Urban Form, Growth, and Accessibility in Space and Time: Anatomy of Land Use at the Parcel-Level in a Small to Medium-Sized American City

Long Zhou, Guoqiang Shen, Yao Wu, Robert Brown, Tian Chen and Chenyu Wang
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Long Zhou: Faculty of Urban Management and Studies, City University of Macau, Macau 999078, China
Guoqiang Shen: Faculty of Urban Management and Studies, City University of Macau, Macau 999078, China
Yao Wu: Faculty of Urban Management and Studies, City University of Macau, Macau 999078, China
Robert Brown: Faculty of Urban Management and Studies, City University of Macau, Macau 999078, China
Tian Chen: College of Architecture, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
Chenyu Wang: Faculty of Urban Management and Studies, City University of Macau, Macau 999078, China

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 12, 1-24

Abstract: Using the City of Corvallis, Oregon, a small to medium sized American city, as a test-bed, this paper examines the City’s urban growth in relation to urban accessibility. This relationship is explored in an anatomic spatial-temporal fashion, taking account of: the number and size of developed land use parcels over time; urban accessibility from residential to non-residential land use areas; and the statistical relationships between urban form and urban accessibility. This investigation of land use is structured around use-classification and examined within a range of dimensional and demographic measurements over 5-year time periods from 1853 to 2014; concurrently, urban accessibility is measured by the least-cost path distance as calculated through the OD cost matrix analysis in GIS. The results indicate that the city grew spatially at different rates and its urban accessibility experienced both ups and downs over time. The city’s population growth corresponded closely with urban growth and its decreasing population density negatively impacted on the city’s urban accessibility to commerce, industry, and office for most time periods. Significantly, while the urban density increased steadily after 1950s concurrent with an increase in urban sprawl, in contrast to previous studies on the metropolitan condition, the urban density had no evident impact on urban accessibility in Corvallis. Instead, increasing the land-use mix was a more effective and feasible approach to reduce urban travel path distance and enhance accessibility than increasing population density or urban development density. Accordingly, this research provides evidence-based policy recommendations for planning sustainable urban mobility and urban form in small to medium-sized cities.

Keywords: urban form; urban growth; accessibility; land use and parcel; space and time; scatterplot matrix and correlation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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