title: Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Micro Economic Activities in Rome Reveals Patterns of Mixed-Use Urban Evolution.
abstract: Understanding urban growth is one with understanding how society evolves to satisfy the needs of its individuals in sharing a common space and adapting to the territory. We propose here a quantitative analysis of the historical development of a large urban area by investigating the spatial distribution and the age of commercial activities in the whole city of Rome. We find that the age of activities of various categories presents a very interesting double exponential trend, with a transition possibly related to the long-term economical effects determined by the oil crisis of the Seventies. The diversification of commercial categories, studied through various measures of entropy, shows, among other interesting features, a saturating behaviour with the density of activities. Moreover, different couples of commercial categories exhibit over the years a tendency to attract in space. Our results demonstrate that the spatio-temporal distribution of commercial activities can provide important insights on the urbanisation processes at work, revealing specific and non trivial socio-economical dynamics, as the presence of crisis periods and expansion trends, and contributing to the characterisation of the maturity of urban areas.
authors.affiliation: School of Mathematical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, E14NS London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fiasconaro
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Geographic Information Systems (LASIG), School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC), Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Emanuele
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Strano
authors.affiliation: School of Mathematical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, E14NS London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Vincenzo
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Nicosia
authors.affiliation: Urban Design Studies Unit, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Sergio
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Porta
authors.affiliation: School of Mathematical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, E14NS London, United Kingdom.|Dipartimento di Fisica ed Astronomia, Università di Catania and INFN, I-95123 Catania, Italy.
authors.forename: Vito
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Latora
mesh_terms: D004467:Economics; D006801:Humans; D012384:Rome; D014507:Urbanization