Morphogenesis of street networks. A reaction-diffusion system for self-organized cities

TL;DR

This paper introduces a reaction-diffusion based model to simulate the self-organized formation of street networks in urban areas, providing insights into urban morphogenesis through a spatial network generator applied to Fécamp, France.

Contribution

It develops a novel multi-layer reaction-diffusion model for urban street network morphogenesis and demonstrates its application to real-world city data.

Findings

The model produces realistic street network patterns.

Feedback mechanisms influence network evolution.

Application to Fécamp shows model's practical relevance.

Abstract

Urban morphogenesis is the process of formation of its elements and the specialization of its suburbs. Street networks are the structural part of the system. Understand their formation reveals crucial information about urban transformation and dynamics behind its functioning. In this work we focus on the morphogenesis of street networks and we study it through a spatial network generator model. This latter is composed by three layers (a reaction-diffusion layer, a dynamic vector field and a spatial network) surrounded by an environment. The emerging network feeds back to its morphogenetic elements, driving the model to an unexpected behaviour. We applied the model in a real urban context (F\'ecamp town, Normandy, France) and we measure properties of obtained networks.