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Urban Analytics and

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Measuring urban form: ! The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/2399808320910444
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quantitative and
comprehensive morphologic
analysis of cities

Martin Fleischmann , Ombretta Romice and


Sergio Porta
University of Strathclyde, UK

Abstract
Unprecedented urbanisation processes characterise the Great Acceleration, urging urban
researchers to make sense of data analysis in support of evidence-based and large-scale deci-
sion-making. Urban morphologists are no exception since the impact of urban form on funda-
mental natural and social patterns (equity, prosperity and resource consumption’s efficiency) is
now fully acknowledged. However, urban morphology is still far from offering a comprehensive
and reliable framework for quantitative analysis. Despite remarkable progress since its emergence
in the late 1950s, the discipline still exhibits significant terminological inconsistencies with regards
to the definition of the fundamental components of urban form, which prevents the establishment
of objective models for measuring it. In this article, we present a study of existing methods for
measuring urban form, with a focus on terminological inconsistencies, and propose a systematic
and comprehensive framework to classify urban form characters, where ‘urban form character’
stands for a characteristic (or feature) of one kind of urban form that distinguishes it from another kind.
In particular, we introduce the Index of Elements that allows for a univocal and non-interpretive
description of urban form characters. Based on such Index of Elements, we develop a systematic
classification of urban form according to six categories (dimension, shape, spatial distribution,
intensity, connectivity and diversity) and three conceptual scales (small, medium, large) based on
two definitions of scale (extent and grain). This framework is then applied to identify and organise
the urban form characters adopted in available literature to date. The resulting classification of
urban form characters reveals clear gaps in existing research, in particular, in relation to the
spatial distribution and diversity characters. The proposed framework reduces the current

Corresponding author:
Martin Fleischmann, University of Strathclyde, Room JW.605, Level 6, James Weir Building, 75 Montrose Street, Glasgow
G1 1XJ, UK.
Email: martin.fleischmann@strath.ac.uk
2 EPB: Urban Analytics and City Science 0(0)

inconsistencies of urban morphology research, paving the way to enhanced methods of urban
form systematic and quantitative analysis at a global scale.

Keywords
Terminology, classification, urban morphometrics, urban morphology

Introduction
In the age of urbanisation, urban planning and design still struggle to offer reliable models
to address the challenges of the 21st century (Cuthbert, 2007; Romice et al., 2020), while the
discipline’s shift towards an evidence-based approach and a ‘new science of cities’ is still in
its infancy (Batty, 2012: S15). Despite remarkable growth and progress, urban morpholo-
gy—the area of urban studies that focuses on cities’ physical form, its patterns of change in
time and relations with non-spatial dynamics—is no exception. In particular, two issues still
hinder a quantitative approach to the analysis of urban form: first, the availability, quality
and consistency of data across geographical regions; second, the discipline’s inherent diffi-
culties to offer a rigorous and consistent definition of urban form, its fundamental compo-
nents and the relationships between them. This paper offers a contribution towards the
resolution of this second problem.
The high variety of measurable urban form characters, defined as a characteristic (or
feature) of one kind of urban form that distinguishes it from another kind (adapted from
Dibble et al., 2017 and Sneath and Sokal, 1973), used in urban morphology literature is
fragmented across numerous unrelated sources, and despite several attempts to systematise
it (Caniggia and Maffei, 2001; Conzen, 2004; Dibble et al., 2017; Larkham and Jones, 1991),
a comprehensive overview is still lacking. This gap of knowledge creates uncertainty as to
which research areas are covered and which need further research. Moreover, terminology is
neither consistent nor univocal, resulting in weaker methodological compatibility and higher
hurdles in comparing research outputs. According to Whitehand (2012),

comparative research is faced with a plethora of case studies that use different, or sometimes
unspecified, definitions. [. . .] In addition to problems of non-comparability of definitions,
methods and concepts, differences between the sources of information employed need to be
overcome. (p.60)

In this paper, we (1) propose a coherent and comprehensive classification system of mea-
surable urban form characters and (2) use this system to resolve current inconsistencies and
redundancies and identify areas of weakness in existing literature. This work is meant to be
preparatory to the future exploration of how to measure urban form in a way that is com-
prehensive, systematic and replicable.

