Seventeenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

Technological innovations, private motorization increase, spreading out of the new neo-liberal economic paradigm, and globalization, have transformed the spatial structure of cities, generating new territorial morphologies. In this scenario, defining the city edge has become increasingly more complex and the dichotomous idea of countryside vs. city tends to fade into a dispersed gradient, highly heterogeneous and with hybrid and complex dynamics. Through satellite images interpretation in a 10 years gap -with GIS tools- and landscape metrics calculation in 64 1 ha samples, along 6 transects, this study analyzes the particularities of the spatial composition in the urban-rural gradient of the Metropolitan District of Quito, in order to understand its morphological complexity and the factors that have determined its expansion patterns. The results show that currently there is a scattered pattern of growth that tends to fragment natural and ecological protection zones, causing environmental risks. Likewise, agricultural production areas have been reduced, affecting the city’s food sovereignty. Finally, it was observed that new road mega-infrastructures and land price are the factors that have most accelerated the intensive built development, regardless of its distance to the urban center.