IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v57y2020i12p2402-2422.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring polycentricity via network flows, spatial interaction and percolation

Author

Listed:
  • Somwrita Sarkar

    (School of Architecture, Design and Planning, The University of Sydney, Australia)

  • Hao Wu

    (School of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies, The University of Sydney, Australia)

  • David M Levinson

    (School of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies, The University of Sydney, Australia)

Abstract

Polycentricity, or the number of central urban places, is commonly measured by location-based metrics (e.g. employment density/total number of workers, above a threshold). While these metrics are good indicators of location ‘centricity’, results are sensitive to threshold choice. We consider the alternative idea that a centre’s status depends on its connectivity to other locations through trip inflows/outflows: this is inherently a network rather than place idea. Three flow and network-based centricity metrics for measuring metropolitan area polycentricity using journey-to-work data are presented: (a) trip-based; (b) density-based; and (c) accessibility-based. Using these measures, polycentricity is computed and rank-centricity distributions are plotted to test Zipf-like or Christaller-like behaviours. Further, a percolation theory framework is proposed for the full origin–destination matrix, where trip flows are used as a thresholding parameter to count the number of sub-centres. Trip flows prove to be an effective measure to count and hierarchically organise metropolitan areas and sub-centres, tackling the arbitrariness of defining any threshold on employment statistics to count sub-centres. Applications on data from the Greater Sydney region show that the proposed framework helps to characterise polycentricity and sub-regional organisation more robustly, and provide unexpected insights into the connections between land use, labour market organisation, transport and urban structure.

