Urban Regions : Ecology and Planning Beyond the City

Whole regions 195

Proportion of total border length of built area in urban region

for different-sized communities (%)

London

• 
  

Berlin+Rome+Bucharest+Stockholm+Barcelona+Nantes

• 
  

Chicago+San Diego/Tijuana+Philadelphia+Ottawa•Edmonton

• 
  

Por

tland

• 
  

Atlanta

• 
  

Mexico City

• 
  

Santiago

• 
  

Brasilia+Tegucigalpa

• 
  

Iquitos

• Cairo

*

Nairobi+Bamako+East London

• 
  

Abeche

• 
  

Beijing

*

Moscow

• 
  

Seoul

*

Te h r a n

*

Sapporo+Ulaanbaatar

• 
  

Erzurum

• 
  

Kagoshima

• 
  

Bangkok

• 
  

Kuala Lumpur+Cuttack

• 
  

Samarinda

• 
  

Canberra

• 
  

Rahimyar Khan•

Europe North

America

Latin

America

Africa West-East

Asia

M

M

M

M

M

M

M M

M

M M

M

M

MM

MM M

M

M

M

M

M

M

M

M

M

M M

M M M M

M

M

M

M

M M

T

S

S

S

S

S

S S

SS

SS

S

S

S

S

SS

S

SS

S

S

S S

S

S

SS

S S

S

SS S

T

T

T

T

T

T

T

T T

T

T

T

T

T

T

T T

T

T

T

T TT

T

T

T

T

T

T

T

T T

T

T

T

T

T

T

South Asia-

Australia

Avera

ge

Geographic area, with cities from large to small population

0

20

40

60

80

S SS S S

= Metropolitan area

= Satellite cities

= Towns

M

S

T

Figure 7.18Proportion of built-area border length due to metropolitan area,

satellite cities, and towns relative to geography and city size. Border length of the

metro area and all inner and outer satellite cities was directly measured, while

length for towns was estimated from a representative sample. Cities and towns are

differentiated by area (see Color Figures 2--39). See Figure 7.2 caption.

This emphasizes that the border length of metropolitan areas matters, and is
associated with degrading the greatest area of regional greenspace. The metro-
area border plus that of nearby cities (in the inner urban-region ring) provides
about half of the total border length for the region. Greenspace in this area tends
tobe close to the huge metro-area population, which also is likely to expand
outward.
In the outer portion of the urban region, satellite cities and towns provide
theother half of the total border length. In this area many town and small-city
governments with different perspectives, mostly local, make decisions that affect