Citation

Louf R, Barthélemy M. J. R. Soc. Interface 2014; 11(101): e924.

Affiliation

Institut de Physique Théorique, CEA, CNRS-URA 2306, Gif-sur-Yvette 91191, France Centre d'Analyse et de Mathématique Sociales, (CNRS/EHESS) 190-198, Avenue de France, 75244 Paris Cedex 13, France marc.barthelemy@cea.fr.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Royal Society)

DOI

10.1098/rsif.2014.0924

PMID

25297318

Abstract

We propose a quantitative method to classify cities according to their street pattern. We use the conditional probability distribution of shape factor of blocks with a given area and define what could constitute the 'fingerprint' of a city. Using a simple hierarchical clustering method, these fingerprints can then serve as a basis for a typology of cities. We apply this method to a set of 131 cities in the world, and at an intermediate level of the dendrogram, we observe four large families of cities characterized by different abundances of blocks of a certain area and shape. At a lower level of the classification, we find that most European cities and American cities in our sample fall in their own sub-category, highlighting quantitatively the differences between the typical layouts of cities in both regions. We also show with the example of New York and its different boroughs, that the fingerprint of a city can be seen as the sum of the ones characterizing the different neighbourhoods inside a city. This method provides a quantitative comparison of urban street patterns, which could be helpful for a better understanding of the causes and mechanisms behind their distinct shapes.

Language: en