A comparative analysis of the patterns of land use in the European cities

Authors

  • Alexandra Sandu Department of Geography,Faculty of Geography and Geology,“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași, Romania

Keywords:

land-use patterns, Moran’s I, geographical linkage coefficient, spatial autocorrelation, cluster analysis

Abstract

There is a growing interest in what concerns the land uses changes, particularly in the urban areas because nowadays the city is the “engine” of our development, being the defining element of the human civilization. In other words, the city is not a fixed entity, stable in time and space, but a centrifugal or centripetal flow node which facilitates and maximizes economic, social, political and cultural interactions. Therefore, it is an open system which constantly changes as it is submitted to different pressures either from the inside or from the outside. The present work intends to find a defining model for the urban areas in the European Union. For the present study 295 cities were selected and analysed in order to identify similar patterns of land use. The comparative analysis was based on 2 main variables: the Moran’s I coefficient of autocorrelation and the G Index. Finally, a proposal was made to define the urban land use pattern for the EU cities.

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Published

2014-10-31

Issue

Section

Articles