Brasilia, Brazil, 29 March - 3 April 1999
Global and Local Centrality in Urban Systems: A
syntactic approach
Professor Bill Hillier
The Bartlett School of Graduate Studies
(Torrington Place Site)
University College London
Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT
England
tel (44) (0)171 391 1739
fax (44) (0)171 813 4363
email b.hillier@ucl.ac.uk
www http://www.spacesyntax.com
Axial maps usually give a good account of global spatial structure, but
do less well when it comes to the localised 'hierarchy of centres and
sub-centres' that are found in most cities. In this paper, a series of
techniques and measures are proposed to identify, characterise and account
for this apparent hierarchy. The conjecture of the paper is that the 'hierarchy',
including the urban centre itself, is not best understood as a true hierarchy,
but as the product of the differential operation of the 'movement economy'
process (by which space structure first generates movement, which then
influences activities and land uses, with multiplier effects on movement
and feedback effects on the local grid structure), in different parts
of the urban system. The paper draws attention to the key role of local
spatial patterning as both an independent and dependent variable in the
process by which local and global 'centrality' is created at all levels.
Finally, it offers a general theory of 'attraction' in the urban system,
and how it can be accounted for in syntactic analysis.
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