l Arkham 2006

Urban Morphology (2006) 10(2), 117-41 International Seminar on Urban Form, 2006 ISSN 1027-4278

The study of urban form in Great Britain

Peter J. LarkhamSchool of Property, Construction and Planning, UCE Birmingham, Perry Barr,

Birmingham, B42 2SU, UK. E-mail: [email protected]

Revised version received 25 May 2006

Abstract. This paper examines the history of the study of urban form in GreatBritain, tracing its origins, the development of an indigenous strand of work,and the introduction of M.R.G. Conzens ideas. Urban form is definedunusually widely, as many disparate strands of work have an influence uponthat definition as currently conceived, including the consideration of agentsand agency in urban change. Methods and techniques are discussed, fromConzenian plan analysis to computers and fractals. The main disciplinaryfocus is geographical, but studies from a broad range of other disciplines arealso considered.

Key Words: urban morphology, urban form, urban design, history, Great Britain

This review surveys the key literature andconcepts in the study of urban form in GreatBritain. It includes literature on British townsby non-British scholars (but not by Britishscholars on non-British locations). Ireland asa whole is excluded. Relevant materialirrespective of discipline is reviewed,including material by scholars who would nothave considered their work in the perspectiveof urban morphology. However, it isnoticeable that studies of urban form per se inBritain have most often been undertaken bygeographers, and this is plain in the balance ofcitations. Although much British geographicalurban morphology has been heavily influencedby M.R.G. Conzen and central Europeantraditions, a number of other strands can beidentified.1 However, one of the maintraditions largely absent here, certainly incomparison with Europe, is typo-morphology.

The study of urban form has developed inseveral directions over the past three decades,amongst which the historical one isparticularly strong. But interest in thehistorical development of urban landscapes hasnot been limited to scholars concerned

primarily with the past. Much of the recentwork by geographers and others with profes-sional interests in contextual architecture andthe planning, or management, of urban land-scapes attaches considerable importance to thesurvival, and contemporary treatment, of urbanand architectural forms created by previousgenerations. Furthermore, urban morph-ologists have not limited their attention to anarrow conception of urban form, but havecome to examine the individuals, organizationsand processes shaping that form. Therefore,the definition of urban morphology adoptedhere is broad (cf. Larkham and Jones, 1991, p.55). This differs from the conceptions ofurban morphology in, for example, urbandesign (Gebauer and Samuels, 1981). Urbandesigners also often use other terms, includingurban history, to denote urban form and itsdevelopment over time (Butina, 1987).

The decline and resurgence of urbanmorphology

It is significant that, reviewing research onurban change in Britain as recently as the late

118 The study of urban form in Great Britain

1980s, Fielding and Halford (1990, p. 10)should draw attention to the relative lack ofresearch on the physical form of cities. Thisseems to have been unduly pessimistic in thelight of more recent developments, but didaccurately reflect a decline in the amount ofwork, and in perceptions of the relevance ofthat work, in the 1960s and 1970s.

The history of geographical urban morph-ology during the first half of the twentiethcentury, and its diverse research traditions,have been the subject of substantial inquiry(Slater, 1990a; Whitehand, 1981a, 1987a,b,2001a), although much of this work has beenconcerned with the urban morphogenetictradition and the central role played in it byM.R.G. Conzen. There is, however, whatcould be termed an indigenous Britishgeographical tradition dealing with theconcepts of urban morphology, urban formand townscape. Noteworthy amongst thoseworking in this tradition is R.E. Dickinson,although his comparative surveys are largelymorphographic (e.g. of East Anglian towns:Dickinson, 1934).

During the Second World War andimmediate post-war years a new approach tothe urban landscape became evident in Britisharchitectural and planning thought, with thecoining and promotion of the term townscape(cf. Bandini, 1992). The term urban land-scape was used in the prominent journalArchitectural Review in 1944, and its editorswere using townscape in 1949 (Erten, 2004).Gordon Cullen developed townscape as avisual analytical tool, using sketches andinformative captions, first in a series ofillustrated reports in the Architectural Review(of which he was Assistant Editor, Art) andthen a book which has remained a classic textin urban design (Cullen, 1949, 1961). Thetown planner Thomas Sharp used a differentconception of townscape: it was a way oflooking, a broader interconnected approach tourban landscape than Cullens snapshots(Sharp, 1968, chapter 3).

The indigenous geographical urbanmorphologists were quick to adopt these terms.However, they were less interested in concept-ualizations of process than in description and

classification, exemplified by Smailesscharacterizations of present townscapes inbroad terms, based on rapid reconnaissancesurveys (Smailes, 1955) or Stedmansdescriptive approach to Birminghams urbanlandscape (Stedman, 1958). Thurston under-took a wide-ranging morphological study of StAlbans, but his published paper gave littleweight to his data on the building fabric(Thurston, 1953; compare with Slaters plan-analysis, 1998). Urban landscapes were oftenseen almost solely in terms of the land usesthat they contained (e.g. House and Fullerton,1955). This led to contemporary criticism ofthis approach as neglecting the inherentdynamism and producing merely a synopticstudy of a town at a particular time with littleor no reference to the forces at work withinand without the town which may cause itscondition to change (this from an Australian:King, 1962, p. 280). Townscape was usedvirtually as a synonym for urban landscape(see Johns, 1965: a geographical study butwith artistic influence); it was generally asubject for objective measurement and analysisrather than, as for the urban designer, ananalytical approach involving valuejudgements. The indigenous non-Conzeniantradition still persists, although more recentpapers are clearly informed by theoreticaldevelopment (Carter, 1990; Gordon, 1990).

