A methodological framework for defining city dipoles in urban systems based on a functional attribute

Abstract

Within the context of the growth poles theory, the areas that lack critical sizes, instead of polycentric structures, develop restricted urban “dipoles” and “tripoles” that are often not studied in the literature within a well-defined context. This paper aims to conceptualize these peculiar urban structures more deeply. It configures a methodological framework quantitatively defining dipoles and polycentric structures through edge distribution partitioning. The analysis is applied to Greek commuting data at the intercity and interregional geographical scale, defining dipoles within a more realistic empirical context comparatively to the percentile and boxplot outlier detection. Overall, the proposed method has a scale-free property due to its structural than numeric configuration and contributes to a more realistic detection of city dipoles, providing insights into the effect of scale and polycentrism in urban structures. © 2021 Elsevier Ltd