A Case study of Urban Morphological Indicators and Quality of Life

Abstract

Studies on urban morphology have attracted increasing attention in Asia with its widespread urbanization at an ever increasing pace. Asian cities are forging ahead with their aggressive development of high-rise complexes which has brought about a range of physical, human, and environmental impacts. Urban morphological measures, such as compactness and density, along with satisfaction measures of convenience and air quality have contributed to better appreciation of the quality of life in a neighbourhood. This research aims at identifying urban morphological constructs that can be abstracted by applying geographic information systems (GIS) technology. A total of 62 neighbourhoods in Hong Kong were investigated and their morphological characteristics compared in terms of greenery coverage, street patterns (density and intersection), and building height. The results were grouped by four regions and radar charts constructed to visualise direction and magnitude of regional differences. Our findings reveal that each region has distinct spatial order based on their morphological qualities which could serve as an objective means of informing some aspects of quality of life. We also demonstrated that the GIS methodological approach is effective in quantifying morphological differences among neighbourhoods and the method can be adapted to other urban settings. Our study based on Hong Kong has implications for Asian cities and mega cities that are getting denser and growing taller.