Suggested Citation

  • Somwrita Sarkar & Hao Wu & David M Levinson, 2020. "Measuring polycentricity via network flows, spatial interaction and percolation," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(12), pages 2402-2422, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:57:y:2020:i:12:p:2402-2422
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098019832517
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098019832517
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0042098019832517?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alex Anas & Richard Arnott & Kenneth A. Small, 1998. "Urban Spatial Structure," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(3), pages 1426-1464, September.
    2. Jan Eeckhout, 2004. "Gibrat's Law for (All) Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1429-1451, December.
    3. Giuliano, Genevieve & Small, Kenneth A., 1991. "Subcenters in the Los Angeles Region," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt6ts0t95w, University of California Transportation Center.
    4. Camille Roth & Soong Moon Kang & Michael Batty & Marc Barthélemy, 2011. "Structure of Urban Movements: Polycentric Activity and Entangled Hierarchical Flows," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(1), pages 1-8, January.
    5. Richard Arnott, 1997. "Congestion Tolling and Urban Spatial Structure," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 389., Boston College Department of Economics.
    6. Xingjian Liu & Ben Derudder & Kang Wu, 2016. "Measuring Polycentric Urban Development in China: An Intercity Transportation Network Perspective," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(8), pages 1302-1315, August.
    7. Brian J.L. Berry & William L. Garrison, 1958. "Recent Developments Of Central Place Theory," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(1), pages 107-120, January.
    8. Wachs, Martin & Kumagai, T. Gordon, 1973. "Physical accessibility as a social indicator," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 7(5), pages 437-456, October.
    9. Giuliano, Genevieve & Small, Kenneth A., 1991. "Subcenters in the Los Angeles Region," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt7xv976dj, University of California Transportation Center.
    10. Evert Meijers, 2008. "Measuring Polycentricity and its Promises," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(9), pages 1313-1323, October.
    11. John Parr, 2004. "The Polycentric Urban Region: A Closer Inspection," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(3), pages 231-240.
    12. David Levinson, 1998. "Accessibility and the Journey to Work," Working Papers 199802, University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group.
    13. McMillen, Daniel P. & Smith, Stefani C., 2003. "The number of subcenters in large urban areas," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 321-338, May.
    14. Giuliano, Genevieve & Small, Kenneth A., 1991. "Subcenters in the Los Angeles region," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 163-182, July.
    15. Xavier Gabaix, 1999. "Zipf's Law for Cities: An Explanation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 739-767.
    16. Fujita, Masahisa & Ogawa, Hideaki, 1982. "Multiple equilibria and structural transition of non-monocentric urban configurations," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 161-196, May.
    17. McMillen, Daniel P., 2001. "Nonparametric Employment Subcenter Identification," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 448-473, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ermagun, Alireza, 2021. "Transit access and urban space-time structure of American cities," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    2. Allen, Jeff & Farber, Steven & Greaves, Stephen & Clifton, Geoffrey & Wu, Hao & Sarkar, Somwrita & Levinson, David M., 2021. "Immigrant settlement patterns, transit accessibility, and transit use," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    3. Oliveira, Renata Lúcia Magalhães de & Dablanc, Laetitia & Schorung, Matthieu, 2022. "Changes in warehouse spatial patterns and rental prices: Are they related? Exploring the case of US metropolitan areas," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    4. Liu, Baoju & Tang, Zhongan & Deng, Min & Shi, Yan & He, Xiao & Huang, Bo, 2024. "Estimation of travel flux between urban blocks by combining spatio-temporal and purpose correlation," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    5. Yani Lai & Zhen Lv & Chunmei Chen & Quan Liu, 2022. "Exploring Employment Spatial Structure Based on Mobile Phone Signaling Data: The Case of Shenzhen, China," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-15, June.
    6. Popovich, Natalie & Spurlock, C. Anna & Needell, Zachary & Jin, Ling & Wenzel, Tom & Sheppard, Colin & Asudegi, Mona, 2021. "A methodology to develop a geospatial transportation typology," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Somwrita Sarkar & Hao Wu & David Levinson, 2020. "Sarkar, Somwrita, Wu, Hao and Levinson, D. (2020) Measuring polycentricity via network flows, spatial interaction, and percolation," Working Papers 2022-01, University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group.
    2. Bumsoo Lee & Peter Gordon, 2010. "Urban Structure: It's Role in Urban Growth, Net New Business Formation and Industrial Churn," Working Paper 8515, USC Lusk Center for Real Estate.
    3. Lee, Sungwon & Lee, Bumsoo, 2014. "The influence of urban form on GHG emissions in the U.S. household sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 534-549.
    4. Jaume Masip Tresserra, 2012. "Identifying the Employment and Population Centers at regional and metropolitan scale: The Case of Catalonia and Barcelona," ERSA conference papers ersa12p70, European Regional Science Association.
    5. Ajay Agarwal & Genevieve Giuliano & Christian Redfearn, 2012. "Strangers in our midst: the usefulness of exploring polycentricity," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 48(2), pages 433-450, April.
    6. Liang Ding & Cheng Shi & Xinyi Niu, 2020. "Evaluation of Plan Implementation in the Fast-Growing Chinese Mega-City: A Case of a Polycentric System in Hangzhou Core Built-Up Area," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-18, February.
    7. Cats, Oded & Wang, Qian & Zhao, Yu, 2015. "Identification and classification of public transport activity centres in Stockholm using passenger flows data," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 10-22.
    8. Arribas-Bel, Daniel & Garcia-López, M.-À. & Viladecans-Marsal, Elisabet, 2021. "Building(s and) cities: Delineating urban areas with a machine learning algorithm," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    9. Xuejun Liu & Qisheng Pan & Lester King & Zhonghua Jin, 2019. "Analysing the changes of employment subcentres: A comparison study of Houston and Dallas," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(12), pages 2532-2548, September.
    10. Jaume Masip Tresserra, 2012. "Does Employment Density death? Towards a new integrated methodology to identify and characterize Sub-Centres," ERSA conference papers ersa12p71, European Regional Science Association.
    11. Antti Vasanen, 2012. "Functional Polycentricity: Examining Metropolitan Spatial Structure through the Connectivity of Urban Sub-centres," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(16), pages 3627-3644, December.
    12. Bumsoo Lee & Peter Gordon, 2007. "Urban Spatial Structure and Economic Growth in US Metropolitan Areas," Working Paper 8564, USC Lusk Center for Real Estate.
    13. Feng, Yuhao & Wu, Shufan & Wu, Peixin & Su, Shiliang & Weng, Min & Bian, Meng, 2018. "Spatiotemporal characterization of megaregional poly-centrality: Evidence for new urban hypotheses and implications for polycentric policies," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 712-731.
    14. Frederic Gilli, 2009. "Sprawl or Reagglomeration? The Dynamics of Employment Deconcentration and Industrial Transformation in Greater Paris," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 46(7), pages 1385-1420, June.
    15. Jorge Montejano Escamilla & Camilo Caudillo Cos & José Silván Cárdenas, 2016. "Contesting Mexico City’s alleged polycentric condition through a centrality-mixed land-use composite index," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(11), pages 2380-2396, August.
    16. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2014. "The Growth of Cities," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 5, pages 781-853, Elsevier.
    17. McMillen, Daniel P. & Smith, Stefani C., 2003. "The number of subcenters in large urban areas," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 321-338, May.
    18. Chunil Kim & Choongik Choi, 2019. "Towards Sustainable Urban Spatial Structure: Does Decentralization Reduce Commuting Times?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-28, February.
    19. Vicente Romero de à vila Serrano, 2019. "The Intrametropolitan Geography of Knowledge-Intensive Business Services (KIBS): A Comparative Analysis of Six European and U.S. City-Regions," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 33(4), pages 279-295, November.
    20. Yue, Wenze & Wang, Tianyu & Liu, Yong & Zhang, Qun & Ye, Xinyue, 2019. "Mismatch of morphological and functional polycentricity in Chinese cities: An evidence from land development and functional linkage," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:57:y:2020:i:12:p:2402-2422. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.