IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/93h82.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Methods and Measures for Analyzing Complex Street Networks and Urban Form

Author

Listed:
  • Boeing, Geoff

    (Northeastern University)

Abstract

Complex systems have been widely studied by social and natural scientists in terms of their dynamics and their structure. Scholars of cities and urban planning have incorporated complexity theories from qualitative and quantitative perspectives. From a structural standpoint, the urban form may be characterized by the morphological complexity of its circulation networks – particularly their density, resilience, centrality, and connectedness. This dissertation unpacks theories of nonlinearity and complex systems, then develops a framework for assessing the complexity of urban form and street networks. It introduces a new tool, OSMnx, to collect street network and other urban form data for anywhere in the world, then analyze and visualize them. Finally, it presents a large empirical study of 27,000 street networks, examining their metric and topological complexity relevant to urban design, transportation research, and the human experience of the built environment.

Suggested Citation

  • Boeing, Geoff, 2017. "Methods and Measures for Analyzing Complex Street Networks and Urban Form," SocArXiv 93h82, Center for Open Science.
  • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:93h82
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/93h82
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/59820574b83f69022a07fe1f/
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/93h82?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. Cervero, Robert & Landis, John, 1995. "The Transportation-Land Use Connection Still Matters," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt9sg3w7q5, University of California Transportation Center.
    2. Krasny, Marianne E. & Russ, Alex & Tidball, Keith G. & Elmqvist, Thomas, 2014. "Civic ecology practices: Participatory approaches to generating and measuring ecosystem services in cities," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 7(C), pages 177-186.
    3. Franz, Wolfgang, 1990. "Hysteresis in Economic Relationships: An Overview," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 109-125.
    4. Pavithra Parthasarathi & Hartwig Hochmair & David Levinson, 2012. "Network Structure and Spatial Separation," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 39(1), pages 137-154, February.
    5. Pavithra Parthasarathi & Hartwig Hochmair & David Levinson, 2015. "Street network structure and household activity spaces," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(6), pages 1090-1112, May.
    6. Marlon Boarnet, 2011. "A Broader Context for Land Use and Travel Behavior, and a Research Agenda," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 77(3), pages 197-213.
    7. David Levinson, 2012. "Network Structure and City Size," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(1), pages 1-11, January.
    8. Arthur, W Brian, 1989. "Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns, and Lock-In by Historical Events," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 99(394), pages 116-131, March.
    9. Jiang, Bin, 2007. "A topological pattern of urban street networks: Universality and peculiarity," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 384(2), pages 647-655.
    10. Giuliano, Genevieve, 1995. "The Weakening Transportation-Land Use Connection," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt1dn8t3w7, University of California Transportation Center.
    11. Paul L. Knight & Wesley E. Marshall, 2015. "The metrics of street network connectivity: their inconsistencies," Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(3), pages 241-259, September.
    12. Charles Hoch & Moira Zellner & Dan Milz & Josh Radinsky & Leilah Lyons, 2015. "Seeing is not believing: cognitive bias and modelling in collaborative planning," Planning Theory & Practice, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(3), pages 319-335, September.
    13. Timothy M. Baynes, 2009. "Complexity in Urban Development and Management," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 13(2), pages 214-227, April.
    14. Hayek, F. A. & Caldwell, Bruce, 2007. "The Road to Serfdom," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226320540 edited by Caldwell, Bruce, Febrero.
    15. Yang-Yu Liu & Jean-Jacques Slotine & Albert-László Barabási, 2011. "Controllability of complex networks," Nature, Nature, vol. 473(7346), pages 167-173, May.
    16. Abraham T. Narh & Neil Thorpe & Margaret C. Bell & Graeme A. Hill, 2016. "Do new sources of traffic data make the application of Chaos Theory to traffic management a realistic possibility?," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(5), pages 635-658, September.
    17. Liebowitz, S J & Margolis, Stephen E, 1995. "Path Dependence, Lock-in, and History," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 11(1), pages 205-226, April.
    18. Robert Goodspeed, 2015. "Smart cities: moving beyond urban cybernetics to tackle wicked problems," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 8(1), pages 79-92.
    19. Lucien Benguigui & Daniel Czamanski & Maria Marinov & Yuval Portugali, 2000. "When and Where is a City Fractal?," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 27(4), pages 507-519, August.
