https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-021-00283-w
Regular Article
Evolution of urban forms observed from space
1
Data61, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Melbourne, Australia
2
Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
3
Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
4
Humans and Machines, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
5
Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA
g
lixun@mail.sysu.edu.cn
h
rahwan@mpib-berlin.mpg.de
j
cebrian@mpib-berlin.mpg.de
Received:
17
January
2020
Accepted:
10
May
2021
Published online:
19
May
2021
Multiple driving forces shape cities. These forces include the costs of transporting goods and people, the types of predominant local industries, and the policies that govern urban planning. Here, we examine how agglomeration and dispersion change with increasing population and population density. We study the patterns in the evolution of urban forms and analyze the differences between developed and developing countries. We analyze agglomeration across 233 European and 258 Chinese cities using nighttime luminosity data. We find a universal inverted U-shape curve for the agglomeration metric (Lasym index). Cities attain their maximum agglomeration level at an intermediate density, above which dispersion increases. Our findings may guide strategic urban planning for the timely adoption of appropriate development policies.
Key words: Urban form / Agglomeration / Lasym / Inverted U-shape / European / Chinese
Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-021-00283-w.
Haohui Chen and Yury Kryvasheyeu contributed equally to this work.
© The Author(s) 2021
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