and computational aspects in the architecture of radial prison plans. As a theoretical introduction, HITs are first diagrammatically presented using a taxonomy of 20 different radial prisons. Using this analysis, a generative algorithm that transforms plan connectivity to a simple sequential

Microsimulation is a class of Urban Building Energy Modeling techniques in which energetic interactions between buildings are explicitly resolved. Examples include SUNtool and CitySim+, both of which employ a sophisticated radiosity-based algorithm to solve for radiation exchange. The computational cost of this algorithm increases in proportion to the square of the number of surfaces of which an urban

Urbanization’s rapid progress presents an urgent challenge for developing a predictive, quantitative theory of “the death and life of cities” (a.k.a. “the essential diversity conditions for the urban built environment”). Despite the importance of activity diversity (i.e. serving different primary functions), existing works ignored that time diversity (i.e. attracting people at different times of the

Urban settlements and urbanised populations have been growing at unprecedented rates around the world (Seto et al., 2010; UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2019). By 2050, the United Nations predicts 68% of the world’s population will live in cities and towns, and most of this change will be occurring in low- and middle-income countries (UN Habitat, 2016). This transition towards more urbanised

Analysis of changing patterns of ethnic residential segregation is usually framed by the coarse categorisations of ethnicity used in censuses and other large-scale public sector surveys and by the infrequent time intervals at which such surveys are conducted. In this paper, we use names-based classification of Consumer Registers to investigate changing degrees of segregation in England and Wales over

Planning support systems (PSSs) are designed to help planning authorities and other urban and regional planners understand complex urban systems, and plan for more sustainable and resilient future cities (Deal et al., 2017a; Kalantari et al., 2019a, 2018; Pettit et al., 2018). PSSs are used to analyze and link different aspects of urban planning (e.g. land use, transportation, environmental issues

The creation of a psychologically friendly outdoor environment has important quality-of-life implications for urban residents who live in cities with extremely high population density, such as Hong Kong. Prospect Refuge Theory is the most widely recognized theory that explains environmental emotional influence by referring to urban planning and architecture, and it can be quantified by applying isovist

Human movement and interaction across space and through time is full of economic and social opportunities. Access to information through location-based technologies offers potential for people to make better decisions about social activity participation needs and travel behavior preferences. Identifying an optimal trajectory (route) connecting desired activity locations for multiple attendees with

The paper aims to develop a campus-level planning support system that is driven by data analytics by comparing two design approaches, anticipation and optimization. A campus is defined as a small-scale complex urban system of buildings and infrastructure. Three questions are addressed: (1) What generates campus design? What principles are taken for making design decisions? (2) How do we optimize design

This paper develops a statistical approach to measuring and guiding grammatical applications using a descriptive shape grammar, ‘Murcutt Grammar’. Normalised Distance (ND) is proposed to identify the level of disparity of each design instance. Alternative design instances are generated using rule transition paths that illustrate the transition sequences of the grammar application (transition probability)

High levels of accessibility for people and jobs are the very essence of urban areas, as they allow the agglomeration economies. In the past, slow modes of transportation meant population and activity densities were the only way to reach high accessibility levels. More recently, the high speed provided by cars has enabled people to choose their home and job locations within larger areas, while keeping

The changing nature of retail coupled with rapid technological and social developments, are posing great challenges to the attractiveness of traditional retail areas in the UK. In this paper we argue that the definitions and classifications of town centres currently adopted by UK planners and policy makers are outdated, because of their focus on retail occupancy. Instead, we propose a more dynamic

In the context of rapid urbanization, it remains unclear how urban landscape patterns shift under different urban dynamics, in particular taking different influencing factors of urban dynamics into consideration. In the present study, three key influencing factors were considered, namely, housing demand, spatial structure, and growth form. On this basis, multiple urban dynamic scenarios were constructed

I recently attended a workshop organised by the SPatial Analysis Research Center at Arizona State University which was focused on a discussion around a whole series of questions pertaining to scale but where the emphasis was largely on inductive models for extracting meaningful scale from areal data. The workshop threw up many questions involving what we mean by scale, the ambiguities posed by its

