An urban metric system based on space-economy: Foundations and implementation

Abstract

An urban metric system (UMS) is here implemented in order to henceforth solve the numerous problems stemming from the absence of a mathematical definition of the boundaries of the various concepts of urban areas. It is based on space-economy, especially, land-rent theory, the concepts of attractive and repulsive forces, as well as vector fields. The system is applied to the central cities, agglomerations and metropolitan areas of Montreal, Toronto and Quebec City. Based on the proposed UMS, a synthetic index of urban sprawl is defined and computed for the studied metropolitan areas.