Containment and connectivity in Dutch urban systems: A network-analytical operationalization of the three-systems model.

Abstract

This paper discusses central methodological issues with nodalizing interaction data of urban networks to produce a state-of-the-art settlement geography of the Netherlands. We operationalize the three-systems model that understands functional settlement geographies through the interaction between the daily urban system, the central place system and the export base system. We utilize theoretically-informed selections of spatial interactions derived from travel survey data at the finely-grained postcode level. After examining the methodological challenge of the node-inclusivity dilemma, we estimate the causal mechanisms that geographically structure each system and determine which spatial interactions should be assigned to nodes (containment) and edges (connectivity). The three systems produce different regionalizations that are neither mutually exclusive nor perfectly nested. Further analysis of the multiplexity of the three systems reveals the importance of the imbricated boundaries between the urban subsystems. We argue that these interplaces deserve more attention as they are particularly sensitive to changes in urbanization trends.

Assessing polycentric urban development in Shanghai, China, with detailed passive mobile phone data

“…We identified two types of subcenter: the employment subcenter and the self-sufficient subcenter. Ducruet and Beauguitte (2014) and Poorthuis and Van Meeteren (2019) emphasized that each node may take up a different position in each layer or level of the network. Human daily activities occurred at multi-scalar; therefore, it would help to understand how multi-level urban systems are neatly nested.…”

Moving the 15-minute city beyond the urban core: The role of accessibility and public transport in the Netherlands

“…This results in residential neighborhoods that serve few other purposes than housing and require long travel times for residents to satisfy their daily needs. In other words, people's daily urban systems (Poorthuis & van Meeteren, 2021) have expanded both in space and (travel) time over the last decades.…”

“…After all, these in-between or interplaces (Phelps, 2017) are far from irrelevant. Rather they are an important part of the connecting tissue that weaves economic agglomerations together into national polities and global networks (Poorthuis & van Meeteren, 2021). If we continue to overlook these areas in our policy and research around the 15-minute city, we risk ignoring the reality of human settlement, and thus lessening the potential of accessibility policy to contribute to spatial justice.…”

Network Analysis of ‘Urban Systems’: Potential, Challenges, and Pitfalls

“…(2018) apply a network community detection method to Belgian commuting data: a commuter living in Ghent and working in Brussels is operationalised as a Ghent‐Brussels connection. The community detection algorithm isolates coherently interconnected settlements, and allows revealing the geographical structure of the Belgian urban system (see also Nelson & Rae 2016; Poorthuis & van Meeteren 2019). As diverse as both examples are in terms of methods, datasets, scalar focus and research questions, they share one crucial vantage point: they marshal a network abstraction of the urban system so that cities are nodes and their interactions are edges; they then analyse this abstraction with graph‐theoretical methods; and use results to make broader statements about cities, inter‐city interactions, and the urban system as a whole.…”