Mapping and The Geometry of Form and Function of Cities Dissertation

Mapping and The Geometry of Form and Function of Cities - Dissertation ExampleHowever, these models fail to address the very issues related to urban form. The development of these contemporary models does not withstand into account the urban development geometry. Instead, these are developed at an aggregate level. Batty and Longley (p. 72, 1994) comment The best way to begin describing fractals is by example. A coastline and a cud are examples of natural fractals, a crumpled piece of paper an example of an artificial one. However, such irregularity which characterizes these objects is not entirely without rate and this order is to be found in fractals in terms of the following three principles. First, fractals are always self-similar, at least in some general sense. On whatever scale, and within a given range you examine a fractal, it will always appear to have the comparable shape or same degree of irregularity. The whole will always be manifest in the parts look at a piece of r ock broken off a mountain and you can see the mountain in the part. Look at the twigs on the branches of a tree and you can see the whole tree in these, albeit at a much reduced scale. Although, it has been observed that there is an acceptable level of consistency between such models and urban form but when it comes to the geometrical considerations of urban development, these are not dependent upon the processes and mechanisms (Bertuglia et al, 1987). The urban system models which are theoretical in nature, like the urban economics models, have shown a dependency upon the urban form through a set of assumptions. However, urban form has been defined by these models in terms of treating urban space as quite unbiased (Thrall, 1987). Hence, building a model which links a given form to statics and dynamics is very difficult because the relevance of form is considered as given and not something that arises out of the forces in action. As a consequence of this, all the research that has been conducted in urban form is considered to be highly idiosyncratic. However, as a yield of some major developments during the last decade the science of form has seen some significant changes, especially within the areas of mathematics and physics. These developments have been brought about by the exigency to establish a connection between urban form and growth processes. In addition to this, another driving force has been the analysis of natural forms on the basis of the occurrence of the geometry of the irregular. Remarkable developments in the area of computer graphics have initiated the numerical description and visualization of the urban forms. Making use of mathematical principles on fragmented structures, visualization has achieved a milestone (Mandeibrot, 1983). The developments have come about in terms of simulating natural forms (like landscapes) in a simple, yet living manner. This majorly involves addition of fractal ideas to produce simulations which are more conv entional. This gets further deepened into theoretical ideas which involves the generation of fractal structures through physical processes. The physics of critical