urban form metrics for small to medium sized cities
These toolsets were made to accompany Quantifying the sustainability of urban growth and form through time: An algorithmic analysis of a city's development
Here are four toolsets in the form of ArcGIS toolboxes and accompanying python scripts.
Roads layer, City or Area of Interest Layer
Judges the mean intersection density
This tool measures the intersection density across a city or pre-defined area using a 440 meter default. Outputs a point density raster.
Raster of city connectivity and connectivity statistics.
Building footprint, city center/CBD
Clustering of houses toward one another is calculated using nearest neighbor algorithm. While standard distance calculation is used to measure distance from the CBD.
This tool measures the average nearest neighbor (observed is the important for further comparative analysis) and standard distance.
Observed mean nearest neighbor and standard distance.
Enumeration Boundaries, Population Statistics
Calculates various household and population densities.
This tool takes a file of enumeration boundaries and user input for household and population (which can be derived from the census) and calculates densities therefrom.
Population Density, Persons per household
City Limits
Calculates actual versus optimal perimeter to area ratio for the city and calculates the convex hull ratio to actual city.
The ideal to actual ratio shows how close the geometry of the city is to that of a circle, the most efficient form. The convex hull to built extent ratio also is a measure of compactness.
IdealActual field gives the ratio of the ideal perimeter to area versus actual for the area of study, whereas, the field BaChRatio is the built area to convex hull ratio needed for further study