This study aims for necessity of development or management premised upon urban spatial characteristics of inner-city railway station areas, and analyzes the relationship between railway station areas and residential areas as the commercialization char...
This study aims for necessity of development or management premised upon urban spatial characteristics of inner-city railway station areas, and analyzes the relationship between railway station areas and residential areas as the commercialization characteristics of residential districts. It is necessary to develop or manage railway station areas according to apparent interests in existing urban space so as to improve various problems including excessive development centering on railway station areas, inflexible use zoning which cannot react properly to functional transition, twilight zones of metropolitan life environment and others. As one method to understand railway station areas, therefore, I analyze the commercialization characteristics of residential areas which are revealed from the relationship between a station and a residential district.
My research methods include as followings; first, I selected physical elements of urban structure from a pre-study on the books and preceding research from various fields related to railway station areas and residential commercialization; also, I chose typical cases of railway station areas to be proper to analyze the characteristics of residential commercialization; in order to investigate the cases, lastly, I reclassified neighborhood living facilities and performed the case analysis of the residential commercialization characteristics with adopting and applying the residential commercialization index to the neighborhood living facilities.
Establishing the 6 standards of selection appropriate for my research purpose and point of view on analysis, I select six research cases out of total 347 stations. In addition, I re-establish the concept of ‘Commercial facilities of residential districts’ based on the relation with residential areas as a substitutable facility class for the present legal facility classification of neighborhood facilities, which, is on the other hand, based on a simple area standard. I subdivide it into four categories based on residents’ activities and neighboring life; daily necessary commercial facilities, daily convenience commercial facilities, neighborhood commercial facilities and adult commercial facilities. So as to measure the commercial degree in residential areas, I introduce ‘Commercial index of residential areas’ imposing a weighting based on the damage degree of those facilities to residential life environments; this is from the theories of Urban Housing, Urban Sociology and Criminal Psychology.
I also analyze the commercial characteristics of residential districts around railway station areas by investigating their relation with the physical elements of urban space of railway station area including use zoning, roads, blocks and landforms. The main contents of my research are as followings;
The part of use zoning falls into three categories; 1) use zoning and commercialization of residential districts, 2) block locations and areas of commercial /semi-residential /3rd-residential areas and commercialization of residential districts and 3) the sorts of facilities in the blocks of commercial /semi-residential /3rd-residential areas and residential commercialization. As a result, use zoning is defined as the element for a subordinate role of commercialization of residential areas. Especially, I found out that commercial /semi-residential /3rd-residential areas function as the element to increase commercialization of residential districts.
Centralized arrangement of commercial /semi-residential areas among commercial /semi-residential /3rd-residential areas to first inner-city railway station area makes a large effect on commercialization of residential districts. The residential blocks located near commercial /semi-residential /3rd-residential areas show more commercialized number of lands than regular residential blocks do. As for the sort of facilities as well, they have more neighboring activity and special commercialized facilities than daily necessary and convenience facilities. In addition, the roads adjacent to commercial /semi-residential /3rd-residential area blocks have longer spreading length for commercialization of residential areas than regular roads do. As for the sort of facilities, more neighboring activity /special commercialized facilities spread into the inner side of residential areas on the roads adjacent to commercial /semi-residential /3rd-residential area blocks. When we look into the commercial degrees of residential blocks adjacent to commercial /semi-residential /3rd-residential areas, the highest is that of commercial areas, followed by ones of semi-residential areas and 3rd-residential areas. The more sides of residential blocks are adjacent to those areas, the more commercialized is the residential blocks. Regarding the phased placement of the blocks of commercial /semi-residential /3rd-residential areas, the cases over a certain floating population display maximization of commercialization of residential districts; the cases under a certain floating population shows little commercialization.
The commercial degrees of commercialization in commercial /semi-residential /3rd-residential blocks and residential blocks are in inverse proportion to the distance to the station. It is also confirmed that the total size of commercial /semi-residential /3rd-residential areas does not preferentially have an effect on commercialization of residential areas. When the total size of the use zoning is broad and it has a small floating population, the territory and index are low for commercialization of residential areas; when the total size is small and it has a large floating population, the territory and index are high. The commercial influence on adjacent residential blocks displays a different index in the commercial figure and the number of facilities, according to the sorts of commercial facilities in commercial /semi-residential /3rd-residential areas. The commercial figure has a positive influence on commercialization of residential areas when they have more neighboring activity and Adult commercial facilities; the number of commercialized facilities has a positive influence on it when they have more life convenience and neighboring activity commercial facility.
