Rigour and comparison in urban morphology: Through the lens of JWR Whitehand

There are many reasons why we might want to deepen our understanding of urban environments, from the often quoted fact that over half the global population now lives in cities to the seemingly inexorable spread of common building types across the globe and the attendant loss of diversity. Or still, there is the spectre of moribund town centres and stagnating suburbs. The field of urban morphology has made significant contributions to our understanding of cities and has great potential to deepen it further. That contribution has been possible—and continues to be—in large part, because urban morphology provides a rigorous approach to the study of urban form. As argued in this chapter, the rigour of urban morphology derives to a significant degree from the active use of comparison as a core part of its methodology. The suggestion is that comparison is used not just in explicit ‘comparative studies’ but in a thoroughgoing way at a number of different levels. This suggestion is pursued through the lens of the work of Professor Jeremy Whitehand. Over his long career, Whitehand has made a significant contribution to the rigour of urban morphology through his clarity of language and terminology, consistent reference to testable general principles and his high standards of scholarship. In particular, the chapter will take Whitehand’s work on plan analysis, the fringe-belt and cross-cultural studies as topics to explore the different uses of comparison. The paper concludes by taking lessons from Whitehand’s work that point to ways in which urban morphology can consolidate and extend its contribution to our understanding of cities

On the origin of spaces: morphometric foundations of urban form evolution

The modern discipline of urban morphology gives us a ground for the comparative analysis of cities, which increasingly includes specific quantitative elements. In this paper, we make a further step forward towards the definition of a general method for the classification of urban form. We draw from morphometrics and taxonomy in life sciences to propose such method, which we name ‘urban morphometrics’. We then test it on a unit of the urban landscape named ‘Sanctuary Area’ (SA), explored in 45 cities whose origins span four historic time periods: Historic (medieval), Industrial (19th century), New Towns (post-WWII, high-rise) and Sprawl (post-WWII, low-rise). We describe each SA through 207 physical dimensions and then use these to discover features that discriminate them among the four temporal groups. Nine dimensions emerge as sufficient to correctly classify 90% of the urban settings by their historic origins. These nine attributes largely identify an area's ‘visible identity’ as reflected by three characteristics: (1) block perimeterness, or the way buildings define the street-edge; (2) building coverage, or the way buildings cover the land and (3) regular plot coverage, or the extent to which blocks are made of plots that have main access from a street. Hierarchical cluster analysis utilising only the nine key variables nearly perfectly clusters each SA according to its historic origin; moreover, the resulting dendrogram shows, just after WWII, the first ‘bifurcation’ of urban history, with the emergence of the modern city as a new ‘species’ of urban form. With ‘urban morphometrics’ we hope to extend urban morphological research and contribute to understanding the way cities evolve

Mind the gaps! A research agenda for urban interstices

Processes of urbanisation can hardly be considered without reference to the spaces that lie between developments. However, the literature on such interstitial spaces is fragmentary. In this paper we draw together insights from the extant literature into a research agenda on urban interstices. We propose a research agenda centred on four themes: the multiple geographic scales at which the interstitial spaces of urban sprawl might be analysed; the pending nature of such spaces; their planned or unplanned character and their relational properties. We develop these themes, briefly illustrating them with reference to the case of metropolitan area of Santiago de Chile. In conclusion, we emphasise some of the implications of interstitial spaces for theories of urban politics and their value in forcing inter-disciplinarity in urban studies

A temporally cyclic growth model of urban spatial morphology in China: evidence from Kunming Metropolis

Rapid urbanization and complexity of political-economic transition in China has brought about continuous and remarkable changes of urban morphology over the past decades, which were driven by a mixture of spatial, social-economic and institutional forces. Understanding such urban morphological evolution requires new mixed evidences and holistic perspectives. In this paper, it is argued that two dominant types of urban growth in China: low-density expansion and high-density infill might be driven by different forces at different stages. To interpret the processes of urban development, two easy-to-understand morphological indicators: expansion-induced investment density index” (EID) and “infill-induced investment density index” (IID) are defined to measure the investment density per unit of developed land and used to compare the morphological changes between different phases in a long period by integrating spatial and socio-economic data. The temporal variation of these indicators suggests a cyclic growth model (CGM), which means the periodic switch between low density expansion and high-density infill. Using Kunming metropolis as a case study, this paper has confirmed that its urban morphological evolution from 1950-2014 was periodically and reciprocally driven by a set of vis-à-vis dualistic dynamics, in which low-density expansion is led by pro-growth infrastructure oriented public investment, while the high-density infill is activated by collective and rational actions of individual enterprises and their economic behaviors. It is concluded that the confirmed CGM model, together with two morphological indicators, offers a new holistic perspective and method to easily and integrally interpret urban morphological evolution and accordingly has potential theoretical implications for reasonably understanding the urbanisation in China

Fringe Belts

This chapter is principally concerned with Jeremy Whitehand’s contribution to the study of urban fringe belts. However, this consideration will initially be set in a broader context relating to the general field of urban morphology as an object of study. This is because the development of urban morphology as an academic endeavour, and along with it, the study of fringe belts, has not been a straightforward linear progression. Indeed, there have been periods when, in the Anglophone world at least, the subject appeared to be on the verge of extinction. The fact that this has not occurred is in no small measure due to the efforts of JWR Whitehand. The essay will then proceed to an assessment of the major contributions made by Whitehand in the general area of fringe-belt studies. We shall then conclude with a personal assessment of Whitehand’s overall influence and academic characteristics, derived mainly, although not exclusively, from his contributions to that specific branch of urban morphology