Accessibility and urban development: a grid-based comparative statistical analysis of Dutch cities

Accessibility has become a key issue in modern urban planning. This paper aims to identify the impact of differences in spatial accessibility on the development of the built environment in cities. Using a few simple accessibility indicators, it tries to map out in a quantitative way the detailed implications of accessibility conditions for built-up areas, on the basis of a rm25;mtimes25;m grid cell approach. The statistical tool used here is logistic regression, followed by a GIS representation of the empirical results for four Dutch cities: Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, and Utrecht.