Research method
In this section, we present (1) the criteria utilised to select relevant literature used to map the
field of urban morphology; (2) the process of systematisation of such literature, which we
then use to (3) identify, cross-compare, (re)define and (4) re-classify urban form characters.
Fleischmann et al. 3

As for our own terminology, terms such as ‘attribute’, ‘variable’, ‘measurement’, ‘metric’,
‘index’, ‘character’, ‘indicator’ or ‘proxy’ are often used interchangeably in urban morphology
to signify the measurable feature of an object (Araldi and Fusco, 2019; Bobkova et al., 2017;
Dibble et al., 2017; Schirmer and Axhausen, 2015; Vanderhaegen and Canters, 2017) . In this
paper we follow Dibble et al. (2017) where the term ‘character’ defines ‘a characteristic (or
feature) of one kind of organism that will distinguish it from another kind’ (Sneath and Sokal,
1973). Here, however, ‘organism’ refers to a distinct kind or type of urban form. ‘Urban form’
as a term has been used to loosely signify different aspects of space’s configuration in cities
along with its use and agents, and is therefore a polysemic term, while in this work we refer
exclusively to the physical components of urban space, i.e. the built-up fabric (blocks, streets,
buildings, etc.) and its fundamental spatial subdivision (plots) after Moudon (1997).
To review the literature (Figure 1), we selected sources that (1) explicitly undertake a
quantitative examination of urban form characters1; (2) include urban form characters that
are not present in already selected sources, to avoid unnecessary duplication and overlapping.
First, we looked at papers published in two leading journals of urban analytics and
morphology: Environment and Planning B and Urban Morphology. From here, we extracted
keywords, which we then used to identify a number of academic citation databases (Google
Scholar, Scopus, Mendeley Search, ResearchGate, Taylor and Francis Online) and then
undertook a wider snowballing exploration. The process of keyword search and snowballing
was iterated whenever new inputs were found and adopted to ensure that the selection is
rigorous and inclusive.
All selected papers were then classified according to: (1) grain, i.e. the scale (size) of the
basic spatial unit on which descriptors are calculated; (2) extent, i.e. the scale (coverage) of
the case study; (3) purpose; (4) potential comprehensiveness, i.e. the number of urban form
characters measured; (5) timeframe, whether synchronic (comparing different cases at the
same time) or diachronic (comparing the same case at different times).
For grain, we considered the basic spatial unit as the smallest element being measured,
while for extent, we considered coverage as the total area of the case study analysed.
Both are taken into account and then organised from 1 (small) to 10 (large).2
We then extracted individual urban form characters from the sources classified as above.
Those influenced by non-morphological data, such as distance to the nearest bus stop (Song
and Knaap, 2007) or land use (Dibble et al., 2017), were excluded.

1) literature search 2) assessing according to selection criteria 3) building of databases

1) journals archives search


Environment and Planning B criterion 1 database of literature
Urban Morphology quantitative examination of urban form

2) citation database search


if C1 is fulfilled
Google Scholar
Scopus if C2 is fulfilled
Mendeley Search criterion 2 database of characters
Researchgate
original characters
Taylor and Francis Online

3) snowballing

Figure 1. Scheme of the process of selection of literature and its usage.


4 EPB: Urban Analytics and City Science 0(0)

To overcome terminological inconsistencies among the urban form characters adopted in


different studies,3 we comprehensively redefined them (see ‘Classification of urban form char-
acters’ section). On these new definitions, we then designed a classification framework of such
characters, based on their nature and the spatial unit they belong to. Finally, we tested such
framework in the classification of all urban form characters initially extracted from literature,
discussed the emerging gaps and redundancies and suggested further developments.

Literature review
While the existing literature on urban morphology shows a historical inclination towards
qualitative methods (Dibble et al., 2015), through the iterative literature review process
illustrated above, we identified 72 predominantly quantitative works (peer-reviewed articles,
conference papers, book chapters, PhD theses). In Figure 2, selected literature items are
positioned according to their grain and extent scales, and classified by their purpose (colour),
and number of urban form characters considered (size).

