Urbanization patterns and their impacts on social restructuring of urban space in Chilean mid-cities:: The case of Los Angeles, Central Chile

Urban growth patterns of Chilean mid-cities are explored, analyzing land use/land cover changes between 1955-1978 and 1978-1998 in Los Angeles, a mid-city located in central Chile. Urban sprawl is analyzed with respect to population growth and possible effects on the city's socio-spatial structure. Markov's matrix was used to analyze sequences of land use/land cover changes, whereas regression analysis was used to study the relationship between city and population growth. The study is based on remotely sensed data and processed in a GIS environment using Arcview 3.2, IDRISI, and Arc-Info N.T. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.