From Historical Resiliency to Future Potential: A Comparative Review of Urban Form, Livability, and Resilience

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-475-4_88How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Urban Evolution; Livability; Resilience; Smart Infrastructure

Abstract

This study looks inside at how a city’s street grid and parcel pattern affect its ability to stay livable, withstand climate shocks, and embrace digital technology is still poorly understood. We develop an integrated GIS framework that links three layers—historical morphology, present-day livability, and climate-disaster resilience—to a fourth layer, smart-infrastructure readiness, in three coastal cities—Manhattan (USA), Havana (Cuba), and Sanya (China). Open-source spatial data are harmonized, key indicators are calculated, and spatial statistics reveal cross-theme interactions. Findings show that fine-grain blocks favor walkable access to daily services, whereas generous parcels make large public parks easier to supply; neither attribute alone guarantees overall livability. Dense canyon streets in Manhattan trap night-time heat, making extreme heat the borough’s most lethal climate hazard, while Havana’s orthogonal waterfront grid funnels storm surge, and Sanya’s super-blocks require sponge basins to temper typhoon runoff. Historic street permeability also proves to be a reliable predictor of where small-cell networks can be installed quickly and cheaply, confirming that urban form sets both the cost and coverage of smart infrastructure. Last but not least, the study argues that resilience and digital equity should be planned together: smart sensors and broadband can compensate for physical deficits—whether tree-shade gaps or service deserts—but only if the networks are themselves designed to survive the very hazards they are meant to manage.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Yajing Ma
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/11/11
TI  - From Historical Resiliency to Future Potential: A Comparative Review of Urban Form, Livability, and Resilience
BT  - Proceedings of the 2025 10th International Conference on Modern Management, Education and Social Sciences (MMET 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 789
EP  - 800
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-475-4_88
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-475-4_88
ID  - Ma2025
ER  -