Using GIS for analysis of urban systems

It is recognized that the spatial organization of urban system can be abstracted as three main components: a set of points, which describes the structural characteristics such as social and economic properties of individual city; a set of lines, which indicates the patterns of interaction among the cities; a set of spheres, which indicates how and to which extent each city affects the area around it. Even if such substance of urban system coincides with the main purpose of GIS for spatial or geometric data types such as point, line and region, little attention has been given to this point. By an evidence analysis of China, the application of potential analytical capabilities of GIS for urban system is attempted in this study. We find GIS acts as an efficient tool not only for the spatial structure analysis of urban system, which including potential distribution of cities, extraction of principal linkages among cities, and delimitation of subsystems; but also for the verification of socio-economic attributes and dynamics of urban system.

[1]  A S Fotheringham,et al.  A New Set of Spatial-Interaction Models: The Theory of Competing Destinations † , 1983 .

[2]  M. Dacey,et al.  A graph theory interpretation of nodal regions , 1961 .

[3]  M. B. Gonçalves,et al.  The Development of a New Gravity—Opportunity Model for Trip Distribution , 1993 .

[4]  Anthony R Tomazinis.  A NEW METHOD OF TRIP DISTRIBUTION IN AN URBAN AREA , 1962 .

[5]  R. Camagni,et al.  Network Urban Structures in Northern Italy: Elements for a Theoretical Framework , 1993 .

[6]  Xiao Yan.  CHINESE URBAN GEOGRAPHY SINCE THE LATE 1970s , 1995 .

[7]  Michael N. DeMers,et al.  Fundamentals of Geographic Information Systems , 1996 .

[8]  D. Huff,et al.  Change and Continuity in the Irish Urban System, 1966-81 , 1995 .

[9]  M. Hsu.  THE EXPANSION OF THE CHINESE URBAN SYSTEM, 1953–1990 , 1994 .

[10]  Chang-i Hua,et al.  A Critical Review of the Development of the Gravity Model , 1979 .

[11]  Alan M Voorhees,et al.  PANEL DISCUSSION ON INTER-AREA TRAVEL FORMULAS , 1960 .

[12]  M. Monmonier.  How to Lie with Maps , 1991 .

[13]  Markus Schneider,et al.  Spatial Data Types for Database Systems , 1997, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[14]  R. Murphey.  The treaty ports and China's modernization : what went wrong? , 1970 .

[15]  Isao Orishimo,et al.  Systems of Cities , 1982 .

[16]  Xiangming Chen,et al.  China's City Hierarchy, Urban Policy and Spatial Development in the 1980s , 1991 .

[17]  K. Haynes,et al.  Gravity and Spatial Interaction Models , 1985 .

[18]  S. Stouffer.  Intervening opportunities: a theory relating mobility and distance , 1940 .