The spatial dimensions of trade: From the geography of uses to the architecture of local economies

This paper investigates the relationship between urban space and urban economy focusing on the way centralities emerge across scales. A method is presented that combines space syntax theories and an economic model of trade-off that refers to the relation between rent and access. With the argument that economies take place in differences of space, accessibility, therefore, becomes an important matter of scale in order to understand how economic actions are materialised in urban space and how space affects socio-economic interactions at the local design scale of the city. Properties of this relationship are investigated through rent values of different real estate property markets in the city of Cardiff, UK. The method identifes the spatial distribution of activities across scales. Firstly, it is shown that trade-off modelling in the street confguration can be devised as a pattern of use mix profles in the city. Secondly, that trading between cost and access is a local process that can take place in different locations in the city that potentially function as sub-centres. Thirdly, rent and access also encourages people to re-adapt urban spaces for economic benefts, generating the reconversion of uses contained in the same real estate, the commercial-residential building. Finally, the implications of combining space syntax techniques with urban economic models are discussed. It is concluded that while spatial confgurations create possibilities for economic activity, this should also be viewed as the reverse approach of how urban economics requires proximity in distance to be produced –a relationship that has not yet been approached in space syntax research.

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