![]() ![]() The structure-life relationship was tested statistically, after controlling for urban form and socio-demographic confounders, including land use, density, block size, parks, income, age, and demographics. Urban life was captured using a combination of Twitter activities, Point-Of-Interests, and walking trips, aggregated at the district level. The structural qualities of an urban street network, conceived as “semilattice”, “complex network” and “living structure”, were measured using graph-topological indicators. ![]() ![]() ![]() We translated his constructs and premises into a mathematically testable form. This study aims to test Alexander’s urban structural theory under a comprehensive research framework. Subsequent literature failed to distinguish the structural differences between the old and new cities in systematic ways, nor is his asserted structure-life relationship verified with rigor. Alexander's idea, although widely influential, remains contested for its lack of empirical support. This structural distinction can explain, or perhaps determine “the patina of life” in old urban districts and the lack of such in new ones. The latter is shaped in a graph-theoretical “tree”, which lacks the structural complexity as its sub-systems are compartmentalized into a single hierarchy. The former resembles a “semilattice”, or a complex system encompassing many interconnected sub-systems. Christopher Alexander, a British-American scholar, famously differentiated an old (natural) city from a new (planned) one in structure. ![]()
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