The spatial faws of new towns: Morphological comparison between a Chinese new and old town through the application of space syntax, spacematrix and mixed use index

Man new towns are established in China with the intention of providing desirable places to live. Nevertheless, these new towns often lack the fourishing street life, small businesses, and variety of social activities that old towns have to offer. This paper explores the spatial reasons why old towns tend to perform socio-economically better than new towns by adopting Space Syntax, Spacematrix, and Mixed Use Index (MXI) through geographical information system (GIS). These three analytical tools are frst applied separately and then combined within the GIS matrix to compare Chinese new and old towns in terms of degree of spatial network confguration, building density, and degree of land use mix. The included case study will utilize the example of Songjiang, Shanghai, which features both a distinctive old town and new town section. Songjiang Old Town features more urban areas with a high-level of spatial values from the perspective of street network confguration, building density, and land use mix as compared to its new town. These high spatial value urban areas promote a vital city centre, the type of which is absent from the new town. Meanwhile, Songjiang New Town’s problems are caused by a lack of well-integrated main roads and local streets, a low degree of interaction between buildings and streets, and low degree of land use mix as well. Certain spatial principles explaining how the neighbourhood unit is poorly designed in accordance with current planning and urban design practice are identifed in this article. Alternative spatial indicators for aggregating areas with a high degree of urbanity are proposed for avoiding these faws in future practice.

PDF

___

Bookout, L. W. (1992) Neotraditional town planning: A new vision for the suburbs, Urban Land, Vol.51, No.1: 20-26.

Brömmelströet, M. t., and E. Stolk (2007) New Town Simulation: An Introduction, in E. Stolk and M. T. Brömmelströet (eds.), Model Town: Using Urban Simulation in New Town Planning, Amsterdam: SUN Architecture, 8-15.

Congress for the New Urbanism (1996) Developing an Agenda for Action. Charleston, South Carolina.

Conzen, M.R.G. (1960) Alnwick, Northumberland: A Study in Town-Plan Analysis, Transactions and Papers (Institute of British Geographers), No.27: iii-122.

Dai, X., and W. Yu (2013) A Confgurational Exploration of Pedestrian and Cyclist Movements, in Young Ook Kim, Hoon Tae Park, Kyung Wook Seo (eds.), Proceedings of the 9th International Space Syntax Symposium, Seoul, Korea.

Den Hartog, H. (2010) Shanghai New Towns: Searching for Community and Identity in a Sprawling Metropolis, 010 Publishers, Rotterdam.

Gehl, J. (1989), “A changing street life in a changing society”, Places, Vol.6, No.1: 8-17.

Hillier, B. (1996) Space is the Machine: A Confgurational Theory of Architecture, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

Hillier, B. (1999) Centrality as a Process: Accounting for Attraction Inequalities in Deformed Grids, Urban Design International, Vol.4, No.3-4: 107- 127.

Hillier, B. (2006) The Golden Age for Cities? How We Design Cities is How We Understand Them, Urban Design 100th Issue, 16-19.

Hillier, B., and J. Hanson (1984) The Social Logic of Space, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Hillier, B., A. Penn J. Hanson, T. Grajewski, and J. Xu (1993) Natural Movement: or Confguration and Attraction in Urban Pedestrian Movement, Environment and Planning B, Vol.20, No.1: 29-66.

Jacobs, J. (1961) The Life and Death of Great American Cities, Random House, New York.

Joosten, V., and A. van Nes (2005) How Block Types Infuences the Natural Movement Economic Process: Micro-spatial Conditions on the Dispersal of Shops and Café in Berlin, in A. van Nes (ed.), Proceedings of the 5th International Space Syntax Symposium, TU Delft, Delft, The Netherlands.

Karimi, K. (2012) A Confgurational Approach to Analytical Urban Design:‘Space Syntax’ Methodology, Urban Design International, Vol.17, No.4: 297- 318.

Karimi, K., A. Rose, M. Martinez, and N. Raford (2009) New Towns of England: Understanding Failure with Space Syntax, in E. Stolk and M. T. Brömmelströet (eds.), Model Town: Using Urban Simulation in New Town Planning, SUN Architecture, Amsterdam, pp.19-43.

Katz, P., V.J. Scully, and T.W. Bressi (1994) The New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community, McGraw-Hill, New York.

Keeton, R. (2011) Rising in the East: Contemporary New Towns in Asia, SUN Architecture, Amsterdam.

Li, J., Y. Fu, J. Li, and L. Guo (2008) Some Thinking on Sustainability of Residential District Planning, Urban Planning Forum (in Chinese), Vol.1: 90-95.

