Carvalho, Rui and Penn, Alan (2004) Scaling and universality in the micro-structure of urban space. Physica A , 32 pp. 539-547.
![[img]](/style/images/fileicons/application_pdf.png)
| PDF - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader 677Kb |
Abstract
We present a broad, phenomenological picture of the distribution of the length of open space linear segments, l, derived from maps of 36 cities in 14 different countries. By scaling the Zipf plot of l, we obtain two master curves for a sample of cities, which are not a function of city size. We show that a third class of cities is not easily classifiable into these two universality classes. The cumulative distribution of l displays power-law tails with two distinct exponents, αB = 2 and αR = 3. We suggest a link between our data and the possibility of observing and modeling urban geometric structures using Lévy processes.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Scaling and universality in the micro-structure of urban space |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Publisher version: | http://www.elsevier.com/locate/physa |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. |
| Keywords: | Fractals; Urban planning; Scaling laws; Universality |
| UCL classification: | UCL > School of BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > Bartlett School > Bartlett School of Graduate Studies |
View download statistics for this itemArchive Staff Only: edit this record