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Measuring the Complexity of Urban Form and Design

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  • Boeing, Geoff

    (Northeastern University)

Abstract

Complex systems have become a popular lens for analyzing cities and complexity theory has many implications for urban performance and resilience. This paper develops a typology of measures and indicators for assessing the physical complexity of the built environment at the scale of urban design. It extends quantitative measures from city planning, network science, ecosystems studies, fractal geometry, statistical physics, and information theory to the analysis of urban form and qualitative human experience. Metrics at multiple scales are scattered throughout diverse bodies of literature and have useful applications in analyzing the adaptive complexity that both evolves and results from local design processes. In turn, they enable urban designers to assess resilience, adaptability, connectedness, and livability with an advanced toolkit. The typology developed here applies to empirical research of various neighborhood types and design standards. It includes temporal, visual, spatial, scaling, and connectivity measures of the urban form. Today, prominent urban design movements openly embrace complexity but must move beyond inspiration and metaphor to formalize what "complexity" is and how we can use it to assess both the world as-is as well as proposals for how it could be instead.

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  • Boeing, Geoff, 2018. "Measuring the Complexity of Urban Form and Design," SocArXiv bxhrz, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:bxhrz
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/bxhrz
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    4. Yat Yen & Pengjun Zhao & Muhammad T Sohail, 2021. "The morphology and circuity of walkable, bikeable, and drivable street networks in Phnom Penh, Cambodia," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 48(1), pages 169-185, January.
    5. Fatemeh Jahanmiri & Dawn Cassandra Parker, 2022. "An Overview of Fractal Geometry Applied to Urban Planning," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-23, March.
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    7. Luca Salvati & Margherita Carlucci, 2020. "Shaping Dimensions of Urban Complexity: The Role of Economic Structure and Socio-Demographic Local Contexts," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 147(1), pages 263-285, January.
    8. Juste Raimbault, 2020. "Relating Complexities for the Reflexive Study of Complex Systems," Post-Print halshs-02430521, HAL.
    9. Gerhard JB Bruyns & Christopher D Higgins & Darren H Nel, 2021. "Urban volumetrics: From vertical to volumetric urbanisation and its extensions to empirical morphological analysis," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(5), pages 922-940, April.
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