Urban form and COVID-19 cases and deaths in Greater London : an urban morphometric approach

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Venerandi, Alessandro and Aiello, Luca Maria and Porta, Sergio (2023) Urban form and COVID-19 cases and deaths in Greater London : an urban morphometric approach. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 50 (5). pp. 1228-1243. ISSN 2399-8091 (https://doi.org/10.1177/23998083221133397)

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Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic generated a considerable debate in relation to urban density. This is an old debate, originated in mid 19th century’s England with the emergence of public health and urban planning disciplines. While popularly linked, evidence suggests that such relationship cannot be generally assumed. Furthermore, urban density has been investigated in a spatially coarse manner (predominantly at city level) and never contextualised with other descriptors of urban form. In this work, we explore COVID-19 and urban form in Greater London, relating a comprehensive set of morphometric descriptors (including built-up density) to COVID-19 deaths and cases, while controlling for socioeconomic, ethnicity, age and co-morbidity. We describe urban form at individual building level and then aggregate information for official neighbourhoods, allowing for a detailed intra-urban representation. Results show that: (i.) control variables significantly explain more variance of both COVID-19 cases and deaths than the morphometric descriptors; (ii.) of what the latter can explain, built-up density is indeed the most associated, though inversely. The typical London neighbourhood with high levels of COVID-19 infections and deaths resembles a suburb, featuring a low-density urban fabric dotted by larger free-standing buildings and framed by a poorly inter-connected street network.

ORCID iDs

Venerandi, Alessandro ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4887-0120, Aiello, Luca Maria and Porta, Sergio;
  • Item type:Article
    ID code:82715
    Dates:
    Date
    Event
    June 2023
    Published
    14 October 2022
    Published Online
    27 September 2022
    Accepted
    Subjects:Fine Arts > Architecture
    Department:Faculty of Engineering > Architecture
    Depositing user: Pure Administrator
    Date deposited:12 Oct 2022 14:02
    Last modified:12 Dec 2024 13:52
    URI:https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/82715
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