On the Characteristics of Housing Spatial Structure and Location Selection of Residential Communities: A Case Study of Wuhan City

With the deepening of the housing system reform in China, the residential spatial structure has graduallyassumed a complex shape along with its tremendous changes in Wuhan city. It is very crucial and necessary toshow the city’s housing spatial structure in order to guide the city’s housing development and administration.Based on current statistic data and field survey, this paper tries to open up the spatial law of residentialcommunities of Wuhan city, by means of GIS, from the quantitative and empirical points of view.As far as housing spatial structure is concerned, the three characteristics on the spatial development ofresidential communities are identified: (1) the housing is stretching towards surroundings with ring andwedged structure; (2) residential communities distribution in urban district is concentrating; (3) on the otherhand, the amount distribution of residential communities in the suburbs are examined, mainly along maintraffic lines.Meanwhile, based on the above analysis of the housing spatial structure, the characteristics on residential location selection of residential communities are also put forward: (1) residential communities developmentand distribution are mainly concentrated along main traffic lines to obtain more convenient location; (2)moreover, a great many of residential communities have distributed around some lakes and along Yangtze orHanjiang River. So, it is thought much of gradually for the whole city’s residents to obtain the betteraccessibility and surroundings.