arXiv:2507.19648v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Urban morphology has long been recognized as a factor shaping human mobility, yet comparative and formal classifications of urban form across metropolitan areas remain limited. Building on theoretical principles of urban structure and advances in unsupervised learning, we systematically classified the built environment of nine U.S. metropolitan areas using structural indicators such as density, connectivity, and spatial configuration. The resulting morphological types were linked to mobility patterns through descriptive statistics, marginal effects estimation, and post hoc statistical testing. Here we show that distinct urban forms are systematically associated with different mobility behaviors, such as reticular morphologies being linked to significantly higher public transport use (marginal effect = 0.49) and reduced car dependence (-0.41), while organic forms are associated with increased car usage (0.44), and substantial declines in public transport (-0.47) and active mobility (-0.30). These effects are statistically robust (p