Built-up structure criticality

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the spatial structure of built-up land in major Czech and U.S. cities using statistical physics, revealing power-law behaviors in land variance that are consistent across different urban environments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of statistical physics to urban land structure analysis, comparing Czech and U.S. cities using cadastral and GIS data.

Findings

Variance of built-up land follows a power law with respect to radius.

Power law exponents are comparable across different cities.

Built-up land structure exhibits criticality-like behavior.

Abstract

The built-up land represents an important type of overall landscape. In this paper the built-up land structure in the largest cities in the Czech Republic and selected cities in the U.S.A. is analysed using the framework of statistical physics. We calculate the variance of the built-up area and the number variance of built-up landed plots in discs. In both cases the variance as a function of a disc radius follows a power law. The obtained values of power law exponents are comparable through different cities. The study is based on cadastral data from the Czech Republic and building footprints from GIS data in the U.S.A.