The spatial organization of accessibility and functional hierarchy: The case of Israel

Abstract Accessibility is a well-known basic term in spatial science and planning and is inherently related to functional aspects of places and regions. Although previous studies have examined functional systems and spatial accessibility few have attended to the association among them across geographical scales. Our study attempts to fill this gap. Using the space syntax methodology, spatial accessibility was analyzed for the entire national road network of Israel across different geographic scales – from local culminating in the national scale. The analysis was based on angular segment analyses of the road center-line network. Following this, the correlation between spatial accessibility across scales and functional performance of employment and commuting flows was examined. The study findings show a significant correspondence and exposes transitions between local, regional and national spatio-functional systems. First, a significant correlation between local (2 km radius) accessibility levels of settlements with the number of employees and commuters. Second, the regional/metropolitan system (10–15 km radius) accessibility is highly correlated to the emergence of the main employment centers. Third, the main metropolitan areas are integrated at higher scale (from 30 km radius) and form together a core region characterized by high accessibility as well as well connectivity through commuting flows. In contrast, no substantial commuting flows were found within the periphery, as well as between periphery-core. The findings show clearly that this functional structure corresponds to the multi-scale accessibility levels of settlements. We conclude that the core region functions at multiple scales (local-regional-national) while the periphery functions mostly at a local scale.