During these years, however, seriousscholars from any discipline or profession were few, and they produced few publications whether merely descriptive or moreanalytical. Conzens own work, particularlythe landmark monograph on the town-plananalysis of Alnwick (Conzen, 1960), were richin concepts. Some of these have been furtherdeveloped in terms of detailed plan analysis(see below). His papers on city-centre form(1962), historical townscapes and historicity(1966, 1975) also spurred many developments.Even so, the number of Conzenianmorphologists has, strictly speaking, beensmall. The key characteristics of what hasbecome known as the Conzenian school havebeen described by Whitehand (2001a).

In the later 1960s and early 1970s, researchon urban form was less susceptible than many

The study of urban form in Great Britain 119

branches of geography to the quantitativerevolution. Nevertheless, this was a periodwhen various quantitative methods weredeveloped (although some, despite their titles,appear peripheral in their application to urbanform: e.g. Grimshaw et al., 1970). Studiesemploying them were largely morphographic,describing physical forms rather thananalysing their origins and development. Theywere largely ahistorical, even when theyconsidered the survival and distribution ofhistorical buildings (Davies, 1968). At thisperiod concepts based on economics and thestudy of land-use patterns were developed inthe United States and widely diffused.Daviess 1968 paper used Welsh examples tolink form with changing land use. However,the perspective of the urban geographers whoadopted these concepts was morphologicalonly in its concern with land-use patterns:town plan and building form were generallytreated only as land-use containers, ifconsidered at all (Whitehand, 1987a, p. 255).The number of researchers with a historicalperspective on urban form grew only veryslowly. Yet some relevant work was beingdone in other disciplines, including urbanhistory and archaeology (Barley, 1976). Astonand Bond (1976), though now better-known inarchaeology, were originally Birminghamhistorical geographers in the tradition of HarryThorpe. By 1970 urban morphology wascharacterized by Carter as having long been abarren outpost of urban geography requiringrescue (Carter, 1970, p. 76). Fourteen yearslater, his view had apparently not changedgreatly, for he regarded the subject as havingbeen

largely unaffected by those changing orshifting paradigms which supposedly havedominated geographical methodology.Quantitative analysis merely brushedineffectually the periphery of morphologicalstudies, while the present destruction ofbuildings is seen not in terms of its welfareconsequences but rather in its impact on thecultural inheritance. More recent consider-ations of the structure of socio-politicalsystems and their determinant organisation ofspace have again had little impact other than

on the most general of scales (Carter, 1984,p. 145).

Although publications dealing with thephysical form of urban areas became moreevident during the 1980s, they formed only 12per cent of geographical papers on the internalstructure of cities in the middle of the decade(Whitehand, 1986). In Britain, the major focusof geographical exploration of urban land-scapes had, by then, become the UrbanMorphology Research Group in the School ofGeography at the University of Birmingham,with its focus on the Conzenian morphologicaltradition. This has since been referred to as theBritish school (Moudon, 1997); although thisunder-emphasizes the contributions of thoseworking outside this tradition. British urbandesigners and contextual architects,occasionally spurred on by the interventions ofPrince Charles (HRH the Prince of Wales,1989), became increasingly aware of thesignificance of urban history and urban form indesigning future urban landscapes (Lowndesand Murray, 1988: Murray was later Presidentof the Royal Town Planning Institute). Thefounding of a range of urban design journals inthe 1990s (including Urban Design Inter-national and the Journal of Urban Design)has, however, meant that work with amorphological element has often been given adesign focus to achieve publication in suchjournals (e.g. Larkham, 2004a; OBrien,1997). Likewise, there has been an increase inthe applications of information technology tomorphological concerns, again developed byscholars from different traditions andpublished in different journals (prominentamongst which is Environment and PlanningB: Planning and Design). Geographical urbanmorphologists remain a small interest group,and publications by its members areincreasingly being found in urban history,cultural geography, urban planning and relatedsubject areas.

Directions of research

A number of current lines of research on urban


form by geographers stem directly or indirectlyfrom Conzens ideas. Three of the mostimportant are concerned with the nature andamounts of urban landscape change, especiallyviewed over long time spans, and thusgenerally focused on historic towns; the agentsinvolved in the process of change; and themanagement of that change. The second andthird are significant extensions of the Germanmorphological tradition. In all cases there is aconcern with features in the urban landscapethat have been created by previousgenerations.

The origin, form and change of historicaltowns

The first of these lines of research is buildingdirectly upon the concern for history, throughthe analysis of historical, usually medieval,towns. There is a long tradition of study ofBritish medieval towns, which has includeddescriptions of regular street patterns; some ofthis work has detailed archaeological andhistorical origins (eg Hope, 1909, on Ludlow;most recently Creighton and Higham, 2005, onurban walls); others are more general andcomparative (Hughes and Lamborn, 1923,especially chapter 2; Tout, 1917; morerecently in this tradition, Aston and Bond,1976). There are few true comparative studiesof medieval town plans (for a rare exceptionsee Whitehand and Alauddin, 1969). Bakerand Holt (2004) give a detailed comparativestudy of medieval Gloucester and Worcester ,focusing on the impact of the church inshaping these growing centres. Theirs is amulti-disciplinary perspective, well informedby morphological studies. Further, somelarge-scale regional reviews (Lilley, 1995,1999a) and contributions to the Cambridgeurban history of Britain (Dyer and Slater,2000; Palliser et al., 2000; Slater, 2000) haveallowed useful comparisons of processes ofmorphogenesis.

