Measurement of Street Network Structure in Strip Cities: A Case Study of Lanzhou, China

Abstract

As the foundation and skeleton of urban space, the street network is significant to the urban travel environment and socio-economic activities. To reveal the structural characteristics of the street network, this paper proposes a measurement index system to study the street network structure and urban travel characteristics. To illustrate the relationship between spatial accessibility of streets in strip cities and residents’ travel and service demands, we take Lanzhou, a typical strip city, as an example for network analysis and study the hierarchical structure of physical, functional, and environmental characteristics of the street topological network. The results show that Lanzhou City has formed a radial network structure with traffic-oriented streets as the backbone and interconnected living streets. However, the development of old and new urban areas is still uneven. In terms of street function distribution, streets with a high degree of diversity are more attractive to population clustering and show a polycentric clustering feature in space related to the regional functional orientation and travel characteristics. Much of the structural difference in the centrality core-periphery of the street network under pedestrian and vehicular travel patterns are influenced by the street’s type and function. In addition, as part of the contribution, we provide an evaluation methodology that enables the analysis of street network centrality. These findings advance our understanding of strip city development.