Spatial measures and methods in sustainable urban morphology: A systematic review

Urban morphology is examined in various disciplines as it is associated with a range of ecological, social, and economic sustainable outcomes. Yet there is a lack of clarity and consensus on measuring urban morphology indicators that will allow interdisciplinary scholarship at a city, regional, or global scale for integrated sustainable solutions. This systematic review aims to 1) develop a taxonomy of measures of urban form indicators linked to sustainable outcomes spanning environmental, economic, and social dimensions, 2) systematically summarize the quantitative methods used to analyze urban morphology-sustainability relationships, 3) identify existing research trends, gaps, and future research directions for sustainable urban morphology studies. Based on the 89 systematically searched and synthesized articles, we identified 365 unique metrics of urban morphology with a wide variability of names, operational definitions, and data used. We provided a list of these metrics classified into six aspects (i.e., urban tissue configuration, street network, building-plot characteristics, land use, natural features and greenspace, and urban growth) and their sub-categories, highlighting the most used metrics. Even though urban morphology is inherently a spatial concept, considerations of spatial models in understanding urban morphology-sustainability relationships were limited. Synthesizing nine groups of sustainable outcomes further informed that future studies should focus more on the natural features and ecosystem health of cities. This review recommended adopting a consistent classification scheme in measuring, quantifying, and assessing urban forms in relation to sustainable outcomes to facilitate interdisciplinary research as an important step to finding solutions for achieving environmental, social, and economic sustainable outcomes worldwide.