A combination of historical documentationand plan analysis is leading to a more thoroughunderstanding of the development of currenturban landscapes (Conzen, 1988).2 In

particular, the practices of medieval townplanning have been examined in detail byusing, for example, the relative sizes andshapes of individual plots (or burgages) asclues to successive phases of planning (Slater,1981), and by studying the differencesbetween apparent ideal and reality in thelayout of towns (see below). A key findingfrom such detailed analysis is that a muchlarger number of English towns than maypreviously have been realized have complex,composite, town plans. These are composedof plan units reflecting separate periods ororigins of development. Comparative studymay also be able to determine similarities inform and process between towns, thusallowing informed extrapolation about process(Slater, 1990b). Some of the towns that have been studied inthis way are not commonly perceived as beingof historical interest. Their medieval featuresmay have been largely destroyed by industrial-era growth, as was the case with Wolver-hampton and Doncaster (Slater 1986a, 1989).Some of this work allows re-interpretation ofproblematic historical and archaeologicalissues, such as Lilleys study of medievalCoventry (1994) and its missing castle, and ofthe relatively recent concept of urban design asapplied to medieval towns (Lilley, 1998c,1999c). Ludlow has long been seen as anexemplar of medieval planning (from Hope,1909, onwards), and its successive re-analyseshave done much to elucidate the details ofplanning, form and process (Conzen, 1975,1988, 2004; Slater, 1988, 1990b) (althoughthis body of work is rarely featured inpublications on urban landscapes by urbanhistorians: cf. Rowley, 2001; Waller, 2000).There has also been a significant recent debateon the issue of orthogonality in medievalplanning (Lilley, 1998a, 1999b; Slater, 1999). Plan analysis, including metrologicalanalysis of plot patterns, has been used forvillages (Lockhart, 1980; Sheppard, 1974) andfor broader comparative surveys of ruralsettlement form (Roberts, 1987). However, itsuse in this context has generally been lesssophisticated, and less use has been made ofthe range of morphological concepts


developed in urban contexts. This form of analysis has been (more orless) adopted by non-geographers (Bassett,1980-1; Brookes and Whittington, 1977;Scrase, 1989). However, on close examinationthe historico-geographical details of some ofthese analyses have been questioned (Slater,1986b). In fact the series of studies ofLichfield (Bassett, 1980-1; Thorpe, 1954;Slater, 1986b) clearly demonstrates increasingsophistication of approaches and inter-pretations. Once more, as with Ludlow, suchdebate usefully explores issues of techniqueand interpretation, to the benefit of both thedetailed understanding of individual places andmethodology.

Agents and agency in urban landscape change

In the second major line of research, the studyof urban landscapes has been linked moreexplicitly to the types of agents and thespecific organizations and individualsresponsible for their creation. Each pursuesparticular goals, the nature of which can resultin conflict over the form of the builtenvironment. It is important therefore tounderstand the motives underlying thebehaviour of these key agents (Pacione, 1991,p. 162). This focus on process is a significantdevelopment in morphology. Much of thisresearch has focused on the industrial-era city.A significant amount of relevant work has alsobeen undertaken by urban historians.

The developing research on medieval townshas built on documentary research (forexample Beresfords classic documentarystudy of the creation of new towns, 1967) toexplore the impacts on urban form oflandowners including the Church (Slater,1987, on medieval episcopal planning; 1996,1998, on the Benedictines) and aristocraticfamilies (Lilley, 1998b, 2001). Lilley (2002)has also set British medieval urban form in awider European historical and cultural context.

Some significant work by historians on thedevelopment of towns during the industrialperiod has shown the impacts of landowner-ship, especially on the conversion of

agricultural land to urban use (Hooper, 1985),the detail of particularly suburban develop-ment, and its usually small-scale nature forexample proceeding on a field-by-field basis leading to considerable variation in form andcharacter over space (for example Beresford,1988; Cannadine, 1980, 1982; Dyos, 1961;Trowell, 1985). Landownership and specu-lation are enduring themes (Dyos, 1968;Hooper, 1985; Kellett, 1961; Mortimore, 1969;Springett, 1982). The rise of industrialcapitalism and the consequent changes in plan,architecture and use in the small Welsh townof Newtown have been examined (Higgins,1996). Some important studies of particularcities by urban historians have dealt withmorphological issues and linked them to awider economic, social and political history(Rodger, 2001; Youngson, 1966).

More researchers have paid attention to theperiod since the mid-nineteenth century, whensources permitting detailed building-by-building analyses became available in the formof building plans submitted to local authorities(Aspinall and Whitehand, 1980; Rodger,1981). For the post-1947 period, similar datahave been recovered from the records of localauthority planning departments (Larkham,1988b). Using such data sources, recon-structions of urban development ofunparalleled detail and completeness havebeen pieced together, sometimes for quitelengthy periods. However, both theadvantages and disadvantages of such data inexploring the production and control of urbanform need to be recognized (McNamara andHealey, 1984; Sellgren, 1990). The mostrecent development, the use of GIS by localplanning authorities, has remained littleexplored in this research context.

Significant work has been carried out usingsuch data in exploring decision-makingprocesses, although Whitehand (1977, p. 402)points out the need for circumspection inassessing the results of these explorationsbecause of the illusive nature of the process ofdecision-making (this problem can, arguably,be minimized given the detailed data sourcesjust discussed, and the more flexible humanistapproach examined below). An early contri-


bution to this strand was Carters work onLlandudno (1970). He distinguished betweenprimary decision-making, such as thecreation of new planned units, and secondarydecision-making, largely concerned withissues of detail.

The range of agents active for commercialdevelopment has been explored (Freeman,1990; Whitehand and Whitehand, 1984),leading to examination of the effects of theircharacteristics on the urban landscape forexample whether they are based local to, ordistant from, a development; or whetherspeculators are building for their ownoccupation. Such studies have introduced theconcepts of innovation diffusion and distancedecay into urban morphology, hitherto foundparticularly in architectural history, and havealso suggested that there is often ageographical link between agents, places, andthe nature of physical changes planned andimplemented. Other studies have reviewed theplace of specific types of agent in thedevelopment process, including that of estateagents in residential development (McNamara,1984) and councillors in the planning decision-making process (Witt and Fleming, 1984).Again, in this period, speculative developmentis a significant theme (Bather, 1976). Thisidentification and examination of agents ofchange in relation to the development processled to the classification of agents as direct(e.g. owners, architects, developers) andindirect (e.g. local planning authorities,interested third parties) (Larkham, 1988a, p.150). Many of the indirect agents areconsidered further under the heading oflandscape management. Some have beenshown to have significant influence on theurban landscape, as in McDonalds study ofthe Scottish Development Agency (1984) orBentleys comments on bureaucraticpatronage (1983).

Particularly for residential development, theimportance of the stage in the family life cyclehas been identified. This is significant in thedevelopment of the ornamental villa in thenineteenth-century urban fringe (Slater, 1978)and in decisions to sell all, or parts, of suchsites in the late-twentieth century for more

intensive development (a case study is detailedin Whitehand, 1989a). Family influence hasalso been explored in decisions to alter, orindeed retain in original form, smallerspeculative suburban properties (Whitehandand Carr, 2001a). Broader trends in theconsumers of residential urban form havealso been related to the details of layouts,building types and architecture (Lewis andWheatley, 1999-2000; Slater, 1978).

Work on residential development has shedmore light on the involvement of architects inspeculative development. This is true for bothmid-nineteenth century terraced housing(Trowell, 1985) and for inter-war suburbia(Whitehand and Carr, 2001a). This detailedwork overturns established preconceptionsand, indeed, questions the many adversecomments about suburban architecturepublished by architects.

Architecture and style

Considerable attention has been paid to thearchitecture of individual buildings and urbanareas. This is not only because buildings formone of Conzens form complexes, but alsobecause building style is perhaps the mostvisible manifestation of the urban landscape.However, the majority of these studies are notof architectural style per se, but explore styleas a manifestation of the processes of creatingform, i.e. the interaction of agents andprocesses of change a cultural phenomenon(Larkham and Freeman, 1988; Whitehand,1984a, b). This can reveal much about thedetailed operation of the development controlplanning system (Punter, 1990, on Bristoloffices), particularly in conserved areas (seebelow).

There have also been some significantpublications in architectural history that haveexplicitly had regard to the broader urbanconsequences of the architectural formsexamined. Amongst these are Muthesiussstudy of terraced housing (1982) and theexploration of the building processes (ofdevelopment, construction and decoration) ofthe Georgian city by Ayers (1998). A concern


for paper cities has led to studies ofunrealized urban building projects (Barker andHyde, 1982; Colvin, 1983) and these shedadditional light on agents and processes from(in Colvins Oxford study) the late-fourteenthcentury.

Ideal and reality

Explorations of paper cities, and therealization from the detailed study of late-twentieth century planning records inparticular of the extensive effort that has goneinto unbuilt proposals, has led to an interest inthe contrast between the ideals of plans andthe realities on the ground. This has beenexplored in relation to towns of medievalorigin (Slater, 1987, 1988) where either theplan is known from cartographical ordocumentary records, or where the ideal (oftengeometrical or orthogonal) can readily berecognized and reconstructed. In twentieth-century suburban landscapes, the extent ofunrealized proposals is significant, andmoreover even approved proposals can takedecades to reach fruition, often undergoingsignificant change in the course of that period(Whitehand, 1990b). In those numerous townsand cities which produced reconstruction plansin the 1940s and 1950s, the gap betweenplanned ideal and reality is almost alwaysgreat; the lag between vision and constructioncould again be decades, as with WorcestersCity Walls Road (Vilagrasa and Larkham,1995). The ideal tabula rasa plan oftenrequired adaptation to elements of amorphological frame (P. Jones, 2004). Manysuch plans sank virtually without trace(Larkham, 2002). Some of the reasons forthese delays, and the differences between idealand reality, especially with the introduction ofmodernist ideas, have been explored byplanning historians (Bullock, 2002) and mayrelate to the processes of transition betweenone morphological period and the next.

Conservation and physical form

Conservation has been prominent in British

urban morphology not least because ofConzens own studies of smaller historic towns(including Ludlow, Frodsham and Conway)and his own publications on the problem ofconservation (Conzen, 1966, 1975).Recognition of the development of urbanlandscapes over lengthy periods, and aware-ness of the unique cultural, social, economicand political influences of distinct periods arefundamental principles of morphology. Thisallows the urban landscape at any point to berecognized as a palimpsest of the achievementsand investments of successive generations(Cherry, 1981; Conzen, 1958, p. 78; Martin,1968). The survival of relict features in thelandscape (Watson, 1959) reflects thechanging values of societies, and is animportant contribution to character and senseof place. The accumulation of relict formsthrough time becomes one of the fundamentalmorphological processes of the landscape andin that general sense renders most townscapeshistorical (Conzen, 1975, p. 80).

Despite this interest, there have beenrelatively few studies detailing the changes tophysical form resulting from conservation(Larkham, 1988a, b); morphologists haveinstead largely turned to explore issues ofconservation policy and management. Thislack of attention is mirrored by the LabourGovernments redirection of interest andresources away from conservation per se.

Urban landscape management

The types of detailed data from localauthorities have aided greatly a third strand ofcurrent geographical research in urbanmorphology. This is the concern for theplanning, or management, of the urbanlandscape. Processes of decision-making arereconstructed, the agents (where surviving) areinterviewed, and management procedures andpolicies are examined. This type of researchmerges with work in other disciplines, notablyurban planning and design.

Such research has been successfully carriedout on commercial cores and residential areas(Freeman, 1988; Larkham, 1988a, b; Vila-


grasa, 1990; Whitehand, 1989b, 1990a) andwith particular emphasis on conservation(A.N. Jones 1991; Larkham, 1992, 1996).M.R.G. Conzens pioneering papers dealingwith historicism and conservation (1958, 1966,1975) have been re-appraised (Larkham,1990b). Recent work has focused on suburbs,particularly those developed in the inter-warperiod, and has followed their use andadaptation through to the present day (much ofthis work is summarized in Whitehand andCarr, 2001b) and their conservation (Larkham,2004b). Less academic and more applied havebeen a small number of detailed morphological(but largely descriptive) studies which are usedto underpin a range of planning policies (forexample, Rock Townsend, 1990). Likewise,there are detailed case studies focusing moreon policy than on form per se (of which anexample is Gordon, 1982).

An issue that has become of increasinglycritical significance to any such managementin recent years is the relationship between newdevelopment and existing urban landscapes.Research on urban landscape conservation isone aspect of a heightened concern forbuildings inherited from past periods. Asignificant part of this concern stems fromdissatisfaction with the physical forms,especially the buildings, that have beenproduced in the twentieth century (cf. Esher,1981). A common policy reaction is forplanning authorities to carry out characterassessments of their conservation areas, andthese are often heavily morphological (cf.Larkham and Jones, 1993a, pp. 133-4); butfew have been widely available until the recentadvent of web-based publication.

In terms of production and management, theurban environment has increasingly becomecontrolled by large-scale developers and publicbodies. The large areas and large complexesthat they create both privatize space (some-times formerly public space) and make peoplefeel irrelevant. People have less sense ofcontrol over their homes, neighbourhoods andcities than when they lived in slower-growing,locally-focused communities. The realizationof this led a team of urban designers toproduce a heavily-illustrated manual for

designers, strongly rooted in an awareness ofurban form (Bentley et al., 1985).

The processes of production are shaped bylegal control and administrative systems,including the current UK town and countryplanning system. These control the activitiesof all agents of change (assuming, of course,that all development is legal). Yet the natureand impact of legislation and control haverarely been directly studied (Gaskell, 1983;Rodger, 1979a) and have formed the focus ofa recent ISUF Working Party (Larkham,2001). While it may be a truism to assert thatplanning does make a difference to urbanform, a recent study of this title basedparticularly on Scottish evidence reveals someinteresting findings. Planning maintains tightcontrol over new housing, yet there is an over-reliance on windfall (i.e. unplanned) sites.There is an over-supply of business land. Themost significant developments were notcontained in statutory development plans. Thecentralized planning system had a stronginfluence on major urban form decisions(Bramley and Kirk, 2005).

Other criticisms have been directed atdevelopment control systems, for example inChelmsford (Hall, 1990). Hall contends that amajor problem in Great Britain is the failure ofplanning authorities to formulate explicitobjectives for the design of different parts ofurban areas. He also feels that the process ofmaking local development plans allowsinsufficient consideration of urban form anddesign issues (Hall, 2000). In similar vein,Whitehand (1992a) concludes that, at the scaleof the British streetscape, governmentalinfluence is often less today than that of majornineteenth-century estate owners exercisingcontrol over the development of their land.Planning authorities are largely reacting toproposals whose formulation and initiation areoutside their control. Unlike major nineteenth-century landowners, local planning authoritiesin Great Britain plan specific landscapes onlyrarely. In response to specific proposals theyseldom suggest, except in the most generalterms, the type of landscape that they regard asappropriate. They state what is unacceptableaccording to their rules and procedures, but


their creative role is in general very limited.And this role became even smaller under theConservative administration of the 1980s(Punter, 1986). Subtle qualities of a land-scape, such as the genius loci, pale intoinsignificance as influences upon developmentcontrol decisions in comparison with measure-ments of building density and the dimensionsand geometry of highways.

This view is to some extent consistent withthe conclusion of Punters (1985) study ofoffice building in the commercial core ofReading. He points out that aestheticconsiderations are the first to be sacrificed inthe cause of speed and efficiency in decision-making by clients, developers, architects andplanners. Developers have had a largemeasure of freedom and have felt compelledby the requirements of letting and funding,more than by planning control, to keep withinthe mainstream of architectural fashion. Themajor pressures on development controlplanning officers are for speed and efficiencyin making decisions, measured crudely interms of weeks elapsed from the submission ofan application (Larkham, 1990a).

Punters studies (1985, 1990) areexceptional in the detail of their exposition ofhow aesthetic control operates, or fails tooperate. More common are studies of planninglegislation and plans, as distinct from actualdevelopments in the landscape (Cherry, 1988).Much of the literature on conservation as amanagement activity has been of this type.But conservation policies frequently lackeffective means of implementation. Evenmore important, as Conzen (1975) pointed out,they lack a theoretical basis a theory of urbanlandscape management that can give directionand coherence to the way in whichconservation problems are tackled.

The few approaches to conservation inGreat Britain that have theoretical content(Briggs 1975; Faulkner 1978) have still notfound their way into the mainstream planningliterature. In an attempt to fill this theoreticalvacuum, Kropf (1993) has re-examined theapproaches of Conzen and the Italian architectand theorist Caniggia to the management ofurban landscapes. The positions reached by

these two scholars have much in common. ForKropf they afford a means of discovering atheoretical structure that underlies therelationship between the historico-geographical explanation of the developmentof urban forms and the prescription of urbandesign.

An essential part of the thinking of bothConzen and Caniggia is the view that theintelligibility of the city depends upon itshistory. In formulating a basis upon whichurban landscapes can be managed it is a shortstep from this fundamental belief to regardingurban forms as a source of accumulatedexperience, and from there to utilizing thisexperience as the basis for prescribing change.Possible solutions may be read from theexisting landscape, but they must be assessedto ensure that they are appropriate to newproblems. It is particularly important that thesignificance, including the historicalsignificance, of urban landscapes for thoseexperiencing them is understood. Thisincludes the emotions, sometimes disagreeableemotions, evoked by the experience of urbanlandscapes. For example, it is argued thatthose features apparently valued as symbolsof the past are actually testament todiscontinuities (OBrien, 1997, p. 163).

However, this line of thinking is not evidentin some key contemporary debates. This ismost particularly seen in the rise ofsustainable development. This ill-definedconcept has become widespread S perhapsoverly so S in professional debate and nationalpolicy. Some morphologists have incidentallychronicled phenomena that are sometimesassociated with this notion, such as increasedresidential density (Larkham and Jones,1993b; Whitehand and Larkham, 1991).However, the more radical suggestions,particularly the compact city with itsimplication of the removal of suburban sprawl,have largely been reviewed only in abstractterms (Breheny, 1997). A more promisingapproach has attempted to develop measures ofurban compactness, although relatively fewattributes of physical form are included(Burton, 2002).


Developing concepts and methods

There have long been suggestions that urbanmorphology should proceed to thedevelopment of general theory (cf. Conzen,1975; Whitehand, 1977) and thence to agreater use of deductive procedures. Gordon(1981) explored Whitehands historico-geographical framework using some Scottishevidence. However, there seems littleprospect of urban morphology progressing asan organized field of knowledge unless thevarious parts of which it is composed are setwithin a framework in which the logicalconnections between them may be developed(Whitehand, 1977, p. 401). Little was done inthis regard during the 1980s, but thedevelopment of ISUF from the mid-1990s iscontributing to the development of such aframework (if not yet explicitly in thedevelopment of theory). The body of detailedempirical research reported here has allowedthe development and refinement of a range ofconcepts and methods.

One issue has been the scale of research.Some, but relatively little, work has been doneat the regional scale, with general comparisonsof regional distributions of settlement plantypes (Conzen, 1949; Roberts, 1987) and ofmorphogenesis (Lilley, 1995, 1999a). Mostwork has been at the scale of the individualtown or quarter. Most recently, the termmicromorphology has been used to describestudies of form at the level of elements ofindividual houses (Whitehand, 2001b; White-hand, Morton and Carr, 1999;). Incidentally,Levy (2005) wonders whether this scale ofinvestigation is typology rather than urbanmorphology: if so it would be a very rareexample of a typological approach in Britishurban morphology.

Geographical concepts of areas and theirdifferentiation were central to Conzens work,seen most particularly in his precisedelimitation of hierarchies of five orders ofplan-type areas, building-type areas, land-utilization areas, and their combination to formmorphological regions in Ludlow (Conzen,1975, Figure 1). Conzen also developed theconcept of plan units, areas distinguishable

through characteristics of street and(particularly) plot patterns and dimensions(Conzen, 1960). Larkham (1990b, Figure16.3) contrasts the morphologically subtledifferentiation of regions with the broad-brushdelineation of conservation policy areas in thesame town. Indeed, many conservation areaboundaries, despite character appraisals, do notappear to have much morphological basis. Insome decision-making processes, there seemslittle awareness of spatial concepts such asareas, and even mere spatial propinquity isarbitrarily used (e.g. Whitehand, 1989a). Hall(1990) has proposed a much more profounduse of areas in planning decision-making, and(1997, pp. 228-36) explicitly refers toConzenian morphological concepts indifferentiating such design areas.

The development of the technique of town-plan analysis, using regularities andsimilarities in street and particularly plotpatterns, has been a significant methodologicaladvance. It has moved from metrologicalanalyses of plots (Slater, 1981; see alsoSheppard, 1974) to a wider plan-analysis.Identification of plan-units has allowed moreprecise theories about the timing and nature ofthe development of specific towns to beadvanced, which can be tested againsthistorical and archaeological data (where thesesurvive) (Baker and Slater, 1992). It has,however, proven difficult to convinceacademics in other disciplines that significantamounts of valuable and accurate data lieembedded in urban landscapes, and that suchdata can usefully supplement more traditionalwork in documentation and archaeology. Thishas been a noteworthy debate at conferences,if not in print.

The Conzenian concept of the fringe belthas undergone considerable development overrecent decades. In simple terms, a fringe beltis a zone of largely extensive land uses that isformed at the edge of an urban area during apause in outward residential growth. Eachfringe belt (and a town may have several) hasdistinctive features in terms of plan, buildingform, and land and building uses. Typicaluses, requiring extensive sites, include publicutilities, parks, sports facilities, and allotment


gardens. Fringe belts were first identified asbeing associated with limitations on urbangrowth, such as fortification zones: examplesof what Conzen termed fixation lines. Laterwork has placed more emphasis on theirassociation with housebuilding slumps. Thehistory of the fringe-belt concept is discussedin Whitehand (1988). It was applied toAlnwick by Conzen (1960), its theory laterbeing elaborated by Whitehand (1967) andapplied to Falkirk by Barke (1974). Barketwice returned to the issue of fringe-beltdevelopment in smaller towns (1976, 1990),exploring the theoretical and practicaldistinctions between processes in theexpansion of small towns and large cities.Whitehand (1975) and Rodger (1979b) haveboth reviewed empirical evidence forhousebuilding fluctuations on the Victorianurban fringe in London and Scotland. Pacione(1991) has examined development at thecontemporary urban fringe using town-planning concepts rather than that of the fringebelt; this forms an interesting comparison inconceptualization and approach. Mostrecently, Whitehand and Morton (2003, 2004)have examined how this morphologicalconcept relates to planning and decision-making, by landowners and local authorities.Neither perceive these large-scale patterns inany meaningful way, although they form asignificant aspect of urban form directlyreflecting historical development processes.Whitehand and Morton (2004, p. 275) arguethat the piecemeal, poorly co-ordinatedpattern of decision making underlines the needfor planning to take greater account of thehistorico-geographical structure of cities.

The consideration of economic models andurban form has been explored by Whitehand,in part (in earlier work) reviewing potentialcauses of fringe belts in the relationshipbetwen land use and bid rent (Whitehand,1972, 1975). Comparative work was under-taken on the significance of establishedeconomic constructs for the urban buildingfabric (Davies, 1968; Luffrum, 1981;Whitehand, 1979). On a broader scale this canbe linked to cyclic, largely economic,fluctuations in urban development (Parry

Lewis, 1965). Such fluctuations can be shownto have implications for most types ofdevelopment (both construction and land use)from housebuilding (Weber, 1955) to Londonoffices (Barras, 1979, 1983). The cyclicconcept has also been applied to the life cycleof individual buildings their origin, growth,change, ageing and obsolescence (Cowan,1963) and it can be extended to conservation(Larkham, 1996, pp. 77-82). Whitehand hassought to integrate these aspects (1981b,1987c), producing a broadly-based view ofmorphological development. This approachhas been summarized with a simple modeltaking into account the influence of factorssuch as the economy, innovations, andfashions in architectural styles (Whitehand,1994).

The Conzenian concept of themorphological frame is implicit in manystudies fringe-belt fixation lines areexamples. Larkham (1995) examined theconcept in the light of the increasing scale ofchanges during the industrial period, thegradual cumulative impact of individuallysmall-scale changes, and the catastrophicchange of natural or man-made disaster.Again, the nature of response to the frame canbe related to the characteristics of the agentsinvolved: if the developer is a largeorganisation, with a national or internationalsphere of operations and easy access to largefinancial resources, British experiencesuggests that the development is less likely torespect the morphological frame than changesinitiated by a small, local developer(Larkham, 1995, p. 122).

The Conzenian concept of themorphological period has been re-assessed aspart of the recent work on suburbia. White-hand and Carr (1999) relate this to processes ofinnovation, diffusion and distance decay. Butperiod boundaries are likely to be ill-definedboth temporally and spatially: residentialdevelopments associated in style and formwith the Edwardian and Victorian periods werestill being built well into the inter-war period,especially away from the main concentrationsof housebuilding activity in the south-east ofEngland. Of the agents involved, architects


and builders, much more than clients, wereimportant. The process whereby a new periodemerges is complex, confused and likely to belengthy: it must be linked in some way to theinnumerable experiments, both on paper andon the ground, made by those who contributeto the creation of built forms (Whitehand andCarr, 1999, p. 248).

Meanwhile, another type of investigation ofurban form is attracting researchers of a quitedifferent inclination. The use of computers tomodel and simulate urban physical structuresis grounded in an intellectual milieu distinctfrom any so far mentioned (see below). Mostof this research has been undertaken byarchitects and geographers, the two groupsworking independently of one another. Thereis a need to relate this work to research of thetypes already described. Such developmentsare likely to overcome a perennial problem inmorphology: the issue of how to represent intwo dimensions the complex multivariatepatterns of urban form as they change overtime. It is worth recording that Conzenslarge-format, large-scale colour plans in hiscontribution to the Survey of Whitby (1958)have hardly been bettered, but were only madepossible by the generous financial support ofthe volumes sponsor, the Marquis ofNormanby.

Computers and urban morphology

This is a major area of methodologicaladvance, actual and potential, deservingseparate and substantial consideration. Theproblems of establishing standard definitionsin urban morphology and the perception thatmuch of the information on urban form is notreadily converted into data has hindered thelarge-scale use of computers in storing andprocessing information. Early attempts werelimited by the available software and hardwareto the application of standard statisticalapproaches such as cluster analysis to aspectsof urban form (Openshaw, 1973).

Advanced software such as GIS and CAD,high-capacity hardware, and carefulpreparation can now provide the basis for

remarkable computer-aided investigations.There would seem to be wide scope forcomputer-aided research of this type. Much ofthe necessary technical capability is nowregularly used in architectural and urbandesign. A study of parts of London wasfacilitated by digital mapping and CADsoftware, although it uncovered significantpractical problems including the transfer ofdata between programs and copyright issues ofaccess to existing data sets (Larkham, 2003).

However, it is in this field that the contactbetween research perspectives is weakest. TheConzenian tradition has developed largely inisolation from computer-aided analyses ofurban form and vice versa. However, recentresearch is using GPS and GIS in a review ofEdwardian planned towns informed byConzenian concepts (Lilley et al., 2005).

The dividing line between urban morph-ogenetics and essentially descriptive,computerized analyses of urban form isprobably the least crossed of the numerousboundaries that are characteristic of urbanmorphology. That several of the types ofinvestigations described here could benefitfrom the breaking down of this boundary issuggested even by a cursory review of recentcomputer-aided research on urban form.

This research falls into three principalcategories. The first has to do with the three-dimensional form of urban areas, and isparticularly concerned with aiding geometricalcomposition so that proposals for new forms,or the adaptation of existing forms, can beevaluated both visually and in terms offunctional efficiency. The second is primarilyconcerned with the analysis of physicalstructures, especially individual structures suchas dwelling houses, viewed in two dimensions.In the third, the accent is upon urban areas, orland-use parcels, as physical configurations,especially as represented cartographically.

Developments in both the software and thehardware for computer graphics have nowreached the stage where realistic simulations ofurban landscapes are possible. One of themost striking applications is in the recon-struction of former and potential urbanlandscapes. Such software is now increasingly


used to visualize the impact on existing urbanlandscapes of proposed new buildings ormodifications to existing buildings (Grant,1991; Hall, 1995), with obvious value in urbanlandscape management. Yet such approacheshave found use more in professional practicethan in academic research.

Much of the quantitative, or more preciselygeometrical, analysis of buildings viewed two-dimensionally relates to attempts to develop ascience of architectural form. Steadman et al.(1991) argue that it is only by developingtheories that explain why certain plans andbuilt forms rather than others occur in practicethat scientific generalizations can be madeabout the relationships of built forms to thefunctions they fulfil. Since the large majorityof rooms in domestic buildings are essentiallyrectangular in plan, the plans of mostdwellings can be modelled mathematically aspackings of rectangles within rectangularboundaries. The enumeration of all possiblepackings by computer methods provides acomplete map of the theoretical space ofgeometrical possibilities within which floorplans can occur. The boundaries and topo-graphy of this space are fixed and immutablefor all time, and all architects, past, present andfuture, have no choice but to work withinthem (Steadman et al. 1991, p. 88). Withinthe boundaries there are, of course, furthereffective constraints on geometrical possi-bility imposed by, for example, technologicalfactors and legal requirements, and the needfor daylighting and access. These constraintschange historically and account for majorreductions in practice in the numbers of plansthat considerations of geometrical close-packing alone would permit. Comparison oftheoretical possibilities with dwelling plansexisting in reality serves to highlight how evenin the case of simple plans social needs mayoverride material ones.

