Can relative adjacency contribute to space syntax in the search for a structural logic of the city?

Abstract

Although network geography has long been recognised as a valid method for exploring geographical information systems, there is a renewed interest in applying its principles to the observation and analysis of urban systems. Over the past several years, space syntax has emerged as a new way of analysing the social, economic and environmental functioning of the city based on a graph computational representation. This paper introduces an analysis of the potential of a relative adjacency operator in comparison with current measures of connectivity and distance used in space syntax studies. We analyse how space syntax evaluates complexity and patterns in the city and show that the relative adjacency can provide a valuable complement to those measures. The study is illustrated by an application to the reference case of the village of Gassin in France. © Springer-Verlag 2004.