Barrientos Trinanes, Melissa Rocio; (2025) Articulating the Dislocated Structure of Peri-urban Development. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

There is a persistent sense that modern urban development lacks some of the intricate functional complexity of traditional urbanism (Marshall, 2009). Cities are complex systems in constant flux (Batty, 2009), and while new urbanisations tend to adapt and develop new elements and functionalities over time, many recent expansions do not integrate seamlessly, contrasting with the traditional city. This contrast is particularly evident in sprawled and suburban environments but can also be observed in higher-density, central locations. The approach to this contrast has typically been on density and spatial segregation issues, while potential structural discrepancies receive scant attention. This thesis introduces peri-urban dislocation as a phenomenon distinct from urban sprawl that represents a structural variation divergent from typical urban discontinuities. It results from meticulously planned expansions surrounding traditional urban areas. Dislocations are structurally different from the urban core while lacking activity centralities. The study proposes a framework to identify and characterise peri-urban dislocations, employing methods from complexity science such as percolation clustering, based on a graph representation of the street network (Arcaute et al., 2016; Cao et al., 2020; Fluschnik et al., 2016; Marin et al., 2023), and entropy to measure diversity (Marin et al., 2022; Zachary & Dobson, 2021) as a way to quantify land use centralities. Boston, Massachusetts, and Valdivia, Chile, serve as case studies, offering insights into different American expansion periods. In Boston, dislocation appears as low-density peri-urban voids resulting from parcellations inside developing and maturing suburbs. Valdivia exposes a dislocation of the entire periphery, composed of many mass-produced residential projects from the 1960s onwards. The results illustrate two forms of dislocation connected to structural changes between the modern peri-urban development and the inner city. By examining its dynamics through the lens of complexity science, the study highlights the impacts of structural variation on traditional systems, offering fresh insights into debates surrounding urban growth, sprawl, and suburbanisation.

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