RESEARCH

Road networks have evolved from antiquity, driven by the need to transport people and goods from one place to another. Moreover, the individual roads themselves are the most permanent components in the urban landscape. As such, the historical development and the properties of the city may be gleaned from the records embedded in its road network. The researchers from the group explore the complexity and the evolution of modern and contemporary roads, using data sets from self-organized and planned cities, to reveal the possible global patterns and the underlying local insights about the development of the urban zones. 

The density of man-made structures is the most visual indicator of an urban system when viewed from a satellite map. At first glance, the arrangement of these structures may appear to be random and erratic, especially for the self-organized cities in countries with developing economies. The group classifies these structures and investigates the evolution of their collective development over time. We give a particular focus to the Metro Manila conurbation, the National Capital Region of the Philippines, which has a highly decentralized administration over a relatively small and dense urban area. The tools developed from our analyses may be helpful in understanding other urban zones, especially those under similar geopolitical and economic conditions.