Compositional and urban form effects on centres in Greater London

Abstract

In recent years spatial economics has focused on the spatial location of economic activities and its determinants. At the city-region level, a significant part of the analysis has been concerned with the concept of agglomeration as a source of economies of scale, productivity growth and the role of transport: The spatial accessibility economies. Using space syntax spatial analyses, the socio-economic and spatial patterns of ten centres located in inner and outer London are analysed. Empirical evidence of the relationship between multi-scale spatial accessibilities and movement economies, as dependent on spatial configuration, is well charted in the space syntax literature. The findings show that centres have specific spatial configuration signatures, which distinguish centres from their spatial context. These signatures lead to the identification of centre spatial factor components. The interaction between socio-economic compositional effect and spatial signature profiles is investigated and leads to preliminary centre socio-economic/spatial typologies and a value model.