Forster, A; (2007) Scaled definition of suburban centrality absorption as a measure of centrality. Doctoral thesis , UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This thesis explores to what extent is it accurate to describe Greater London's suburban town centres as multi-scaled environments and what does this mean in terms of the kind of social entity a suburb is. It revises the socio-spatial phenomenon of 'scaled centralities' within larger entities of a city through the study of twenty suburban town centres in the city of London. Three main ideas are tested: 1) that suburban centrality is not a static condition, but rather a process with dynamic stages and states, 2) that the hierarchy of the suburban elements within the cases is related to these stages, and 3) that the distribution of town centre activity is also related to the scalar process of suburban centrality. The relationship between spatial morphology and socio-economic functioning is explored. On the one hand town centres have changed in size over time, but they also have shifted their activities and diversity. On the other hand, London has been described as a city of absorbed villages. This study suggests that the degree of absorption of each case within the whole of London has to due with socio economic differences and hierarchies. The notion of scale is explored establishing linkages between morphological patterns and socio-economic functioning. How different scales of movement can shape socio-economic functioning, and whether there is any morphological and configurational explanation of socio-economic suburban town centre's differences are also considered. This study answer some of these questions using various of the space syntax tools. A taxonomy of these elusive cases is attempted: two different categorisations are proposed as patterns of spatio-functional relations. Three morphological types are identified (concentrated, linear and expanded), and three models extracted from movement potential (local-global, balanced, and global-local) that act as descriptions of stages within the process of suburban centrality. Morphologically, the scaled definition of centrality is a function of the degree of absorption of each town centre into the whole of the spatial system. Configurationally, balanced cases that overlay different scales of movement, correspond to town centre diversity, referred in this thesis as a signalling of suburban buzz.

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