Comparative Analysis Of Urban Morphology: Urban Form And Future Perspectives In Nanjing And Algiers City

The continuous urban growth present today a major challenge for the proper development and functioning of cities.If this growth is not controlled and oriented,it leads in most cases to devastating effects on the environment,society and economic systems.Urban growth is a universal phenomenon,which has particularly accelerated in Africa and Asia continent.However,this development poses several problems in creating jobs,housing,energy and infrastructure and increases urban poverty,slum growth and the deterioration of the urban environment.This thesis proposes a comparative analysis between Algiers and Nanjing city's urban form.It underlines the different aspect of the urban form evolution of the two cities and explain the relation of their spatial structures and the major urban issues they are facing today.Moreover,it explores the similarities and differences of their physical structures in order to give an adequate and accurate description of the type and extent of their growth.The research will be based on a qualitative and quantitative approach and will combine different morphological methods such as Historico-geographical,spatial configuration(space syntax),typo-morphology,remote sensing and cellular automata(ca)in order to encompass profoundly the urban issues that Algiers and Nanjing are experiencing.The results obtained showed that the evolution of Algiers and Nanjing's urban form has mainly demonstrated the impact of the different events that led to the continuous change in the spatial structure of the two cities.Algiers ancient tissues remained relatively unchangeable through time where only few interventions were made,while the urban form of Nanjing kept constantly changing.The beginning of the rapid urban growth in Nanjing was considerably late.It was only in the 2000 s that urban growth began to accelerate.However,the reasons of the urban growth in Nanjing and Algiers are nearly different.We can notice that the economic and demographic growths are the two main factors that pushed Nanjing city to expand further.On the opposite side,the migration,the transportation system and the planning policies and strategies are the main factors of the urban sprawl in Algiers city.The spatial analysis of Algiers structure indicates that the city with its organic grid present lower values in most syntactic attributes than Nanjing's urban pattern.This weak physical structure is reflected in the urban congestion that Algiers is daily experiencing.Despite the fact that Nanjing has a better spatial structure than Algiers,the walkability and permeability of its urban tissues remains a major challenge to which the city must give more importance when establishing new plans.The current physical form and the idea of creating large urban blocks will encourage people to purchase more cars,thus to consume more energy.At last,the prediction of the urban land in 2030 indicates that the spatial structure of Algiers will experience more fragmentations and the growth will mainly happen in the periphery area,while Nanjing's urban growth will continuously increase and consume more and more lands.