The Morphology of African Cities

Antos, Sarah E. ; Lall, Somik V. ; Lozano-Gracia, Nancy

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: urban development;    information systems;    urban land;    land market;    participatory planning;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7911
RP-ID  :  WPS7911

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper illustrates how thecapabilities of GIS and satellite imagery can be harnessedto explore and better understand the urban form of severallarge African cities (Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Kigali, Dar esSalaam, and Dakar). To allow for comparability across verydiverse cities, this work looks at the above mentionedcities through the lens of several spatial indicators andrelies heavily on data derived from satellite imagery.First, it focuses on understanding the distribution ofpopulation across the city, and more specifically how thevariations in population density could be linked totransportation. Second, it takes a closer look at the landcover in each city using a semi-automated texture based landcover classification that identifies neighborhoods thatappear more regular or irregularly planned. Lastly, for thehigher resolution images, this work studies the changes inthe land cover classes as one moves from the city core tothe periphery. This work also explored the classification ofslightly coarser resolution imagery which allowed analysisof a broader number of cities, sixteen, provided the lower cost.