Study On The Morphological Differences Between Districts Based On Block Attribute

As the physical vector of human activities, Cities have their unique features and images at different scales whatever about urban patterns or about spatial structures. These differences make cities identifiable and distinguishable. As the fundamental element of the physical structure of urban areas, urban block is always the important content of city studies. It would seem essential to have factual information about the attributes and arrangements of blocks employed in understanding cities and meeting different urban purposes. This paper selects blocks as the basic unit, trying to unveil the morphological differences between cities through the comparative analysis of block attributes.In the traditional urban morphology research, western researchers attempt to use the properties of different sizes and shapes of blocks to discriminate cities. However, in China which urban environment is more complex, whether we can unveil the morphological differences between cities in the same way. Based on their studies, this paper combines with China’s complex urban environment and extracts block attributes to examine whether the conclusions is still correct.The test case consists of two neighborhoods in Nanjing, China that are adjacent but different in character, the one is old city, and another is Hexi new-town. This paper carries out date reduction by CAD on the samples whose fabric is relatively protected according the exiting materials and integrates dates by GIS, constructing a date-base with plot and sub-block, block. According to the different levels of city road, the city can present the dimensions of urban fabric and spatial structure at different scales. With the statistical analysis of block attributes, this paper focuses on the research if we can use block attribute to discriminate between old city and Hexi new-town, and in which level we can solve problem.