Patterns of research
Quantitative analysis in urban morphology appears to have three distinct research purposes
in particular: to enable comparison among cases, to measure the performance of urban form
and to monitor or predict urban growth. Comparison is the largest group containing 45 out
of the 72 selected works (62%), and is significantly synchronic (95%). It includes studies
which cover a range of urban form characters from only one (Agryzcov et al., 2018; Ariza-
Villaverde et al., 2013; Batty and Longley, 1987; Frankhauser, 2004; Thomas et al., 2010) to
many (Dibble et al., 2015, 2017); however, those covering more than 10 urban form char-
acters are only the 33%, and those with more than 25 the 15%, demonstrating a lack of
comprehensiveness in literature.In terms of scales, comparative studies tend to be lower in
grain scale (more detailed) and higher in extent scale (larger case studies).
Papers measuring performance refer in particular to one specific aspect of urban form, such
as sustainability (Bourdic et al., 2012; Haggag and Ayad, 2002), resilience (Feliciotti et al., 2016),
urbanity (Oliveira, 2013) or network-based accessibility (Krizek, 2003; Sevtsuk et al., 2016).
Similar to the comparison group, the majority of works in this second group is synchronic.
However, unlike comparative studies, they tend to use similar scales for both grain and extent.
Not surprisingly, studies on urban growth are mostly diachronic. Many publications in
this group focus on the analysis of urban sprawl (Galster et al., 2001; Song and Knaap,
2004) to capture sprawl indices (Gielen et al., 2017); here data are often aggregated and
classified in a built–unbuilt binary framework (Galster et al., 2001; Seto and Fragkias,
2005), enriched by Cellular Automaton (Batty, 1997; Kong and Sui, 2016) or machine
learning (Cheng, 2011) techniques. As growth is measured mostly at metropolitan scale,
with a few exceptions (Hallowell and Baran, 2013), all works focus on large scale of extent,
while mostly using the same scale of grain.
Crucial for the success of a comparative method is complexity. This is represented by
both the cross-scale extent of the research, as reflected for example in the work of Song and
Knaap (2007), later refined by Song et al. (2013) or Schirmer and Axhausen (2015),4 and the
number of urban form characters measured (potential comprehensiveness). Still, over the
whole set of 72 literature items selected, those measuring a number of urban form characters
large enough to minimise biases and errors (i.e. >25 urban form characters) is relatively rare
(15%). Only recently, a few such comprehensive studies started to emerge (Bourdic et al.,
2012; Dibble et al., 2017; Ewing et al., 2006; Oliveira, 2013; Schirmer and Axhausen, 2015),
Fleischmann et al. 5

purpose
comparison
growth patterns
11

performance
identity

number of characters
0
80
160
240
grain

extent

26

Figure 2. Classification of literature. Predominantly quantitative studies in urban morphology classified


according to grain scale (Y axis), extent scale (X axis), purpose (colour) and number of urban form
characters (size). The histograms show a relative balance in terms of scale of grain and a tendency towards
large scales of extent. Note: placement of points is jittered to minimise overlaps.

contributing to the growing area of urban morphometrics (Carneiro et al., 2010; Dibble et al.,
2017; Feliciotti et al., 2017). However, the sheer number of urban form characters scruti-
nised (comprehensiveness) does not necessarily ensure complexity, as many of them may be
collinear and hence capture the same information.

Classification of urban form characters


The review of the 72 quantitative studies illustrated above produced a list of 465 individual
measurable urban form characters: of these, many were duplicated or hidden under the same
6 EPB: Urban Analytics and City Science 0(0)

