Urban Growth in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area: Insight from Urban Form and Landscape

摘要

Purpose of this research is to explore the change of urban form and landscape in spatial process of urban growth in the Tokyo metropolitan area. An attempt is made to analyze changes in land-use pattern with the urban growth during the period of two decades beginning 1974 in terms of fractal dimension and spatial metrics. The results indicate that urban form of the Tokyo metropolitan area displayed bifractal structure during the period. In inner zone with 0- 16km radius from the Tokyo station, all the fractal dimensions were close to their ultimate value and kept relatively stable. In outer zone with 16-50km radius, fractal dimensions were quite active, and had grown gradually. Analysis of spatial metrics illustrates the characteristic of compact growth or conglomeration of the existing urbanized area in the process of urban growth of the Tokyo metropolitan area. A constrained Cellular Automata (CA) model is constructed to assist in understanding the change of urban form and landscape. The model is used to simulate the change. The results indicate that the extrinsic exhibition of fractal dimension and spatial metrics in the Tokyo metropolitan area is intrinsically derived from the integrated organisation of socio-biophysical interactions embedded in this model.