    20. Eric Dumbaugh & Wenhao Li, 2011. "Designing for the Safety of Pedestrians, Cyclists, and Motorists in Urban Environments," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 77(1), pages 69-88.
    21. Argote-Cabanero, Juan & Daganzo, Carlos F. & Lynn, Jacob W., 2015. "Dynamic control of complex transit systems," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 81(P1), pages 146-160.
    22. André Cavalcante & Ahmed Mansouri & Lemya Kacha & Allan Kardec Barros & Yoshinori Takeuchi & Naoji Matsumoto & Noboru Ohnishi, 2014. "Measuring Streetscape Complexity Based on the Statistics of Local Contrast and Spatial Frequency," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(2), pages 1-13, February.
    23. David O’Sullivan & Steven M. Manson, 2015. "Do Physicists Have Geography Envy? And What Can Geographers Learn from It?," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 105(4), pages 704-722, July.
    24. David O'Sullivan & Mordechai Haklay, 2000. "Agent-Based Models and Individualism: Is the World Agent-Based?," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 32(8), pages 1409-1425, August.
    25. Richard Hu, 2013. "Urban Design Plans for Downtown San Francisco: A Paradigm Shift?," Journal of Urban Design, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(4), pages 517-533, November.
    26. Lisa A. Schweitzer & Nader Afzalan, 2017. "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0: Four Reasons Why AICP Needs an Open Data Ethic," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 83(2), pages 161-167, April.
    27. Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein, 2023. "Libertarian paternalism," Chapters, in: Cass R. Sunstein & Lucia A. Reisch (ed.), Research Handbook on Nudges and Society, chapter 1, pages 10-16, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    28. Paul Waddell, 2000. "A Behavioral Simulation Model for Metropolitan Policy Analysis and Planning: Residential Location and Housing Market Components of Urbansim," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 27(2), pages 247-263, April.
    29. Luis Bettencourt & Geoffrey West, 2010. "A unified theory of urban living," Nature, Nature, vol. 467(7318), pages 912-913, October.
    30. Emily Talen & Sunny Menozzi & Chloe Schaefer, 2015. "What is a "Great Neighborhood"? An Analysis of APA's Top-Rated Places," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 81(2), pages 121-141, April.
    31. Boeing, Geoff, 2017. "We Live in a Motorized Civilization: Robert Moses Replies to Robert Caro," SocArXiv cpgrd, Center for Open Science.
    32. Jonathan Levine & Joe Grengs & Qingyun Shen & Qing Shen, 2012. "Does Accessibility Require Density or Speed?," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 78(2), pages 157-172.
    33. Cervero, Robert & Landis, John, 1995. "The Transportation-Land Use Connection Still Matters," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt7x87v1zk, University of California Transportation Center.
    34. P M Allen & M Sanglier, 1981. "Urban Evolution, Self-Organization, and Decisionmaking," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 13(2), pages 167-183, February.
    35. Bin Jiang & Christophe Claramunt, 2004. "Topological Analysis of Urban Street Networks," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 31(1), pages 151-162, February.
    36. Bhanu Yerra & David Levinson, 2005. "The emergence of hierarchy in transportation networks," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 39(3), pages 541-553, September.
    37. David Levinson & Arthur Huang, 2012. "A Positive Theory of Network Connectivity," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 39(2), pages 308-325, April.
    38. Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, 2008. "Economics needs a scientific revolution," Nature, Nature, vol. 455(7217), pages 1181-1181, October.
    39. Boeing, Geoff, 2017. "Visual Analysis of Nonlinear Dynamical Systems: Chaos, Fractals, Self-Similarity and the Limits of Prediction," SocArXiv c7p43, Center for Open Science.
    40. Juval Portugali, 2006. "Complexity Theory as a Link between Space and Place," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 38(4), pages 647-664, April.
    41. Handy, Susan & Cao, Xinyu & Mokhtarian, Patricia L., 2005. "Correlation or causality between the built environment and travel behavior? Evidence from Northern California," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt5b76c5kg, University of California Transportation Center.
    42. Xinyu Cao & Patricia Mokhtarian & Susan Handy, 2007. "Do changes in neighborhood characteristics lead to changes in travel behavior? A structural equations modeling approach," Transportation, Springer, vol. 34(5), pages 535-556, September.
    43. Camaren Peter & Mark Swilling, 2014. "Linking Complexity and Sustainability Theories: Implications for Modeling Sustainability Transitions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-29, March.
    44. Siodla, James, 2015. "Razing San Francisco: The 1906 disaster as a natural experiment in urban redevelopment," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 48-61.
    45. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    46. Levinson, David & El-Geneidy, Ahmed, 2009. "The minimum circuity frontier and the journey to work," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 732-738, November.
    47. Glaeser, Edward L. & Kahn, Matthew E. & Rappaport, Jordan, 2008. "Why do the poor live in cities The role of public transportation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 1-24, January.