name (‘nicknaming’), suggesting the persistence of significant nicknaming even in the quan-
titative area of urban morphology analysis. For example, the term ‘connectivity’ is in some
cases used to signify a broader group of urban form characters (usually related to network
analysis) (Dibble et al., 2017), while in other cases is attributed to one single one of them,
and yet with different meanings (Hillier, 1996; Lowry and Lowry, 2014); in some instances
the term is used in both ways in the same study (Bourdic et al., 2012).
Hence, we undertook a process of ‘character redefinition’, and introduced the ‘Index of
Element’ aimed at achieving a higher degree of consistency between the name of urban form
characters and their substance. This index essentially defines each urban form character
according to the measure that it calculates (the Index) and the element of urban form that
it measures (the Element). If we consider the ‘connectivity’ of the pedestrian grid in Bourdic
et al. (2012) for example, we can easily distinguish the measure being calculated (Index),
which is a weighted number of intersections, and the ‘thing’ the urban form character of
which is calculated (Element), which is the pedestrian network. This brings us to redefine the
measure as ‘Weighted Number of Intersections of Pedestrian Network’, leaving much nar-
rower room for interpretation. The use of a rigorous terminological criterium such as the
Index of Elements is, even in quantitative urban morphology analysis, still occasional,
though not absent (Schirmer and Axhausen, 2015). The Index of Element helps achieve
an understandable definition of urban form characters by their same name: the Index part of
the name captures the nature of the measure, independently from what is measured, while
the Element part of the name captures the nature of what is measured, independently from
how it is measured. Urban form characters defined by the combination of the two become
consistently understandable and comparable across different methods. Application of this
method on 465 identified urban form characters led to the elimination of 104 cases of
duplication (22.4%), leaving 361 uniquely defined ones (Table 1).
Having tackled the terminology issue, we developed a typology of urban form characters
directly based on their name (which now captures their definition). This is a ‘concept-based
classification’, i.e. one ‘which conceptually separates a given set of items multidimensional-
ly . . . the key characteristic of a typology is that its dimensions represent concepts rather than

Table 1. Examples of Index of Element conversions.

Name based on Dichotomy

Original name Index Element Reference

Urban Form Continuity Built-up area Gielen et al. (2017)


Connectivity of the Weighted Number Pedestrian network Bourdic et al. (2012)
pedestrian grid of Intersections
Redundancy index Redundancy Street network Feliciotti (2018)
Block section Longest diagonal of/between Block Feliciotti (2018)
Building size – Area Building Hallowell and
Footprint Baran (2013)
Built-up area Built-up area Block Gil (2014)
Distance Distance Buildings Hijazi et al. (2016)
Angle Angle Buildings Hijazi et al. (2016)
Note:
In some cases, urban form character’s redefinitions bring in crucial information about the urban form character, in others
only minor change. However, adding Element into the urban form character’s name helps developing quantitative urban
morphology by making it more intelligible, and hence comparable.
Fleischmann et al. 7

