Contrast or Continuum? The Creation and Application of an Urban Gradient Index Using Remotely Sensed Imagery and GIS

John R. Weeks, San Diego State University

Urban places are more complex and variable than ever before and rural places are more urban-like than ever before. These transformations suggest that an urban gradient may be more useful for social science research than a dichotomy. A wide range of urban indices have been proposed and tested over the years, but most of these have been concerned largely with measuring the extent of urban places, rather than measuring variability within urban places, or measuring the urban aspects of rural places. Two spatial technologies—remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS)--permit us to go beyond the indices that have been proposed in the literature to this point. Using these techniques, I build and test an urban gradient index that assigns an urbanness score to a particular location, and then I discuss the usefulness of such an index.