Cities Morphology by Liuhuaying Yang

The shape of a city matters. It influences the travel distances and energy consumption of its inhabitants. However, understanding how different city layout parameters—such as elongation and sprawl—impact a city can be challenging.
Therefore, the interactive visualization tool Cities Morphology allows users to design towns and cities based on key layout parameters, including shape, size, and density. These cities accommodate a user-defined population size and adhere to the specified layout parameters. The tool simulates inhabitants traveling through the virtual streets of the user-created city, providing insights into the average travel distance and energy consumption associated with that city.
Cities Morphology is an interactive tool for exploring different urban planning paradigms. Instead of analyzing existing cities, it takes the inverse approach and shows the effects of varying city constructions. The visualization illustrates the impact of these varying layouts on travel distance, energy consumption, and area, offering an easily relatable explanation of different urban planning paradigms and key insights into their effects.