empirical cases’ (Smith, 2002: 381). In this sense, by examining the urban form characters’
names we classify them along three dimensions: (1) the nature of the Index, (2) the scale of
the grain of the character and (3) the scale of the Element’s extent.
While most authors classify their observed urban form characters in groups, which are
usually case-specific, these classifications vary. Generally, we can identify two approaches:
one refers to the urban form character’s scale, as for example the sequence Object,
Composition, Neighbourhood, District, Municipality and Region in Schirmer and Axhausen
(2015); the second refers to the Element’s nature, as for example in Song, Popkin and
Gordon-Larsen’s (2013) Permeability, Vitality, Variety, or equally in Bourdic et al.’s
(2012) Intensity, Distribution, Proximity, Connectivity, Complexity, Diversity, Form.We pro-
pose that the first step in the classification of urban form characters follows the nature of the
measure itself, which is captured in the Index part of its Name. On this ground, we build on
Bourdic et al.’s (2012) classification, adapting it to reflect the needs of a general analysis of
urban form.5
Hence, we first distinguished in the Index six categories that are ontological (they express
the nature of the Index): 1. Dimension, 2. Shape, 3. Spatial distribution, 4. Intensity, 5.
Connectivity, and 6. Diversity. These six categories are in a ranked order from the simplest
(1. Dimension) to the most complex (6. Diversity). For example, ‘Weighted Number of
Intersections of Pedestrian Network’, where the term ‘Weighted Number of Intersections’ is
the Index and ‘Pedestrian Network’ is the Element will be classified as an urban form char-
acter of Index category ‘4. Intensity’. The six categories are not purely independent, as we
can identify functional relationships between them. Often urban form characters in latter
groups are mathematically dependent on others in the former: for example, those indexed by
Elongation, which fall in the ‘2. Shape’ category, are functionally dependent on those
indexed by Width and Length, which fall into ‘1. Dimension’, since Elongation ¼ Width/
Length ratio. Also, we classify the urban form character into three categories that capture
its grain – the scale of the spatial unit in which the unique value is stored. Finally, we
distinguish in the Element three categories that are descriptive of the scale at which the
element itself occurs (equivalent of scale of spatial extent in Figure 2), is observable and
measurable in urban morphology.
Since many measurable urban form characters in literature work at multiple scales, in our
classification we need to maintain a certain level of breadth in defining the amplitude of
scale. Therefore, we are proposing three conceptual levels of scale only: Small (S) represent-
ing the spatial extent of building, plot, street or block (and similar), Medium (M) represent-
ing the scale of the sanctuary area (Mehaffy et al., 2010), neighbourhood, walkable distance
(5 or 10 min) or district (and similar) and Large (L), representing the city, urban area,
metropolitan area or similar. Thus, to continue with our example, the urban form character
‘Weighted Number of Intersections of Pedestrian Network’, would be classified based on (1)
its grain and (2) the scale of its Element ‘Pedestrian Network’. In this case, networks as
physical entities occur and have meaning, and therefore can be observed and measured at
the larger (M, L) scales, while they do mean very little at the small scale. Because the
network in this case refers solely to pedestrian use, the urban form character falls into
the category M of scale, or alternatively M/L if we allow more flexible cross-scale definition
which might be desirable in general, as it softens the hard boundaries which might not be
applicable to some, accounting for the authors’ specific conceptualisation of spatial scale
(such as Space Syntax). As this urban form character measures a single number per network,
the scale of its grain and that of the extent of its Element coincide. However, that it not the
case in all situations: for example, Closeness Centrality of Street Network is measured on the
larger network (M, L scales), while the value is specific for each node (S scale).6
8
Table 2. Table of urban form characters (extract).

Character

Name

Category Definition Index Element Grain Extent Reference

Dimension The basic geometri- Length of Street S S Dibble et al. (2017)


cal dimensions of Height Building S S Schirmer and Axhausen (2015)
individual objects Bounding box area Building S S Schirmer and Axhausen (2015)
Core area index Building S S Colaninno, Roca and Pfeffer (2011)
Number of floors Building S S Ye and Van Nes (2013)
Mesh size Grid network M M Siksna (1997)
Area Built-up area L L Seto and Fragkias (2005)
Length Urban edge L L Boeing (2018a)

Shape The mathematical Height to width ratio of Street S S Schirmer and Axhausen (2015)
features of geo- Compactness index Plot S S Schirmer and Axhausen (2015)
metrical dimen- Form factor Building S S Bourdic, Salat, Nowacki (2012)
sions of individual Fractal dimension Axial map M M Ariza-Villaverde et al. (2013)
objects Rectangularity index Sanctuary area M M Schirmer and Axhausen (2015)
Complexity index Built-up area L L Seto and Fragkias (2005)

Spatial The spatial distribu- Built Front Ratio of Block S S Schirmer and Axhausen (2015)
distribution tion of objects in Solar orientation Building S S Gil et al. (2012)
space and their Distance Buildings S S Hijazi et al. (2016)
reciprocal Continuity Built-up area L L Galster et al. (2001)
positioning Concentration index Built-up area L L Gielen et al. (2017)

Intensity The intensity of Covered Area Ratio of Plot S S Schirmer and Axhausen (2015)
space occupation, Floor Area Ratio Block S S Schirmer and Axhausen (2015)
referring to the Number of plots Accessible radius S M/L Marcus, Berghauser Pont,
density of Bobkova (2017)
Weighted number of intersections Street network M M Araldi and Fusco (2019)
(continued)
EPB: Urban Analytics and City Science 0(0)
Fleischmann et al.

