Optimal Intra-Urban Hierarchy of Activity Centers—A Minimized Household Travel Energy Consumption Approach

Jie Zhang and Yang Xie
Additional contact information
Jie Zhang: Department of Urban Planning, Tsinghua University, Haidian District, Beijing100084, China
Yang Xie: Department of Urban Planning, Tsinghua University, Haidian District, Beijing100084, China

Sustainability, 2015, vol. 7, issue 9, 1-19

Abstract: An intra-urban hierarchy of activity centers interconnected by non-motorized and public transportation is broadly believed to be the ideal urban spatial structure for sustainable cities. However, the proper hinterland area for centers at each level lacks empirical study. Based on the concentric structure of everyday travel distances, working centers, shopping centers, and neighborhood centers are extracted from corresponding types of POIs in 286 Chinese cities at the prefectural level and above. A U-shaped curve between Household Transportation Energy Consumption (HTEC) per capita and center density at each of the three levels has been found through regression analysis. An optimal intra-urban hierarchy of activity centers is suggested to construct energy-efficient cities.

Keywords: intra-urban hierarchy of activity centers; household travel energy consumption; center density; U-shaped curve (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/9/11838/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/9/11838/ (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:7:y:2015:i:9:p:11838-11856:d:54772

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 ().