The diffused city of the Italian North-East: identification of urban dynamics using cellular automata urban models

The concept of ''diffused city'' refers to two hypotheses: that changes in its physical and functional structure are essentially of urban type displaying, for instance, processes of functional specialisation, or mobility which is not commuting related; and that such changes are spatially distributed in a diffused mode. This spatial organisation displays a multicentered and network structure with ''softened'' functional hierarchies and it can be placed, with regards to its quantitative (urbanisation's density) and qualitative (typology of settled functions) features on the borderline between the ''city'' and the ''countryside''. In this research a family of cellular automata models is developed in order to investigate such diffusion processes. The case study of the central area of the Veneto region, the spatial organisation of which has inspired the concept of diffused city, is presented together with some examples and the first results, based on the application of a set of ''heuristic'' rules. # 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved

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