The Road is categorized and analyzed into the following four contents; 1) the system of roads and commercialization of residential areas, 2) the linear form of roads and commercialization of residential areas, 3) non-residential facilities adjacent to roads and commercialization of residential areas, and 4) street furniture and commercialization of residential areas. As a result, the road is analyzed as the most influential element for commercialization of residential areas out of four physical elements.
Residential areas become commercialized primarily on broad roads and high ranked roads in the road hierarchy (the road directly connected to the quadrant road at a right angle). Especially, in case that the road with over eight meter width is adjacent to commercial /semi-residential /3rd-residential areas, commercial facilities are spread to the boundary of the secondary railway station areas. When a station is adjacent to a six meter wide road directly connected to quadrant roads, the area becomes commercialized by neighboring/Adult commercial facilities. On the contrary, the areas adjacent to the roads distant from a station become commercialized by daily necessity/life convenience facilities. The roads between these roads become commercialized both neighboring/Adult commercial facilities and daily necessity/life convenience facilities.
The road width is a decisive element of commercialization of residential areas; when two roads have the same width, the one with sidewalks is more effective to become commercialized in residential areas. In case of over eight meter wide roads, commercialization occurs first ahead of other physical elements. Over six meter wide roads have a large floating population; when the roads are located in a secondary railway station area and directly connected to a quadrant road, or when the roads are not directly connected to the quadrant road but located in the first railway station area, commercialization occurs. The roads with four-five meter width hardly happen to be commercialized. On the contrary, I could not find out any relevancy of commercialization of residential areas with the sum of total length of road width, the total size, or the sum of length of road width and the sum of land sizes. As for the frontage width of residential area blocks and the distance from stations, it is confirmed that the frontage width has priority to the distance from stations for commercialization of residential areas.
The nonlinear roads and the discontinuous positions of facilities on roads are the elements to prevent spreading of commercialization of residential areas.
The sidewalk among street furniture functions as an element to spread commercialization of residential areas. On the other hand, street planting and on-street parking facilities such as ‘Residential Parking Permit Section’ work as an element to prevent commercialization of residential areas.
As for the part of block, I categorize 1) block arrangement and commercialization of residential areas, 2) block forms and commercialization of residential areas and 3) sizes of blocks/number of lands and commercialization of residential areas. Consequently, it is analyzed that the block has an important role to adjust accessibility to residential areas and to decide the range of railway stations areas, impacting on the spreading and degrees of commercialization of total residential areas in each quadrant space.
As block arrangements can decide accessibility to residential areas, the block arrangement with many residential roads directly connected to quadrant roads show high commercial index and the range is wide. On the other hand, the arrangement with few residential roads connected to quadrant roads display low index and small range.
The formal block form is more effective for commercialization of residential areas than informal forms are.
Since the length of blocks is adjusted according to the conditions of case lots, I could not find the blocks with a certain size and analyze its relation with commercialization of residential districts. The number of lands in blocks plays a decisive role for commercialization of residential areas in quadrant space with a flatland in grid type urban structure. The bigger number of lands in blocks is, the higher is the commercial degree of residential areas; the smaller, the lower. When two blocks have same number of lands adjacent to outer roads, the blocks composed of three or four columns instead of two columns show higher commercial figures. That is, when the number of lands adjacent to outer roads, the more number in blocks, the higher the commercial figures.
The precipitous land form is defined as an important element to prevent commercialization of residential areas due to its bad convenience of walk. Commercialization of residential areas scarcely occurs from gradient 2.4° on the roads under eight meter width of first railway station areas. Commercialization does not occur from gradient 1.3° on the roads under eight meter width of secondary railway station areas. In other words, the farther is the distance between residential blocks and exits of stations and the narrower the road width is, the lower the gradient which does not occur commercialization is.
This study is effective to analyze the spreading range and the commercial degree of commercialization of residential areas per each railway station area, and to apply to the criteria for the range of development and management of railway station areas or urban design district. Instead of a flat district standard such as 250 meters or 500 meters, this study introduces an effective standard based on the commercialized degree so as to apply it to development and establishment of management range of railway station areas. If a railway station area is managed while they keep the present use zoning, they can decide to elevate or decline the use zoning according to commercialization of residential areas. In other words, it is possible to designate use zoning to promote or to suppress commercialization according to the goal of management. If you want to apply a new concept of use zoning, you can use it as an auxiliary means to designate the location and area for each railway station area.
In conclusion, this study is meaningful to suggest a city planning approach which manages railway station areas by physical conditions of the areas, out of the flat management attitude for railway station areas regardless of characteristics of each railway station area, according as it also presents the empirical materials for the standard of commercialization in order to show the relation between railway station areas and residential areas.