Indicators of Urban Conditions: An Approach to Understanding the Suitability of the Compact City Paradigm

The compact city paradigm is an influential but debatable school of thought. In the current literature, the empirical findings of both sides of the debate are sometimes based on inapplicable types of cities, which leads to opposing perspectives and pieces of advice. Instead of judging whether a compact city is good or bad, this theoretical article focuses on the suitability of the compact city paradigm. It employs a counterfactual approach instead of analyzing the compact status quo. Through a qualitative content analysis, this article develops indicators of the form change rationales from 150 frequently cited academic works. Then, it develops a five-section framework that guides planners in organizing their thinking when they need to examine the suitability of a compact city approach to local contexts. It will help scholars and decision makers apply the real content of the paradigm but without considering it absolute.

Not all cities are comparable with the cases of successful compact cities. If a city has different basic conditions, industrial conditions, and social conditions, it may not be able to achieve the same benefits by employing the same principles. The suitability of the compact city paradigm depends on the appropriate timing for the policy window, the region for compactness, and the degree of compactness for the trade-offs among goals. The problem of city limits, especially the exogenous and governmental conditions, should also be considered as a social context for choosing an urban form. When planners attempt to apply the compact form of previous successful cases to their cities, they may examine whether their cities have similar suburbanization rationales as these cases following the indicators summarized in this article. This will help planners to organize the related contextual conditions in a more systematic way, as well as better respond to the challenges of the compact city paradox.