The Dynamics of Urban Morphology: The Case of Petah Tikvah

Abstract

Urban evolution is composed of two interlinked phenomena. Over time, changes occur in urban size as measured, for example, by population. The geographic space occupied by human activities and by buildings also changes over time. Those two aspects of urban evolution are linked and, as such, should be studied in tandem. In this paper we present an analysis of the process of formation of urban centers as a result of growth spurts and the structured behavior of individuals. We propose a dynamic model of the spatial self-organization of a town. The model yields descriptions of the temporal evolution of the urban population and of the space occupied by it. At the backdrop of the model is a particular conception of the behavior of land developers. The evolution of the town emerges from the juxtaposition of centripetal and centrifugal forces that represent the key elements in the developers' behavior. Through computer simulations, the model has been applied to Petah Tikvah, a small town in the Tel Aviv metropolis. The comparison between the simulations and the real town growth is very good.

Biotic analogies for self-organising cities

“…However, biological terms were more commonly used in a way not consciously invoking a biological comparison, e.g. "Cities are physical objects that display extreme variety of size and morphology" (Benguigui et al, 2001). Indeed, of the 2371 biological terms identified only 5.44%, 6.28%, and 2.91% were used as analogy, metaphor, or simile, respectively.…”

Urban Sprawl and Ecosystems — Can Nature Survive?

“…First, not all cities are necessarily fractal. Benguigui et al (2000Benguigui et al ( , 2006 analyzed the fractal dimension of the Tel Aviv metropolitan between 1935 until 2000 and revealed that not every part of the metropolis can be represented, even approximately, by a fractal. Second, and more importantly, spatial patterns at different scales of resolution appear to be similar, despite the fact that the mechanisms that govern the creation of these patterns are different.…”

“…One obvious source of disparity between urban theory and practice is the lack of data that adequately represent urban spatial dynamics. Many researchers have recognized that the use of data delimited on the basis of municipal partitions leads to severe distortions, since their boundaries often are an anachronism and do not signify any actual spatial entities (Anas et al, 1998, Benguigui et al, 2006. This problem becomes especially important when the research follows metropolitan area over time.…”

“…The rigorous geometrical analysis of the clusters, their shapes and size distributions tells an entirely different story of evolution that can then be correlated to the historical trends in the development of the study area. Unlike the studies based on socio-economic data, analysis of urban clusters, especially in time, can lead to very general hypotheses concerning the formation of urban structures, their arrangement in space and of changes in their character and distribution over time (Benguigui et al, 2006).…”

The Complex Interactions between Cities and Nature

“…In between buildings, there are back yards, private and public gardens and lots that are yet to be developed. Studies of urban clusters, defined as continuous built spaces (Benguigui, et al, 2000;2001a;2001b; carried out at a fine spatial resolution, confirm that while open spaces in cities do shrink in quantity, they persist and in the limit represent about a third of the urban land area. More importantly, their connectivity at least in some cities is robust (Czamanski, Malkinson and Toger, 2014;Toger, et al, 2015).…”