Exploring measures of urban form : a GIS-enabled case study in Halifax, Nova Scotia

Abstract

It is critical to understand urban development in order to plan a healthy, affordable, and sustainable future. For researchers, planners and decision-makers, consistent and objective characterization of urban form provides an important means to monitor and evaluate urban development.

This study attempts to characterize urban physical form at the micro level and to reveal historical trends in urban development using measures of urban morphological elements (streets, lots, and buildings). Incorporated with disaggregated data, GIS sampling techniques are able to provide an effective and efficient way to supply data for measure calculations in the study area, Halifax Regional Municipality. Using a variety of statistical methods, the author finds that: (1) Values of descriptive statistics reflect the changes of urban form precisely; (2) In terms of historical trends, land use intensity tends to decline through time; buildings become larger and further apart from each other over time, and they now occupy bigger lots than ever before; and (3) The similarities of urban form across sampling districts suggest impacts of time periods of development, land use, and planning policies.

Overall, this study represents an exploratory exercise to quantitatively delineate urban development, and brings the power, speed, and precision of GIS software and detailed digital data into formal urban analysis regarding development trends.