    48. Reid Ewing & Robert Cervero, 2010. "Travel and the Built Environment," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 76(3), pages 265-294.
    49. R White & G Engelen, 1993. "Cellular Automata and Fractal Urban Form: A Cellular Modelling Approach to the Evolution of Urban Land-Use Patterns," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 25(8), pages 1175-1199, August.
    50. Pavithra Parthasarathi & David Levinson & Hartwig Hochmair, 2013. "Network Structure and Travel Time Perception," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(10), pages 1-13, October.
    51. Ian Stewart, 2000. "The Lorenz attractor exists," Nature, Nature, vol. 406(6799), pages 948-949, August.
    52. Bent Flyvbjerg, 2007. "Policy and Planning for Large-Infrastructure Projects: Problems, Causes, Cures," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 34(4), pages 578-597, August.
    53. Hayek, F. A. & Caldwell, Bruce, 2007. "The Road to Serfdom," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226320557 edited by Caldwell, Bruce, August.
    54. Matthew Carmona, 2015. "Re-theorising contemporary public space: a new narrative and a new normative," Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(4), pages 373-405, December.
    55. repec:ucp:bkecon:9780226320625 is not listed on IDEAS
    56. Wang, Fahui & Antipova, Anzhelika & Porta, Sergio, 2011. "Street centrality and land use intensity in Baton Rouge, Louisiana," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 285-293.
    57. Mike Biddulph, 2012. "The Problem with Thinking about or for Urban Design," Journal of Urban Design, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 1-20.
    58. Philip Speranza, 2016. "Using parametric methods to understand place in urban design courses," Journal of Urban Design, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(5), pages 661-689, September.
    59. M. T. Gastner & M. E.J. Newman, 2006. "The spatial structure of networks," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 49(2), pages 247-252, January.
    60. Boeing, Geoff, 2017. "OSMnx: A Python package to work with graph-theoretic OpenStreetMap street networks," SocArXiv fe4ra, Center for Open Science.
    61. Brian J. L. Berry, 1964. "Cities As Systems Within Systems Of Cities," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(1), pages 147-163, January.
    62. Boeing, Geoff, 2018. "The Effects of Inequality, Density, and Heterogeneous Residential Preferences on Urban Displacement and Metropolitan Structure: An Agent-Based Model," SocArXiv mkq7d, Center for Open Science.
    63. J. Buhl & J. Gautrais & N. Reeves & R. V. Solé & S. Valverde & P. Kuntz & G. Theraulaz, 2006. "Topological patterns in street networks of self-organized urban settlements," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 49(4), pages 513-522, February.
    64. Alan G Wilson, 2006. "Ecological and Urban Systems Models: Some Explorations of Similarities in the Context of Complexity Theory," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 38(4), pages 633-646, April.
    65. Edward L. Glaeser, 2005. "Paternalism and Psychology," NBER Working Papers 11789, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    66. David J. Madden, 2014. "Neighborhood as Spatial Project: Making the Urban Order on the Downtown Brooklyn Waterfront," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 471-497, March.
    67. James M. Drinan, 2015. "Response to Talen et al.: Igniting the Dialogue: What Makes a Neighborhood Great?," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 81(2), pages 141-142, April.
    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. Boeing, Geoff, 2019. "Street Network Models and Measures for Every U.S. City, County, Urbanized Area, Census Tract, and Zillow-Defined Neighborhood," SocArXiv 7fxjz, Center for Open Science.
    2. Thomas Leduc, 2023. "Coupled use of isovists and wavelets for street intersection pattern determination," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 50(5), pages 1361-1374, June.
    3. Boeing, Geoff, 2020. "The Right Tools for the Job: The Case for Spatial Science Tool-Building," SocArXiv d267g, Center for Open Science.
    4. Nir Kaplan & David Burg & Itzhak Omer, 2022. "Multiscale accessibility and urban performance," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 49(2), pages 687-703, February.
    5. Waddell, Paul & Boeing, Geoff & Gardner, Max & Porter, Emily, 2018. "An Integrated Pipeline Architecture for Modeling Urban Land Use, Travel Demand, and Traffic Assignment," SocArXiv 74zaw, Center for Open Science.
    6. Waddell, Paul & Boeing, Geoff & Gardner, Max & Porter, Emily, 2018. "An Integrated Pipeline Architecture for Modeling Urban Land Use, Travel Demand, and Traffic Assignment," SocArXiv 74zaw_v1, Center for Open Science.
    7. Sven Eggimann, 2022. "The potential of implementing superblocks for multifunctional street use in cities," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 5(5), pages 406-414, May.
    8. Boeing, Geoff, 2017. "The Relative Circuity of Walkable and Drivable Urban Street Networks," SocArXiv 4rzqa, Center for Open Science.
    9. Boeing, Geoff, 2019. "Street Network Models and Measures for Every U.S. City, County, Urbanized Area, Census Tract, and Zillow-Defined Neighborhood," SocArXiv 7fxjz_v1, Center for Open Science.
    10. Boeing, Geoff, 2017. "The Relative Circuity of Walkable and Drivable Urban Street Networks," SocArXiv 4rzqa_v1, Center for Open Science.

