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Abstract
Functional or land-use mix has been seminal to urban design and planning for over 50 years. Mixed-use reduces the need for travel, increases walkability and generates street-life intensity. In this paper we review existing methods of measuring functional mix and rethink the ways in which it might be conceived, measured and mapped within a framework of assemblage thinking. We suggest a live/work/visit triangle as a promising method with a focus on the interconnections between functions rather than functions in themselves. Mapping techniques are developed to reveal the ways functional mix changes at different scales from streetscape to walkable neighbourhood. This approach is tested on detailed floor area databases from the cities of New York, Barcelona and Bogotá. Rather than reducing mix to an index, such mapping reveals each city as a mix of different mixes. These maps can be understood as urban X-rays that enable interpretation and diagnosis of urban functional mix.
Keywords:
Acknowledgements
We thank Stephen Wood and Mirjana Ristic for their reviews of an earlier version of this paper. This work stems in part from Australian Research Council project LP100200590: Intensifying Places: Transit-Oriented Urban Design for Resilient Australian Cities.
Notes
1. Readers of the print version of this journal can access colour images similar to Figures , and at:<https://msd.unimelb.edu.au/ebooks/xray-the-city/#48>. In exploring these maps we have experimented with different colours in the apexes. It is attractive to use yellow, blue and red for each apex with green, orange and purple as the mixed colours and these colours have been used in previous publications both by ourselves and the initiators of the scheme (Dovey & Ristic, Citation2017; Nes et al., Citation2012; Hoek, Citation2008). However, given the need to use GIS tools for data management we have opted to correlate the triangle with the RGB (red/green/blue) colour wheel for light rather than pigment, that dominates most digital representation schemes. Those who grew up mixing pigments should read yellow as a mix of red/green, magenta as red/blue, and cyan as blue/green.
2. There are very few cities that currently make comprehensive cadastral data available in a comparable format. Our data sources for New York City derive from the Department of City Planning (New York City, Citation2015); for Barcelona we have used a conversion of Spanish cadastre data (Valls Dalmau, Garcia-Almirall, Rendondo Dominguez, & Escudero Fonseca, Citation2014) and for Bogotá there is an online cadastral database (IDECA, Citation2015). Some cleaning and correcting of data has been necessary, we have assigned hospitals, theatres and cultural facilities to “visit”. An inconsistency among the three datasets relates to storage and car parking space: such space could not be disaggregated for New York and had to be included, while in Bogotá this was a stand-alone category that could not be allocated. While such space is a significant portion of floor area (approximately 10–15%), it is distributed across all functions so the effects will largely cancel out.