Delimiting central business districts — A physical approach using remote sensing

Central Business Districts (CBDs) are an apparent structural type of large cities. Although the conceptual definition of CBDs is mostly functional, this urban structure type has characteristic physical features. The paper presents a conceptual framework to map these CBDs using physical parameters. We identify physical parameters from the published literature and statistically designate the CBD from a 3-D city model by the example of the test site La Defense, Paris, France. From it, we develop a method to detect CBDs from a combination of large-area Cartosat-1 high resolution digital surface models for the entire spatial extent of mega city Paris. Accuracy assessment shows that CBDs are detected with an accuracy of 83.3% and are spatially delineated with an overall accuracy of 83.7%.