TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2014//
TI  - A typology of street patterns
JO  - Journal of the Royal Society, Interface
A1  - Louf, Rémi
A1  - Barthélemy, Marc
SP  - e924
EP  - e924
VL  - 11
IS  - 101
N2  - We propose a quantitative method to classify cities according to their street pattern. We use the conditional probability distribution of shape factor of blocks with a given area and define what could constitute the 'fingerprint' of a city. Using a simple hierarchical clustering method, these fingerprints can then serve as a basis for a typology of cities. We apply this method to a set of 131 cities in the world, and at an intermediate level of the dendrogram, we observe four large families of cities characterized by different abundances of blocks of a certain area and shape. At a lower level of the classification, we find that most European cities and American cities in our sample fall in their own sub-category, highlighting quantitatively the differences between the typical layouts of cities in both regions. We also show with the example of New York and its different boroughs, that the fingerprint of a city can be seen as the sum of the ones characterizing the different neighbourhoods inside a city. This method provides a quantitative comparison of urban street patterns, which could be helpful for a better understanding of the causes and mechanisms behind their distinct shapes.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1742-5689
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2014.0924
ID  - ref1
ER  -