ABSTRACT
This chapter goes into greater historical depth of Liverpool’s urban spatial development. We apply analytical and visualization methods from space syntax, using the Depthmap application, to generate a set of centrality maps to compare changes to network integration over time. Depthmap generates ‘normalized’ maps, in the sense that they do not include geographic or historical information, only functional values of road segmentation. This means that we can compare network evolution on a like-for-like basis over time. We develop our analysis through a series of temporal snapshots of the road network’s evolution, from the era of expansion in the 1850s, the height of industry in the 1890s, the era of post-war expansion and restructuring in the 1950s and the contemporary network. In later chapters we turn to two case studies of community formation in Liverpool, where this phase of network analysis will help us to understand the deeper impact of the road network on spatial segmentations in these community settings.
