Towards Successful Suburban Town Centres: a study of the relationship between morphology, sociability, economics and accessibility

在未来20年内，预计英格兰和威尔士的大部分住房开发增长将发生在郊区定居点。与此同时，这种发展预计在经济和环境上是可持续的，这意味着郊区需要提供当地的经济活动（从而最大限度地减少旅行），并支持凝聚力和充满活力的社区。当城市规划者试图实现这一愿景时，他们面临的主要问题之一是缺乏对郊区城镇中心及其周边地区成功和充满活力的因素的了解。在这项研究中，我们的目标是解决这个问题，并开发工具和技术，以帮助城市规划者处理郊区的新发展计划。该研究将利用街道层面的社会和经济活动的空间分析方法。该方法的优势之一是，它允许可视化和分析城市形态（街道结构和建筑物布局），以及居住在这些建筑物中的人的信息。在大多数研究项目中，这两者并没有在一个统一的框架内进行分析——因此城市设计师专注于街道布局，而社会科学家则专注于城镇中心规划的社会和经济方面。此外，我们的方法提供了一定程度的细节和准确性，这有助于精确的设计决策。我们将首先研究英格兰和威尔士的十个郊区，以获得郊区类型范围的图片，然后我们将重点关注四个郊区定居点。住区的选择将根据对现有政府数据集的计算机化地理分析、文献审查和制图研究。这四个案例既包括成功的郊区，也包括衰落的郊区。我们将详细分析这四个案例中的每一个。我们将使用历史地图（最近为学术研究而发布）来了解过去100年来城市形态的发展。然后，我们将根据人口普查数据、最新地图以及政府关于就业和其他经济活动的数据集，对过去10年的变化进行深入分析。我们将通过经济表现、交通便利性、步行便利性和活动组合等指标来评估这些中心的成功。我们还将在当地举办讲习班，为这项评估作出贡献，并从当地利益攸关方的角度获取有关未来优先事项的信息。最后，这些数据将被整合，我们将为郊区城镇中心的系统分析和未来规划创建一个工具包。在这项研究中，我们将开发分析郊区城镇中心及其周围环境的新技术。我们将使用的主要工具是地理信息系统（GIS）、空间分析和空间语法方法论（SSM）。在地理信息系统方面，我们将发展一种方法，使历史地图能够根据地形测量所提供的最新详细数字数据进行调整。我们将利用地理信息系统整合郊区的信息，并对社会经济发展进行空间分析。SSM将用于了解人们利用空间的方式，并将社会和经济数据与城市形态信息相结合。总之，这项研究将有助于关于郊区未来的政策辩论，发展有助于城市规划者作出发展决定的方法，并将在使用历史地图和将社会经济数据与有关城市地区布局的信息相结合方面进行创新。这项研究还将为成功的郊区设计创造一个强大的工具包，从而使公众受益。

Within the next 20 years, most of the growth in housing development in England and Wales is predicted to occur in suburban settlements. At the same time, this development is expected to be sustainable economically and environmentally, which means that the suburb is required to provide local economic activities (and therefore to minimise travel) and to support cohesive and vibrant communities. One of the main problems that urban planners face when they try to materialise this vision is the lack of knowledge on the factors that make the suburban town centre and its surroundings successful and vibrant. In this research we aim to address this issue and to develop tools and techniques that will assist urban planners when they deal with new development plans for suburban areas. The research will utilise methods for spatial analysis of social and economic activities at the street block level. One of the strengths of the methodology is that it allows the visualisation and analysis of the urban form (the structure of the streets and the layout of the buildings) with information about the people who are living in these buildings. In most research projects, the two are not analysed within a unified framework - so urban designers focus on the street layout, while social-scientists focus on the social and economic aspects of town centre planning. In addition, our methods provide a level of detail and accuracy which can contribute to precise design decisionsWe will first study ten suburban areas in England and Wales to get a picture of the range of suburban types and then we will focus on four suburban settlements. The selection of settlements will be based on computerised geographical analysis of existing governmental datasets, literature review and a mapping study. The four cases will include both successful and declining suburbs. Each of the four cases will be analysed in detail. We will use historical maps (which have been recently released for academic research) to understand the development of the urban form over the last 100 years. We will then conduct an in-depth analysis of change over the last 10 years, based on census data, recent maps and governmental datasets on employment and other economic activities. We will assess the success of the centres through measures of economic performance, physical accessibility, walkability and mix of activities. We will also run local workshops to contribute to this assessment and to get information on future priorities from the perspective of local stakeholders. Finally, the data will be integrated and we will create a toolkit for the systematic analysis and future planning of suburban town centres. Within this research we will develop new techniques for the analysis of the suburban town centre and its surroundings. The main tools that we will use are Geographical Information Systems (GIS), Spatial Analysis and Space Syntax Methodology (SSM). In GIS, we will develop a method that will allow the adjustment of historical maps to the latest detailed digital data by the Ordnance Survey. We will use the GIS to integrate the information about the suburbs and to conduct spatial analysis on the socio-economic development. SSM will be used to understand the way in which the space is being utilised by people, and to integrate the social and economic data with information about the urban form. In summary, this research will contribute to the policy debate on the future of suburbs, develop methods that will assist urban planners in their development decisions and will innovate in the use of historical maps and the integration of socio-economic data with information about the layout of urban areas. This research will also benefit the public by creating a robust toolkit for the design of successful suburbs.