Street configurations and commercial and mixed-use land-use patterns: A morphological study of the northeastern region of Bangkok to evaluate recent transportation and land-use plans (Thailand)

This study examines the relationship between the street network configuration and the pattern of commercial and mixed-use land uses in a fast-growing region of Bangkok over a ten-year period (1990 to 2000). The goal is (1) to evaluate the efficacy of the topological configurational model referred to as "space syntax," by determining whether adding geometrical variables---distances---to the model improves its predictive capability, and (2) to evaluate Bangkok's comprehensive transportation and land-use plan, by determining whether it has had a significant spatial influence on commercial and mixed-use developments in its designated urban sub-centers.; The study's main findings are that (1) the topological measures of space syntax do not fully capture, or "internalize," the relevant information contained in geometric measures (distances), and (2) whereas the locations of commercial and mixed-use developments in the study area are significantly associated with syntax measures of the street network configuration, they are only weakly associated with the locations of the Comprehensive Plan's designated sub-centers. This indicates that the Comprehensive Plan has not been successful at directing new commercial and mixed-use developments to planned urban sub-centers.; More generally, the study's findings suggest that land-use and transportation plans will be more likely to succeed if planners take the relationship between the street network configuration and target land uses identified in this study into account when deciding where to locate potential new urban sub-centers, and when designing the transportation network intended to support those sub-centers.