Speaker
Description
This study focuses on urban complexity and adaptive capacity, employing sub-fractal analysis, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and spatial statistical tools to investigate interactions between urban expansion and planning strategies. By examining the case of İzmir, the research traces the temporal evolution of urban complexity and evaluates the influence of major planning interventions enacted between 1955 and 2012.
Fractal analysis serves as the core methodological approach, adept at quantifying the irregular and fragmented morphologies characteristic of urban systems. This study utilized digitized historical topographic maps of İzmir to reconstruct the city’s transportation networks and assess their hierarchical organization. These findings, combined with GIS-based spatial statistical methods like hot-spot analysis, provide a detailed perspective on the spatial variability of urban growth. The results illuminate how specific planning interventions, such as the establishment of transportation corridors and the promotion of mixed-use developments, have significantly shaped urban complexity.
The study extends these analytical approaches by conducting a longitudinal comparison of urban dynamics over several decades. This expanded temporal lens reveals not only the immediate impacts of planning interventions but also their cascading effects on urban form and function. By employing advanced fractal metrics, the research elucidates how the morphology of urban systems evolves in response to policy-driven structural changes, highlighting critical thresholds where adaptive capacity is either bolstered or compromised.
Pivotal contribution of this research is the conceptualization of the Adaptation Capacity Range (ACR), an innovative metric designed to measure an urban system’s resilience and its ability to maintain essential functions while adapting to disruptive changes. The ACR framework provides planners with actionable insights by linking measures of complexity to systemic resilience, offering a data-driven foundation for formulating sustainable planning strategies. This metric also identifies critical thresholds, beyond which urban systems face heightened risks of functional collapse, underscoring the necessity for strategic, evidence-based interventions to enhance adaptability.
In addition to ACR metric, study develops a suite of complementary indicators that quantify key dimensions of urban resilience, including network connectivity, land-use diversity, and spatial equity. These indicators collectively offer a nuanced understanding of the factors that underpin adaptive capacity, enabling a more granular analysis of how planning decisions influence urban systems. For instance, the research examines the spatial distribution of critical infrastructure and its relationship to both local and systemic resilience, providing new insights into the interplay between urban form and function.
The study addresses the unintended consequences of planning decisions, revealing instances where interventions constrained complexity or diminished adaptability. By identifying these challenges, the research emphasizes the importance of adopting holistic, forward-thinking approaches to urban planning that mitigate potential vulnerabilities. For example, the research demonstrates how certain land-use allocations, while optimizing for short-term growth, inadvertently create rigidity in the urban fabric that undermines long-term resilience.
This work situates itself within the broader discourse on urban studies, advancing theoretical and methodological frameworks for assessing urban complexity and resilience. The insights derived from İzmir’s case study contribute to a replicable model for other urban contexts, highlighting the interplay between strategic planning and the dynamic evolution of urban systems. Moreover, the findings align with global imperatives to design sustainable and resilient urban environments.
In conclusion, the case of İzmir demonstrates how advanced analytical methods can be harnessed to reveal nuanced insights into urban complexity and resilience. By combining fractal analysis with spatial statistics and GIS technologies, the research presents a comprehensive methodology for evaluating the adaptive capacity of urban systems. This integrative approach positions the study as a significant contribution to the field of urban studies, offering both theoretical advancements and practical implications for shaping sustainable, resilient, and adaptive cities in the face of rapid global change.
| Keywords | Complexity, fractal analysis, adaptive capacity, sub-fractal analysis, GIS, urban development. |
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| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
