Mapping the Spatial Conditions of Polycentric Urban Development in Europe: An Open-source Software Tool

Abstract

Urban polycentricity has become a key concept in urban and regional studies and is increasingly adopted as an organizational framework for conducting empirical research. Within this literature, polycentric urban regions are commonly defined as territories that have multiple, proximately located (sub)centers and are characterized by balanced urban development. However, analytical-operational frameworks to identify and classify PURs are often ad hoc efforts to answer a specific research question and underlying work is often shelved rather than shared and/or made accessible. As a result, challenges associated with generalizability, reproducibility, and replicability clearly loom large in the urban polycentricity literature. Against this backdrop, this article describes the discrepancy between a rich debate on polycentricity and the paucity of tools enabling the disambiguation and reproducibility of results claimed by various authors around this polysemic concept. We present an online and open tool—PURban—that brings together the major analytical-operational frameworks and data sets in urban polycentricity research and allows parametrizing key operational choices. To illustrate the tool, we demonstrate how it facilitates the identification, mapping and analysis of degrees of morphological polycentricity in European urban systems. We conclude by reflecting on how this tool can act as a catalyst for future research on urban polycentricity.