SearcharxivSearch

arXiv subjects

Jiejing Wang

Publications and source records attributed to Jiejing Wang.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

Defining Urban Boundaries by Characteristic Scales

Defining an objective boundary for a city is a difficult problem, which remains to be solved by an effective method. Recent years, new methods for identifying urban boundary have been developed by means of spatial search techniques (e.g. CCA). However, the new algorithms are involved with another problem, that is, how to determine the characteristic radius of spatial search. This paper proposes new approaches to looking for the most advisable spatial searching radius for determining urban boundary. We found that the relationships between the spatial searching radius and the corresponding number of clusters take on an exponential function. In the exponential model, the scale parameter just represents the characteristic length that we can use to define the most objective urban boundary objectively. Two sets of China's cities are employed to test this method, and the results lend support to the judgment that the characteristic parameter can well serve for the spatial searching radius. The research may be revealing for making urban spatial analysis in methodology and implementing identification of urban boundaries in practice.

physics.soc-ph

Understanding Fractal Dimension of Urban Form through Spatial Entropy

Spatial patterns and processes of cities can be described with various entropy functions. However, spatial entropy always depends on the scale of measurement, and it is difficult to find a characteristic value for it. In contrast, fractal parameters can be employed to characterize scale-free phenomena. This paper is devoted to exploring the similarities and differences between spatial entropy and fractal dimension in urban description. Drawing an analogy between cities and growing fractals, we illustrate the definitions of fractal dimension based on different entropy concepts. Three representative fractal dimensions in the multifractal dimension set are utilized to make empirical analyses of urban form of two cities. The results show that the entropy values are not determinate, but the fractal dimension value is certain; if the linear size of boxes is small enough (e.g., <1/25), the linear correlation between entropy and fractal dimension is clear. Further empirical analysis indicates that fractal dimension is close to the characteristic values of spatial entropy. This suggests that the physical meaning of fractal dimension can be interpreted by the ideas from entropy and scales and the conclusion is revealing for future spatial analysis of cities. Key words: fractal dimension; entropy; mutlifractals; scaling; urban form; Chinese cities

physics.soc-ph

Describing urban evolution with the fractal parameters based on area-perimeter allometry

The area-perimeter allometric scaling is a basic and important approach for researching fractal cities and has been studied for a long time. However, the boundary dimension of a city is always numerically overestimated by the traditional formula. An adjusting formula has been derived to revise the overestimated boundary dimension and estimate the form dimension, but the association between the global and local fractal parameters is not clear. This paper is devoted to describing the urban evolution by using the improved fractal parameters based on the area-perimeter measure relation. A system of 68 cities and towns in Yangtze River Delta, China, is taken as an example to make a case study. A discovery is that the average values of the local fractal parameters are approximately equal to the corresponding global fractal parameters of cities. This suggests that the local parameters are the decomposition of the global parameters. The novelty of this empirical study is as follows: first, the form dimension and boundary dimension are integrated to characterize the urban structure and texture; second, the global and local parameters are combined to characterize an urban system and individual cities. By illustrating how to carry out the area-perimeter scaling analysis in the case of remote sensing images with low resolution, this work suggests a possible new approach to researching fractal systems of cities.

physics.soc-ph

Recursive Subdivision of Urban Space and Zipf's law

Zipf's law can be used to describe the rank-size distribution of cities in a region. It was seldom employed to research urban internal structure. In this paper, we demonstrate that the space-filling process within a city follows Zipf's law and can be characterized with the rank-size rule. A model of spatial disaggregation of urban space is presented to depict the spatial regularity of urban growth. By recursive subdivision of space, an urban region can be geometrically divided into two parts, four parts, eight parts, and so on, and form a hierarchy with cascade structure. If we rank these parts by size, the portions will conform to the Zipf distribution. By means of GIS technique and remote sensing data, the model of recursive subdivision of urban space is applied to three cities of China. The results show that the intra-urban hierarchy complies with Zipf's law, and the values of the rank-size scaling exponent are very close to 1. The significance of this study lies in three aspects. First, it shows that the strict subdivision of space is an efficient approach to revealing spatial order of urban form. Second, it discloses the relationships between urban space-filling process and the rank-size rule. Third, it suggests a new way of understanding fractals, Zipf's law, and spatial organization of urban evolution.

physics.soc-ph