Parameterizing land use planning : deploying quantitative analysis methods in the practice of city planning

Abstract

Planning a city is a complex task. In particular, the practice of land use planning, which determines the quantities and locations of land uses we find in a city, is a highly complex process. Planners, developers and citizens involved in this process need to consider the multiple components of the urban system which are intertwined and connected in a complex network, and cannot be studied independently. While cities were extensively studied as complex adaptive systems over the last 50 years, showing universal patterns across countries, cultures and times, the practice of land use planning hasn't advanced as much and still deploys the rigid, macro-scale and local tool of zoning. This thesis will present a LEGO game planning methodology for urban land use that harnesses our understanding of cities as interconnected networks to enable a fine-grained, modular, incremental and universal development tool. Using a dataset summarizing the fine-grained location of commercial and public land uses in the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S., this research will construct a catalog of urban models exploring similar patterns and their deviations across American cities. Utilizing the emerging patterns, this thesis will outline a methodology to produce quantitative planning guidelines in two main aspects: First, a method to assess land use quantities to support population levels will be demonstrated by implementing the scaling relationships found in cities from the Bettencourt et al research (2007). Next, a method to evaluate the spatial organization of cities will be presented by calculating co-location pairwise distances between amenities within city centers. The research will show that some co-location patterns are similar across cities, independent from land use quantities and urban density while others fluctuates between cities and depend on local characteristics. The LEGO game methodology will demonstrate an evolutionary iterative process to evaluate the liveliness of each urban environment, and explore the infinite possible assembly options of urban building blocks from various types and quantities, to enable a genuine datadriven decision making process for land use planning.