Mapping the morphology of sprawl and blight: A note on entropy

Abstract The urban expansion from the city center to suburb and beyond is indicated by Shannon entropy, a robust versatile measure of sprawl. However, metropolitan regionwide entropy masks morphology land cover use consequential within city-region. To surmount limitation, we focus on block-group, which US census defined socio-spatial unit that identifies region’s development pattern structurally, forming tracts comprise neighborhoods. concentration dispersion block-group reveals North American commonly known but rarely measured spatial structure its suburban We parcel data county assessor property (GIS) pixel National Land Cover Data (NLCD) compute land-use land-cover entropy. change in block group over decade indicates whether city- transition concentrated or dispersed pattern. Furthermore, test hypothesis blight correlates with Blight sprawl are among key factors plague region. determine correlations household income as well (block group) distance center. It turns out, universally held distance-decay phenomena. share group’s blighted properties decays (nonlinearly) Highlights for public administration, management planning: • outward growth highlighted mapping changing computed (parcel) (pixel) data. dispersion. statistical models. decrease