Experiential Hierarchies of Streets

Experiential Hierarchies of Streets

[INFO:INFO_MO] Computer Science/Modeling and Simulation

[SHS:INFO] Humanities and Social Sciences/Library and information sciences

Experiential hierarchy

network analysis

centrality

Mental representations of spatial knowledge are organized hierarchically. Among people familiar with an urban environment, common spatial knowledge from these spatial mental representations enables successful communication of place and route descriptions, consisting of hierarchically-ordered references to prominent spatial features, such as streets. The more prominent a street is, the more likely it is to be known by the wayfinder receiving the directions. The automated construction of such descriptions therefore requires hierarchical data models ranking streets in street networks. This paper explores the reasons of overlaps in the content and hierarchical organization of common spatial knowledge among locals. We introduce a novel measure allowing to rank streets in a street network. This ranking allows to construct experiential hierarchies reflecting the shared experience of the streets in a city. The measure is derived from network connectivity measures, and takes into account the structure of the street network as well as the higher-order partition of the urban space into suburbs.

TOMKO, Martin

WINTER, Stephan

Claramunt, Christophe

Computers, Environment and Urban Systems

ISSN:0198-9715

2008-01

ENG

article in peer-reviewed journal

http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00771873

DOI: 10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2007.03.003

ADMINENSAM: http://hdl.handle.net/10985/6678

http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/77/18/73/PDF/tomko07experiential_preprint.pdf