Table 2. Continued
Character

Name

Category Definition Index Element Grain Extent Reference

elements within a Proportion of dead-ends Street network L L Boeing (2018a)


set context Proportion of four-way intersections Street network L L Boeing (2018a)

Connectivity The spatial intercon- Closeness centrality of Street network S M/L Porta et al. (2006)
nection of the PageRank Street network M M Boeing (2018a)
segments of the Self-loop proportion Street network L L Boeing (2018a)
networks (usually Clustering Coefficient Street network L L Boeing (2018a)
street networks) Node/edge connectivity Street network L L Boeing (2018b)
Node connectivity Street network L L Boeing (2018b)

Diversity The variety and rich- Power law distribution of areas of Blocks M M Louf and Barthelemy (2014)24
ness of the ele- Plot area heterogeneity Sanctuary area M M Feliciotti (2018)
ments and their Plot area diversity Accessible radius S M/L Bobkova, Marcus and Berghauser
characteristics in Pont (2017)
the study area Intersection type proportion Street network M M Song, Popkin and Gordon-Larsen (2013)
Note:
A sample of measurable urban form characters showing definition of each category, name/definition of characters according to the Index of Elements approach, urban form character’s
position according to category and scale. The complete version of the Table, including all 361 urban form characters identified at this stage of our research, is provided as online
Supplementary material.
9
10 EPB: Urban Analytics and City Science 0(0)

The resulting typology offers an unambiguous identification of each urban form charac-
ter based on its very nature, as reflected in its name (Table 2).

Interpretation
The summative statistics of the complete Table of Urban Form Characters offers in-depth
information into the current state of how terminology is defined and used in the field.
The distribution of urban form characters across the scales of extent shows a slight
decline as we proceed from Small to Large scales, but the distribution is relatively balanced
(Figure 3(b)). In terms of the scale of grain, it is naturally skewed towards Small scale
(Figure 3(a)). The situation changes if we explore the distribution of urban form characters
among the six different categories established at the start of our classification. In this case,
spatial distribution and diversity are underrepresented (with respectively 27 and 13 urban
form characters), while all other categories each contain relatively high numbers each (from
55 in connectivity to 115 in intensity) (Figure 3(c)). One of the reasons for this distribution is
that dimension, shape, intensity and connectivity are much easier to capture than spatial
distribution or diversity, and their urban form characters are simpler to define.

(a) (b) (c)

200 100

100 50

0 0
S M L S M L
Grain Extent Categories

Figure 3. Number of urban form characters per scale of grain (a), scale of the extent (b) and number of
characters per category (c). Note that some characters are present at multiple scales.

60

40

20

0
S M L S M L
Grain Extent

Figure 4. Number of urban form characters per each scale decomposed to each category. Note that some
urban form characters are present at multiple scales.
Fleischmann et al. 11

To understand the distribution of urban form characters in better intra-category detail,


we used decomposed statistics (Figure 4), which helped understand the relationship between
categories and both definitions of scales. Dimension and shape categories tend to be signif-
icantly more present at the Small scale, from both perspectives. At this scale, physical
features tend to be more precisely defined, hence it is natural that their dimensions and
shapes are measured at the same scale. On the other side is connectivity, being present
exclusively at larger scales (M, L) of extent, but being skewed towards smaller scales of
grain. This is an inherent consequence of the nature of this urban form character which
is typical of networks, easier to identify at larger scales of the environment in which they
are observed, while the values are often unique for each component of network (as men-
tioned above).
The overview of urban form characters shows some clear recurring patterns from the
perspective of (both) scales as well: it is worth noting that complex urban form characters
are more likely to be measured at larger scales of extent (M, L). This seems to be partially
caused by the nature of our classification system, where the limited amount of data inputs at
a small scale makes results for more compound and aggregated urban form characters less
reliable. However, at the same time, this pattern is posing the question of whether infor-
mation is being missed out in this overview. Not even one of the six categories shows a
balanced coverage of all three scales (for both grain and extent). We can question which
parts of the classification are less comprehensive for a logical reason (smaller scales are not
suitable for complex relational urban form characters) and which are so just because some
may have been missed out.
Back to the issue of spatial distribution and diversity, the former seems to differ across
scales (the scales of grain and extent are identical for all urban form characters in spatial
distribution and, with the exception of 2, in diversity as well). Seventeen out of 27 urban form
characters in spatial distribution category are present at S scale. While the number is still
lower than for the other groups (except diversity), the gap seems to be more significant at
larger scales. The situation with diversity appears similar, featuring a majority of urban form
characters at M scale (15 in terms of grain and 17 in terms of extent), but the overall number
is too low to conclude scalar dependency, even though such a tendency might be present.
An issue revealed by the proposed classification of urban form characters is the overlap and
at times redundancy of some of them (the empirical correlation between urban form characters
which makes some redundant). This is most evident among those capturing shape at the level
of the block and below. Here a high number of such characters are utilised in literature to
capture the objects’ geometry and form. Basaraner and Cetinkaya (2017) assessed the capacity
of some of the urban form characters to capture the complexity in shape of building footprints
and concluded that only 6 out of 20 generally used are appropriate (p. 1972). Similar assess-
ment should be done for other types, to rule out redundancy and increase the effectiveness and
reliability of the fewer selected. On the other hand, the fact that certain types of urban form
characters are abundant and might overlap or even lead to redundancy suggests that there is a
general agreement on their value as descriptors of urban form.
Finally, terminological inconsistency could be explained by two causes. On one hand, the
current lack of a comprehensive framework for the systematisation and comparability of
urban form characters,, while on the other, the relative novelty of quantitative methods in
urban morphology. There is therefore urgent need for coherent terminology, as the amount of
quantitative studies is expected to rise with the development of Geographic Information
Systems (GIS), big data science, data mining as well as open data and volunteer-based map-
ping services. The problems of comparability of studies defined by Whitehand (2012) could be
limited if a more rigorous typological system such as the Index of Elements proposed in this
12 EPB: Urban Analytics and City Science 0(0)

paper was applied which would leave room for the interpretation of urban form characters,
while making them comparable. In this regard, this work is dependent on the scope of existing
research and its validity is affected by the limits of the initial literature review. However, we
would argue that the method used to select papers ensures a reasonable level of representa-
tiveness as demonstrated by the fact that we were able to extract and successfully systematise
465 urban form characters covering a significant number of measurements. The consequent
systematisation, exemplified in Table 2 and reported in full in the Table of Urban Form
Characters (see online supplementary materials), seems to be inclusive and coherent enough
to make sense of all of them, and yet this should be seen as just an initial framework. The
proposed systematisation is meant to be refined and expanded as research progresses, in an
open repository of tested urban form characters which would be ideally a collective product of
the urban morphology scientific community as a whole (Fleischmann, 2019). Moreover, the
work could be expanded by the inclusion of other ways of conceptualisation of urban form, to
cover land use or behavioural patterns (among others).
In reviewing the literature, we necessarily had to rely on previously defined descriptions of
both urban form characters and measurements. In several cases, these proved to be vague,
sometimes lacking any definitions and/or mathematical formulas. Therefore, our classification
of such characters might not align perfectly with the original source work. Even if we were
able to successfully classify all relevant urban form characters, it still might be possible to find
in the future some that just do not fit into any of the six proposed categories (yet, it would still
be possible to define it through the Index or Elements naming approach).

Conclusions
Quantitative approaches to urban morphology are critical to inform the long overdue
undertakings of a new ‘sciences of cities’. The current state of the discipline is, however,
to some degree inconsistent. To progress further, it is essential to understand what the limits
and potentials of the existing measuring methods are, and where the gaps of knowledge are.
The terminology used is often unclear, methods and urban form characters vary in ways
that is at times difficult to understand. This limits the development of comparative studies,
which however are essential to evidence-based research.
In this paper, we presented a first attempt at systematically and comprehensively organ-
ising existing measurable urban form characters while overcoming terminological discrep-
ancies. We collected a significant and representative sample of published literature and
identified the main purposes of the research that underpinned it. From this sample, we
extracted individual urban form characters capturing the physical structure of urban form
and identified significant terminological inconsistencies (‘nicknaming’), which were seen as
undermining the comparability of research outcomes across cases and methods. We then
introduced a new terminological framework based on an Index of Element approach, which
then we tested to redefine all the 465 urban form characters extracted from literature. As a
part of a newly proposed conceptual typology, we organised them into six distinct and
inclusive categories. The new framework allowed us to identify a degree of redundancy in
both the definition of urban form characters and their measurements, which led us to pro-
duce a more rigorous set of final 361.
When analysing how these urban form characters have been deployed, we identified a few
anomalies in the distribution of their qualifying categories: the most significant tendency is
the underrepresentation of spatial distribution and diversity. Moreover, shape and dimension
are predominantly used at smaller scales, connectivity at larger scales (this tendency does not
Fleischmann et al. 13

