Zoning and Land Cover Metrics for Municipalities in Argentina (1990–2001)

This paper explores a new set of metrics conducive to a better understanding of regulation, in particular zoning regulation, its determinants and characteristics, and the analysis of spatial fragmentation of the urban built-up area over time and across municipalities in Argentina. Our aim has been to answer simple questions such as: How much the zoning of land use differs across municipalities? What is the composition of the built-up area in a given municipality? How do municipalities compare in terms of spatial fragmentation of the urban area? How did spatial fragmentation evolve in the period 1990–2001? We acknowledge that this paper is a preliminary analysis of the metrics calculated from zoning maps and satellite images. Nevertheless, it provides some suggestive insights that motivate future research. For example, the analysis of zoning indicates that residential use accounts for nearly 60 percent of the non-rural zoned area of municipalities, with a high standard deviation of nearly 20 percent. To understand this variability is an important task for future research. Future research may also use the new metrics to weight land use regulation and building parameters according to each land use zoning category and empirically test hypothesis related to the causes and consequences of land use regulation.

Keywords: Zoning, Urban and Regional Planning, Land Cover Metrics, Satellite Images, Cities in Argentina, Urban Land Use Regulation.