Scaling and universality in city space syntax: Between Zipf and Matthew

Abstract

Volchenkov D, Blanchard P. Scaling and universality in city space syntax: Between Zipf and Matthew. Physica A. 2008;387(10):2353-2364.We report about the universality of rank-integration distributions of open spaces in city space syntax similar to the famous rank-size distributions of cities (Zipf's law). We also demonstrate that the degree of choice an open space represents for other spaces directly linked to it in a city follows a power-law statistic. Universal statistical behavior of space syntax measures uncovers the universality of the city creation mechanism. We suggest that the observed universality may help to establish the international definition of a city as a specific land use pattern. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved