Mapping Urban Morphology: A Classification Scheme for Interpreting Contributions to the Study of Urban Form

Urban morphology is a thriving field of enquiry involving researchers from a wide diversity of disciplinary, linguistic and cultural backgrounds. While this diversity has helped advance our understanding of the complexity of urban form, confusion and controversy has also arisen over the various theoretical formulations forwarded by researchers from different philosophical and epistemological backgrounds. With the aim of improving intelligibility in the field, this paper proposes a straightforward scheme to identify, classify and interpret, or ‘map’, individual contributions to the study of urban form according to their respective theoretical or epistemological perspectives. Drawing upon epistemological discussions familiar to the readers of this journal, the authors first distinguish between cognitive and normative studies. A second distinction is made between internalist studies that consider urban form as a relatively independent system, and externalist studies in which urban form stands as a passive product of various external determinants. Using these basic criteria, it is possible to interpret and synthesize a multitude of contributions and map them using a simple Cartesian grid. The paper highlights how contributions from seemingly different theoretical approaches to urban morphology are intrinsically similar in their treatment of urban form as an object of enquiry

‘Buried Beneath the Waves’: Using GIS to Examine the Physical and Social Impact of a Historical Flood

Natural disasters such as floods can periodically disturb and destroy the built and social fabric of communities. Despite their importance, specific ramifications of natural disasters can be overlooked in local histories due to a paucity of data. In this article we bring together several disparate sources of data within a historical geographic information system (HGIS) to study certain physical and social details of the flood which devastated the Town of London West, Canada on 11 July 1883. The integration of historical and contemporary data sources allow for the construction of a three-dimensional model of where the flood likely occurred. With the location of the flood determined, it is possible to discern which residents were impacted and the legacy of the disaster on the community. This study demonstrates how digital technologies such as GIS can help provide a richer understanding of urban and environmental history

Mapping the Evolution of \u27Food Deserts\u27 in a Canadian City: Supermarket Accessibility in London, Ontario, 1961–2005

Background: A growing body of research suggests that the suburbanization of food retailers in North America and the United Kingdom in recent decades has contributed to the emergence of urban \u27food deserts\u27, or disadvantaged areas of cities with relatively poor access to healthy and affordable food. This paper explores the evolution of food deserts in a mid-sized Canadian city (London, Ontario) by using a geographic information system (GIS) to map the precise locations of supermarkets in 1961 and 2005; multiple techniques of network analysis were used to assess changing levels of supermarket access in relation to neighbourhood location, socioeconomic characteristics, and access to public transit. Results: The findings indicate that residents of inner-city neighbourhoods of low socioeconomic status have the poorest access to supermarkets. Furthermore, spatial inequalities in access to supermarkets have increased over time, particularly in the inner-city neighbourhoods of Central and East London, where distinct urban food deserts now exist. Conclusion: Contrary to recent findings in larger Canadian cities, we conclude that urban food deserts exist in London, Ontario. Policies aimed at improving public health must also recognize the spatial, as well as socioeconomic, inequities with respect to access to healthy and affordable food. Additional research is necessary to better understand how supermarket access influences dietary behaviours and related health outcomes

Mapping the evolution of 'food deserts' in a Canadian city: Supermarket accessibility in London, Ontario, 1961–2005

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A growing body of research suggests that the suburbanization of food retailers in North America and the United Kingdom in recent decades has contributed to the emergence of urban 'food deserts', or disadvantaged areas of cities with relatively poor access to healthy and affordable food. This paper explores the evolution of food deserts in a mid-sized Canadian city (London, Ontario) by using a geographic information system (GIS) to map the precise locations of supermarkets in 1961 and 2005; multiple techniques of network analysis were used to assess changing levels of supermarket access in relation to neighbourhood location, socioeconomic characteristics, and access to public transit.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The findings indicate that residents of inner-city neighbourhoods of low socioeconomic status have the poorest access to supermarkets. Furthermore, spatial inequalities in access to supermarkets have increased over time, particularly in the inner-city neighbourhoods of Central and East London, where distinct urban food deserts now exist.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Contrary to recent findings in larger Canadian cities, we conclude that urban food deserts exist in London, Ontario. Policies aimed at improving public health must also recognize the spatial, as well as socioeconomic, inequities with respect to access to healthy and affordable food. Additional research is necessary to better understand how supermarket access influences dietary behaviours and related health outcomes.</p

...to produce the highest type of manhood and womanhood : The Ontario Housing Act, 1919, and a New Suburban Ideal

While most scholars generally focus on the failings of the post-WWI Federal-Provincial housing scheme in Canada, we contend that it had far-reaching implications for three major facets of urbanism: housing policy, town planning, and residential architecture. We do so primarily through an examination of the impacts of the Ontario Housing Act, 1919, in the context of contemporary visions of ideal residential environments. In the 1920s, a major reconceptualization of planning and architecture generated a new ideology of house, home and city which intended to remake existing cities and to create new, efficient and healthy settlements. The ideal city featured increasingly similar, but separate, working-and middle-class homes and neighbourhoods, as well as the sharper definition of functionally specific spaces within the home and the city. State-designed and state-sanctioned working-class housing associated with the housing scheme represented a practical attempt to realize these new ideals on the ground. Since a suburban context was integral to these ideals, we maintain that planning and architecture in 1920s Canada amounted to a new suburban ideal

The Study of Urban Form in Canada

This paper examines contributions to the study of urban form in Canada by French and English researchers working in a variety of disciplines, especially architecture, planning, geography, and history. Instead of discussing contributions purely along traditional linguistic or disciplinary lines, the authors use a novel classification scheme to identify and categorize significant works according to their particular epistemological perspective, before describing noteworthy contributions of various academic disciplines by key authors and research themes. The most significant contributions to the study of urban form in Canada have come from two largely isolated camps: first, architects/planners, mostly from Québec, who examine form as a relatively independent system and work in the tradition of the so-called ‘Italian school’ of process typology; and secondly, predominantly anglophone urban and historical geographers who deal with built forms and urban morphogenesis as a product of external forces. Recent work suggests that the ‘two solitudes’ may be coming together

Claims on Housing Space in Nineteenth-Century Montreal

Space per person is a fundamental measure of equity in an urban society. From small samples of the Montreal population over the years 1861-1901, we infer substantial improvement in the average dwelling space available per person, but an extreme and persistent inequity in the distribution among households. The housing market remained polarised in terms of class and cultural identity. As crowding diminished, urban density increased, and the problem of working-class housing became, increasingly, one of collective rather than individual space. Families, through networks of kinship and neighbouring, found new ways to exert some control over vital urban micro-spaces. In a continuous, demanding process of adjustment of households to dwellings, the re-structuring of households was a factor as important as their moves from house to house

“All the world’s a stage”: A GIS framework for recreating personal time-space from qualitative and quantitative sources

This article presents a methodological model for the study of the space‐time patterns of everyday life. The framework utilizes a wide range of qualitative and quantitative sources to create two environmental stages, social and built, which place and contextualize the daily mobilities of individuals as they traverse urban environments. Additionally, this study outlines a procedure to fully integrate narrative sources in a GIS. By placing qualitative sources, such as narratives, within a stage‐based GIS, researchers can begin to tell rich spatial stories about the lived experiences of segregation, social interaction, and environmental exposure. The article concludes with a case study utilizing the diary of a postal clerk to outline the wide applicability of this model for space‐time GIS research

Examining the Social and Built Environment Factors Influencing Children’s Independent Use of Their Neighborhoods and the Experience of Local Settings as Child-Friendly

Neighborhoods have traditionally served as important settings for children’s independent activities, but use has declined dramatically. Global positioning system (GPS) monitors, activity diaries, annotated maps, and Google Earth–enabled interviews captured the neighborhood perceptions, usage, and independent activity ranges of twenty-three children (nine to twelve years) from London, Canada. While few participants used neighborhood settings on a habitual basis, local parks and homes of nearby friends were important independent destinations. Usage was strongly influenced by positive and negative social conditions, but local environments did not generally cater well to the shifting interests of resident children. Embedding child-friendly affordances through neighborhood planning may improve children’s experience and independent use of local settings