Dynamics of periurban spatial structures: investigating differentiated patterns of change on Oporto’s urban fringe

In this paper we describe the evolution of the urban grids of five case studies from the urban fringe of the Oporto Metropolitan Area throughout the last fifty years. We use a cartographic redrawing technique to recreate their street networks at four different historical moments and space syntax to explore their configurational evolution. Besides the confirmation of space syntax as a particularly relevant tool for the analysis and planning of peripheral urban areas, the study clarifies the configurational differences between rural and urban grids, provides evidence of different suburban growth patterns, and demonstrates strong relationships between such patterns and the evolution of the system’s syntactic intelligibility.