seem to be a consequence of the nature of the urban form character, but rather the lesser
production of research on this topic).
Future research on the quantitative analysis of urban form, or urban morphometrics,
should aim at collectively building a reasonably reliable and stable typology of measurable
urban form characters, in order to achieve consistency across methods and case studies.
Furthermore, the area should progress in recognising and measuring the full scalar and struc-
tural complexity of urban form, and we should be more comprehensive with regards to scales.
Finally, urban morphometrics is meant in principle to enhance the study of correlations
between the physical and non-physical aspects of the global urban phenomenon, towards a
unitary model covering both and yet accounting for their inherent differences.

Declaration of conflicting interests


The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article: This work was supported by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson
Foundation as a part of The Urban Form Resilience Project.

Notes
1. In some cases, the research focused both on physical and non-physical characteristics and was
therefore included but only the physical part of the method was used in our analysis.
2. This classification is based on conceptual ranking rather than metric size: the building scale is
smaller than the plot scale, in that the former is conceptually contained in the latter, even
though in terms of sheer size some buildings may be larger than some plots.
3. This phenomenon, occurring when the same urban form characters are presented under different
names or different urban form characters under the same name, we call nicknaming.
4. In Figure 2, cross-scale research is listed at all relevant scales (as Schirmer and Axhausen, 2015).
5. Research of Bourdic et al. (2012) focuses on measuring urban sustainability, and one of the cate-
gories is defined as ‘form’ which we feel obligated to refine into ‘dimension’ and ‘shape’, while
‘proximity’ is excluded as it is referring to non-morphological elements.
6. Note that the extent in ‘Literature review’ section refers to the whole method used in each paper; in this
section, it refers to the spatial extent of single character only. The two concepts of extent are not the same.

ORCID iD
Martin Fleischmann https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3319-3366

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Author biographies
Martin Fleischmann is a postgraduate research student at the University of Strathclyde and a
member of the Urban Design Studies Unit. His research focuses on quantitative analysis of
urban form, developing a measuring framework to enhance the possibilities to ‘read the city’
via measuring its characteristics. He is aiming to make the steps towards the development of
The Urban Atlas, an atlas of urban tissues seen through the perspective of the evolution of
urban form. He is also the author of momepy, the open source urban morphology measur-
ing toolkit for Python.

Ombretta Romice is a senior lecturer in urban design at the Department of Architecture,


University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, associate member of the Royal Town Planning
Institute, fellow of the Higher Education Academy and past president of the
International Association of People Environment Studies (IAPS). She holds a PhD from
Strathclyde in urban design and community engagement and a PostDoc in housing and
neighbourhood regeneration funded by the European Union. She teaches and researches in
the areas of sustainable urban design, spatial planning, urban morphology, environmental
psychology and user participation in design. Author of several international publications
18 EPB: Urban Analytics and City Science 0(0)

and books, she’s been keynote in Brazil, South Korea, China, Finland, South Africa, Italy
and on the editorial board of international journals.

Sergio Porta is a professor of urban design and director of the Urban Design Studies Unit at
University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, president of the Cultural Association Building Beauty
and Academic director of the Building Beauty post-graduate program in Sorrento. His
research is on masterplanning for adaptive resilient cities, urban morphometrics and the
evolution of urban form and radical community-based construction. He has published over
60 papers in international peer-reviewed journals and 3 monographs. He sits on the editorial
boards of several leading journals of urban science and design and has been invited speaker
at various international conferences.

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