Urban peripherality is a multidimensional phenomenon, requiring operational tools for analysis and policy design. In this paper, we explore if and how the concept of walkability can be employed as an indicator of peripherality. For this purpose, we employ the capability-wise walkability score (CAWS) to assess neighbourhoods of two case study cities to classify them into four classes (periphery, semi-periphery

Unprecedented urbanisation processes characterise the Great Acceleration, urging urban researchers to make sense of data analysis in support of evidence-based and large-scale decision-making. Urban morphologists are no exception since the impact of urban form on fundamental natural and social patterns (equity, prosperity and resource consumption’s efficiency) is now fully acknowledged. However, urban

With an increasing number of smart cities initiatives in developed as well as developing nations, smart cities are seen as a catalyst for improving the quality of life for city residents. However, current understanding of the risks that may hamper successful implementation of smart city projects remains limited due to inadequate data, especially in developing nations. The recent Smart Cities Mission

There is a worldwide trend for planning bodies to allow, require, or encourage developers to provide open spaces in their properties for public enjoyment to complement the open spaces on government lands. The two types of privately owned open space and government-owned open space, both accessible to public, can influence on people’s quality of life. Whether and how the land ownership of open spaces

Self-organization is a key mechanism through which cities spontaneously and dynamically evolve and adjust to changing circumstances (Allen, 1997; Batty, 2005; Portugali, 2000). It entails an emerging process: place-based actions and interactions of an unrestricted number of urban agents produce certain physical, social and economic patterns at a global level that in turn coordinate the expectations

In cities around the world, housing demand is increasing rapidly. Since housing supply is inelastic, house prices are rising as well, which causes affordability problems. Although there is consensus about the need to raise production, there is debate about its location: within the existing city, on underused or derelict buildings and sites, or on greenfield land outside existing city boundaries? The

In the late 19th century when the automobile was invented, Henry Ford is reported to have said: ‘If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses’. In fact, he more than most is accredited with introducing one of the most disruptive technologies to have changed the way we live in cities (Vlaskovits, 2011;Walsh, 2017). Ford did not invent the motor car, nor was he the first

This study examines path flows for road networks. Path flows sum individual route choices from individual travelers, associated with specific path objective. We estimate these flows for each cost factor of auto travel: time, safety, emission, and monetary costs, as well as their composite, internal and full cost of travel. For each factor, we find the route with the minimum cumulative cost. We further

Cellular automata have found extensive applications in the modelling of urban systems. Calculations in cellular automata models are based on cell centroids and therefore cellular automata models are sensitive to the choices of cell size and shape. While the effect of cell size for urban simulation has been studied, discussions on the effect of cell shape on urban cellular automata models have been

Space syntax is an influential framework for quantifying the relationship between environmental geometry and human behavior. Although many studies report high syntactic–behavioral correlations, previous pedestrian data were collected at low spatiotemporal resolutions, and data transformations and sampling strategies vary widely; here, we systematically test the robustness of space syntax’s predictive

The World experiences a significant growth in population coupled with fast urbanization processes particularly in the Southern hemisphere, which puts an enormous pressure on cities, giving rise to numerous social, infrastructural, ecological, and urban problems. In this context, the formal sector is often unable to provide adequate housing for this growing population who resorts to self-help processes

Virtual reality environments have created new opportunities for visualizing social spaces in three dimensions, which enable addition of a vertical dimension. This creates a topographical landscape based on socio-economic characteristics of the urban system. Quantification of the socio-economic disparities between city pairs in relation to the spatial distances is the social topography slope, where

In an era of data-driven smart cities, the possibility of using crowdsourced big data to support evidence-based planning and decision-making remains a challenge. Along with the increased availability and potential utility of crowdsourced data, there is a clear need to assess the validity of these data in order to determine their appropriate use for planning and management. Moreover, with growth and