Characterising the Morphology of Suburban Settlements: A Method Based on a Semi-automatic Classification of Building Clusters

Abstract

Urban sprawl is transforming our landscapes and rural areas at a spectacular pace.Measuring the strength of the phenomenon and proposing dynamic ways to delineate suburban areas have been the object of much debate amongst scientists. The present article takes the view that, beyond measuring and delineating suburban areas, more efforts should be directed to qualifying the morphology of built settlements within these areas. Therefore it proposes a method based on a semi--automatic classification system of building clusters, designed to describe and interpret the phenomenon from a morphological perspective. This method is based on a combination of field surveys with numerical analyses of digital land cadastre maps. The application of this classification system to the suburban area around Liege reveals that, far from developing in a complete indifference of local conditions, contemporary suburban settlements are influenced by landscape structures inherited from the past.

A Comparative Analysis of Drivers Impacting Urban Densification for Cross Regional Scenarios in Brussels Metropolitan Area

“…Urban development in Brussels and Flanders exhibits a relatively dispersed urbanization pattern that is the result of a pre-industrial settlement pattern. In this situation, densification methods are especially decisive to prevent future land consumption and to better systematize already existing peri-urban regions according to their unique characteristics [59].…”

“…Belgium (Figure 1) has a mixed landscape of dense urban cores such as the Brussels Capital Region and cities like Antwerp (508,000 inhabitants), Ghent (249,000 inhabitants), Charleroi (204,000 inhabitants) and Liège (196,000 inhabitants), whereas Wallonia and the north of Flanders have strong rural landscape structures with fragmented urban growth. As stated by De Smet and Teller [59], in this situation, densification methods are crucial to limiting further land consumption and improving the structure of existing peri-urban areas while taking into account their unique characteristics.…”

Changes in the Patterns of Population Distribution and Built-Up Areas of the Rural–Urban Fringe in Post-Socialist Context—A Central European Case Study

“…Grid network is appropriate to transform different spatial datasets into a common territorial structure with aggregation or disaggregation [77][78][79][80][81]. In order to create a comprehensive and common basis for the calculations, the point layers were aggregated into the 100 × 100 m grid network which contained the population data; however, in the case of the objects, the whole administrative area was converted into grid cells.…”

Measuring the morphology of suburban settlements: Scale-dependent ambiguities of residential density development in the Prague Urban Region

“…Sudhira, Ramachandra and Jagadish, 2004;Jiang et al, 2007;Jat, Garg and Khare, 2008;Yue, Liu and Fan, 2013;Al Mashagbah, 2016), where it is extremely relevant for fast-growing cities. In Europe, we can mention the more current work of Hennig et al (2015), Oueslati, Alvanides and Garrod (2015) or de Smet and Teller (2016). The relevance of the topic in the European context is underlined by the interest of the European Environment Agency (EEA) because urban sprawl is a "major threat to sustainable land use" (EEA, 2016, p. 16).…”