An Exploratory Multivariate Statistical Analysis to Assess Urban Diversity

Lorena Salazar-Llano, Marti Rosas-Casals and Maria Isabel Ortego
Additional contact information
Lorena Salazar-Llano: Sustainability Measurement and Modeling Lab., Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya—Barcelona Tech, ESEIAAT, Campus Terrassa, Colom 1, 08222 Barcelona, Spain
Marti Rosas-Casals: Sustainability Measurement and Modeling Lab., Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya—Barcelona Tech, ESEIAAT, Campus Terrassa, Colom 1, 08222 Barcelona, Spain
Maria Isabel Ortego: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya—Barcelona Tech, 08034 Barcelona, Spain

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 14, 1-27

Abstract: Understanding diversity in complex urban systems is fundamental in facing current and future sustainability challenges. In this article, we apply an exploratory multivariate statistical analysis (i.e., Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Multiple Factor Analysis (MFA)) to an urban system’s abstraction of the city’s functioning. Specifically, we relate the environmental, economical, and social characters of the city in a multivariate system of indicators by collecting measurements of those variables at the district scale. Statistical methods are applied to reduce the dimensionality of the multivariate dataset, such that, hidden relationships between the districts of the city are exposed. The methodology has been mainly designed to display diversity, being understood as differentiated attributes of the districts in their dimensionally-reduced description, and to measure it with Euclidean distances. Differentiated characters and distinctive functions of districts are identifiable in the exploratory analysis of a case study of Barcelona (Spain). The distances allow for the identification of clustered districts, as well as those that are separated, exemplifying dissimilarity. Moreover, the temporal dependency of the dataset reveals information about the district’s differentiation or homogenization trends between 2003 and 2015.

Keywords: urban diversity; urban resilience; urban sustainability; sustainability indicators; Principal Component Analysis (PCA); Multiple Factor Analysis (MFA); biplot; Barcelona (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/14/3812/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/14/3812/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:14:p:3812-:d:247621

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().