The uneven distribution of morphological diversity: A global investigation on intra-urban forms

On the wake of the global urbanization the world is experiencing, urban morphology become increasingly relevant to monitor as they are both directly impacting city dwellers and informative of our societal choices. With the rise of the quality and the quantity of remote sensing derived data pertaining to urban morphology, new paths of investigations can be formulated, exploring the morphological aspects of the global urbanization. In this study, we investigated whether global disparities exist in the spatial distribution of intra-urban forms. Using a global dataset of intra-urban patterns (I-UPTs) derived from remote sensing data, we computed the Richness and Simpson Diversity Index of I-UPTs of different regions. With this, we found differences in the diversities of the different regions of up to a factor 4.3 for the Richness and up to 9.6 for the Simpson Diversity Index. Stepping on this, we conclude that the pathway of global urbanization led to a substantially uneven distribution of the intra-urban morphological diversity across the different regions of the globe.