The influence of urban traffic network on the location of urban commercial center based on GIS and space syntax : a case study of Hong Kong

Abstract

With the expansion of cities and economic prosperity, research on the location of commercial center has been increasingly brought to the attention of the relevant scholars. Urban commercial activity affects the city's overall development. Moreover, commercial land directly reflects the urban spatial structure characteristic, and is closely related to the city's social economic activities. Urban traffic network structure is the basis for land use and economic activity of urban space. Among many factors affecting commercial distribution, urban traffic network and the accessibility of it are the main factors. This study is trying to answer what role the accessibility plays in the development of commercial centers and how. Space Syntax theory provides a new perspective for understanding the complicated urban transportation system, and a set of quantitative analysis method for space configuration. In order to investigate the accessibility of traffic network in Hong Kong, map data will be collected from road network and metro network, and the data will be digitalized before the calculation of accessibility. For the purpose of finding the development of commercial centers, a variety of data will also be collected from the three commercial centers-Tsim Sha Tsui, Causeway Bay, and Mong Kok, such as the operating area of main retail stores in each commercial center. The first theoretical hypothesis is that the accessibility of traffic network does have an influence on the location and development of commercial centers. After the calculation of metro network accessibility and road network accessibility, the second theoretical hypothesis is that the accessibility of metro network may exert different effect on the location and development of commercial centers, compared with that of road network. The influence of metro network and road network on the location of commercial centers was discussed. It can be concluded that an area of high accessibility is more likely to develop into a commercial center. In another word, commercial centers always have higher accessibility than non-commercial center areas. Another conclusion is that the scope of commercial centers is mainly controlled by accessibility of road network in local configuration.