    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. Boeing, Geoff, 2017. "Methods and Measures for Analyzing Complex Street Networks and Urban Form," SocArXiv 93h82_v1, Center for Open Science.
    2. Boeing, Geoff, 2019. "Street Network Models and Measures for Every U.S. City, County, Urbanized Area, Census Tract, and Zillow-Defined Neighborhood," SocArXiv 7fxjz, Center for Open Science.
    3. Boeing, Geoff, 2018. "Measuring the Complexity of Urban Form and Design," SocArXiv bxhrz, Center for Open Science.
    4. Rui Ding & Norsidah Ujang & Hussain Bin Hamid & Mohd Shahrudin Abd Manan & Rong Li & Safwan Subhi Mousa Albadareen & Ashkan Nochian & Jianjun Wu, 2019. "Application of Complex Networks Theory in Urban Traffic Network Researches," Networks and Spatial Economics, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 1281-1317, December.
    5. Geoff Boeing, 2020. "Planarity and street network representation in urban form analysis," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 47(5), pages 855-869, June.
    6. Boeing, Geoff, 2017. "The Relative Circuity of Walkable and Drivable Urban Street Networks," SocArXiv 4rzqa_v1, Center for Open Science.
    7. Parthasarathi, Pavithra & Levinson, David, 2018. "Network structure and the journey to work: An intra-metropolitan analysis," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 292-304.
    8. Emine Coruh & Faruk Urak & Abdulbaki Bilgic & Steven T. Yen, 2022. "The role of household demographic factors in shaping transportation spending in Turkey," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 3485-3517, March.
    9. Pavithra Parthasarathi & Hartwig Hochmair & David Levinson, 2015. "Street network structure and household activity spaces," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(6), pages 1090-1112, May.
    10. Boeing, Geoff, 2017. "The Relative Circuity of Walkable and Drivable Urban Street Networks," SocArXiv 4rzqa, Center for Open Science.
    11. Boeing, Geoff, 2017. "OSMnx: New Methods for Acquiring, Constructing, Analyzing, and Visualizing Complex Street Networks," SocArXiv q86sd, Center for Open Science.
    12. van de Coevering, Paul & Maat, Kees & van Wee, Bert, 2018. "Residential self-selection, reverse causality and residential dissonance. A latent class transition model of interactions between the built environment, travel attitudes and travel behavior," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 466-479.
    13. Boeing, Geoff, 2019. "Street Network Models and Measures for Every U.S. City, County, Urbanized Area, Census Tract, and Zillow-Defined Neighborhood," SocArXiv 7fxjz_v1, Center for Open Science.
    14. David Levinson, 2012. "Network Structure and City Size," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(1), pages 1-11, January.
    15. Boeing, Geoff, 2019. "The Morphology and Circuity of Walkable and Drivable Street Networks," SocArXiv edj2s_v1, Center for Open Science.
    16. Boeing, Geoff, 2021. "Spatial information and the legibility of urban form: Big data in urban morphology," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    17. Pavithra Parthasarathi & David Levinson & Hartwig Hochmair, 2013. "Network Structure and Travel Time Perception," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(10), pages 1-13, October.
    18. Mengying Cui & David Levinson, 2015. "Accessibility and the Ring of Unreliability," Working Papers 000133, University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group.
    19. Boeing, Geoff, 2019. "The Morphology and Circuity of Walkable and Drivable Street Networks," SocArXiv edj2s, Center for Open Science.
    20. Boeing, Geoff, 2018. "Planarity and Street Network Representation in Urban Form Analysis," SocArXiv hma8y_v1, Center for Open Science.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:osf:socarx:93h82. 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: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    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.