In Pursuit of the Optimal City: Evaluation of Procedurally Generated City Layouts

In Pursuit of the Optimal City: Evaluation of Procedurally Generated City Layouts | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article In Pursuit of the Optimal City: Evaluation of Procedurally Generated City Layouts Cameron Dobbie, Anders Johansson This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7492997/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 6 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract With the world population increasing, new living areas must be created to accommodate the increased number of people. The designs of most existing cities have a series of well-documented limitations. For example, some cities have serious traffic congestion problems, while others are unsafe. There is a lot of research on methods of improving parts of existing cities, and in many cases the improvement of a city is a constant and ongoing process. However, this research is limited by a few key factors: it is applied to the designs of current cities; it typically focuses on specific, localised issues; and they typically aim to fulfil a single objective, rather than optimise all aspects of a city at once.Recently, cities such as the {\em The Line} (Neom) project in Saudi Arabia, and Brasilia and Canberra before it, have been designed and built from scratch. These projects often make bold claims that their designs are ``optimal" in some regard.To directly compare how different city structures influence the efficiency of a city, we take a principled approach by procedurally generating a series of cities of different structure using {\em CitySprout}, a novel and open-source road network generator. We generate cities and then then compare them in the context of three key metrics: road density, to quantify space efficiency; living structure, to quantify 'liveability'; and mean circuity, to quantify travel distance efficiency.We discuss the limitations of attempting to optimise cities in this way, and then conclude that the optimal city structure depends on which metric is considered most important. A Grid structure can fit the most people in a given area; an Organic structure is highly liveable; and a Line structure allows for almost direct travel across the city, with only small detours required. Procedural generation network analysis city layout L-systems road networks optimal city Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files 250830SupplementaryInformationInPursuitoftheOptimalCityEvaluationofProcedurallyGeneratedCityLayouts.pdf Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Reviewers agreed at journal 10 Nov, 2025 Reviewers agreed at journal 06 Nov, 2025 Reviewers invited by journal 04 Nov, 2025 Editor assigned by journal 02 Sep, 2025 Submission checks completed at journal 01 Sep, 2025 First submitted to journal 30 Aug, 2025 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. 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Open","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Procedural generation, network analysis, city layout, L-systems, road networks, optimal city","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7492997/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-7492997/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eWith the world population increasing, new living areas must be created to accommodate the increased number of people. The designs of most existing cities have a series of well-documented limitations. For example, some cities have serious traffic congestion problems, while others are unsafe. There is a lot of research on methods of improving parts of existing cities, and in many cases the improvement of a city is a constant and ongoing process. However, this research is limited by a few key factors: it is applied to the designs of current cities; it typically focuses on specific, localised issues; and they typically aim to fulfil a single objective, rather than optimise all aspects of a city at once.Recently, cities such as the {\\em The Line} (Neom) project in Saudi Arabia, and Brasilia and Canberra before it, have been designed and built from scratch. These projects often make bold claims that their designs are ``optimal\" in some regard.To directly compare how different city structures influence the efficiency of a city, we take a principled approach by procedurally generating a series of cities of different structure using {\\em CitySprout}, a novel and open-source road network generator. We generate cities and then then compare them in the context of three key metrics: road density, to quantify space efficiency; living structure, to quantify 'liveability'; and mean circuity, to quantify travel distance efficiency.We discuss the limitations of attempting to optimise cities in this way, and then conclude that the optimal city structure depends on which metric is considered most important. A Grid structure can fit the most people in a given area; an Organic structure is highly liveable; and a Line structure allows for almost direct travel across the city, with only small detours required.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"In Pursuit of the Optimal City: Evaluation of Procedurally Generated City Layouts","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2025-11-14 16:08:49","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7492997/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"332137691257871199658961989548224540902","date":"2025-11-10T16:03:53+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"137635638646776066662284264023800197603","date":"2025-11-06T09:58:14+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewersInvited","content":"","date":"2025-11-04T10:08:08+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorAssigned","content":"","date":"2025-09-02T09:37:53+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"checksComplete","content":"","date":"2025-09-01T06:56:08+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"submitted","content":"EPJ Data Science","date":"2025-08-30T05:42:13+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"epj-data-science","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"epds","sideBox":"Learn more about [EPJ Data Science](https://epjdatascience.springeropen.com/)","snPcode":"13688","submissionUrl":"https://submission.springernature.com/new-submission/13688/3","title":"EPJ Data Science","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"Springer Open","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"0a80cfb2-35e4-4a8c-996d-cf6d6004c6dd","owner":[],"postedDate":"November 14th, 2025","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"under-review","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-05-22T07:45:09+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2025-11-14 16:08:49","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-7492997","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-7492997","identity":"rs-7492997","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"8U1c8b4HqxoKbykW_rLl7","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}