Marcus, L. (2007) Spatial Capital and How to Measure It: An Outline of an Analytical Theory of the Social Performativity of Urban Form, , in A.S.

Kubat, Y. Guney, O. Ertekin and E. Eyuboglu (eds.), Proceedings of the 6th International Space Syntax Symposium, Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey.

Montgomery, J. (1998) Making a City: Urbanity, Vitality and Urban Design, Journal of Urban Design, Vol.3, No.1: 93-116.

National Bureau of Statistics (2010) National Statistics Year Book: 1978-2010, China Statistics Press, Beijing.

Rådberg, J. (1988) Doktrin och Täthet i Svenskt Stadsbyggande 1875-1975 (Doctrine or Density in Swedish City Building 1875-1975), Spångbergs Tryckeri AB, Stockholm.

Rådberg, J. (1996) Towards a Theory of Sustainability and Urban Quality: a New Method for Typolgical Urban Classifcation. Paper presented at the Evolving Environmental Ideals - Changing Way of Life, Values and Design Practices: IAPS 14 Conference Proceedings, Stockholm, Sweden.

Stanilov, K. (2010) Bridging the Gap between Urban Morphology and Urban Modelling, Urban Morphology, Vol.14, No.2: 123-124.

Sheng, Q. (2012) Distribution Logic of Local Public Space: A Spatial Confguration Analysis on the Local Shops Inside 222 Urban Blocks in the Third Ring of Beijing, Urban Planning International (in Chinese), Vol.27, No.6: 61-68.

van den Hoek, J. (2008) The MXI (Mixed-use Index) an Instrument for Antisprawl Policy?, Paper presented at the 44th ISOCARP Congress, Dalian, China.

van den Hoek, J. (2009) The Mixed Use Index (Mixed-use Index) as Planning Tool for (New) Towns in the 21st Century, in E. Stolk and M. T. Brömmelstroet (eds.), New Towns for the 21st Century: the Planned vs, the Unplanned city, SUN Architecture, Amsterdam, pp.198-207.

van Nes, A., M. Berghauser-Pont, and B. Mashhoodi ( 2012) Combination of Space Syntax with Spacematrix and The Mixed Use Index, The Rotterdam South Test Case, in M. Greene, J. Reyes and A. Castro (eds.), Proceedings of the 8th International Space Syntax Symposium, Pontifcia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile van Nes, A., and E. Stolk (2011) Degrees of Sustainable Location of Railway Stations: Integrating Space Syntax and Node Place Value Model on Railway Stations in the Province Noord-Holland’s Strategic Plan for 2010-2040, , in M. Greene, J. Reyes and A. Castro (eds.), Proceedings of the 8th International Space Syntax Symposium, Pontifcia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile.

Whitehand, J. W., and M.R.G. Conzen (1981) The Urban Landscape: Historical Development and Mangagement, Academic Press, London. Ye, Y. (2011) The Different Roles of Research in Europe and China, Research and Design Methodology for Urbanism “Best Essays 2009-2012”: Delft University Press, pp.25-35.

Ye, Y., and A. van Nes (2012) New Ways of Spatial Modelling: Making Spatial Diagnosis in Combining Space Syntax, Spacematrix and MXI with GIS of New and Old Towns, Paper presented at the New Urban Confgurations: EAAE / ISUF International Conference, Delft, The Netherlands.

Ye, Y., and A. van Nes (2013) Measuring Urban Maturation Processes in Dutch and Chinese New Towns: Combining Street Network Confguration with Building Density and Degree of Land Use Diversifcation Through GIS, Journal of Space Syntax, Vol.4, No.1: 18-37.

Ye, Y., and A. van Nes (2014) Quantitative Tools in Urban Morphology: Combining Space Syntax, Spacematrix and Mixed-use Index in a GIS Framework, Urban Morphology, Vol.18, No.2, (accepted).

Zhou, J. (2008) Searching for Good Urban Form From Utopian Cities to Chinese New Towns, in F. D. Van de Hoven (ed.), Urbanism PhD Research 2008-2012: IOS Press, pp.120-139.

Zhou, J. (2010) Urban Development and Management in Songjiang New City, in H. Den Hartog (ed.), Shanghai New Towns, Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, pp.273-290.

Zhou, J. (2012). Urban Vitality in Dutch and Chinese New Towns; A Comparative Study between Almere and Tongzhou, Ph.D. thesis, Technische Universiteit Delft.

Zhou, J., and K. Zhang (1999) “Basic Framework of Improving the Urban Residential Quarter Planning Structure”, Urban Planning Review (in Chinese), Vol.6: 63-80.

Zhu, Y. (2006) From Housing Estate to Housing Block, Ph.D. thesis in Chinese, Tianjin University