Brown and Steadman (1987) believe thatthe process that they illustrate, namely one ofexhaustive plan generation under constraints,offers a tool that is useful in both architecturaldesign and in helping to fill gaps in thehistorical and archaeological record. As theyrecognize, however, their procedure involves

a certain circularity of explanation: a set ofconstraints is inferred by reference to thephysical characteristics of actual buildingplans, which is then used to account for thosephysical characteristics (Brown and Steadman,1987, p. 436). Such problems notwith-standing, applications of the generation ofbuilding plans by computer are now beingwidely explored. One such has been therepresentation of building floor plans aspolygons, to which data (for example floornumbers, storey heights) can be attached, andmeasurements made; this research hassuggested a number of applications for energyanalysis and planning (Holtier et al., 2000).

The application of computers to the analysisof the shapes of urban areas has proceeded forthe most part separately from analyses of bothfloor plans and three-dimensional urban form.Much of the concern with the shapes of urbanareas has focused on their degree ofirregularity. It has become evident in recentyears that fractal geometry provides anappropriate means of measuring many types ofirregular form that had previously resistedscientific classification. Batty and Longley(1987, 1988, 1994) have been at the forefrontof its application to urban areas. Theyconclude from their analysis of the urbanboundary of Cardiff between 1886 and 1922that the traditional image of urban growthbecoming more irregular as tentacles ofdevelopment occur along railway lines is notborne out. They point out, however, that thetemptation to explain this as an effect ofincreasing controls over the environmentshould be resisted because there isconsiderable variation in the results producedby different methods (Batty and Longley,1987). They also conclude that there istentative evidence that parcels of land used forresidential purposes and open space are moreirregular than parcels of land used forcommercial/industrial purposes, education andtransportation. Again, however, there remainsconsiderable uncertainty about the processes inoperation (Batty and Longley, 1988). Morerecently, fractals have been applied to urbandesign and form, attempting to measure andcompare features important in understanding


the complexity and character of places(Cooper, 2003, 2005; Robertson, 1992). It isconfidently asserted that the everydayenvironment is fractal (Crompton, 2001).Batty (2001) is also using other computeranalyses to explore and represent shape inarchitectural and urban form. Although Batty(1991) emphasizes the need for bettermeasurements of urban development anddensity, there is an even greater need to bringtogether this research and studies of theactivities responsible for the form of urbandevelopment.

Space syntax

Space syntax is an approach to urban formwholly different from the Conzenian tradition.It is considered here because it generally reliesupon large-scale multivariate computeranalysis and graphics. This intellectualtradition revolves around Hilliers researchgroup at the Bartlett School, UniversityCollege, London. With a large output ofoverseas graduate students this school candemonstrate a considerable volume of output(much, however, not focused on Britain).

The theoretical and methodologicalapproaches were codified by Hillier andHanson (1984) in terms of a quantifyingapproach to spatial representation. Theapproach has been refined, particularly interms of spatial configuration thearrangement of spaces and possibilities andpatterns of movement through them byHillier (1996). This technique is veryrevealing of the characteristics of spaces interms of movement and potential use, butperhaps not to the extent of the laws of thefield that he attempts to articulate. Theapplications of space syntax have largelyfocused on studies of axes of movement and,more recently, visibility; what is original tospace syntax is the important insight that thepattern of movement in a city or urban area islikely to be shaped to an extent by thetopology of its route network alone,irrespective of all other factors (Steadman,2004, p. 484).

British studies in this tradition haveexplored the structures of Londons streetnetwork, particularly following the 1666 Fire(Hanson, 1989) and the changing structures inthe London district of Somers Town (Hanson,2000). Hillier (1989) and Hillier et al. (1983)have attempted to explore this approach interms of architectural and urban designrelevance, exciting considerable professionalinterest.

The techniques and analyses are not alwayseasy for the uninitiated to comprehend. Hillierhimself (1999) attempts to explain why theapproach works when it looks as though itshouldnt. Indeed there has been recentdebate on the fundamental reliability ofaspects of the approach: paradoxes arise undercertain geometric configurations (Hillier andPenn, 2004; Ratti, 2004). Notwithstandingsuch details, a great opportunity clearly existsfor exploring the potential complementarity ofthe different traditions of space syntax andConzenian morphology.

Humanism and the urban landscape

Despite this need to link the various types ofresearch in urban morphology, there arecertain investigative styles that, because oftheir intrinsic character, seem more likely tofollow essentially distinct scholarly paths.They are largely humanistic in character,concerned with interpretation rather thananalysis. But it is important to reflect on thecontents of such work against a widerspectrum of work of a humanistic disposition.In particular, there is the problem that whenexamining these less tangible aspects of thebuilt environment there is little cohesionbetween the work of different researchers(Talbot, 1984, p. 1.17).

Particularly noteworthy among such work isa growing concern with the social significanceof urban forms. In particular, the symbolicqualities of urban landscapes have attractedinterest (Jacobs, 1992). Gold and Gold (1990),for example, have reviewed the imagery ofplace-promotion as applied to suburbia, andHubbard (1996) has reviewed the imagery of


Birminghams changing urban landscape. Butseeking to uncover the meanings that humanbeings ascribe to urban landscapes is a delicateand difficult task. Some have used conceptsfrom behavioural psychology to test reactionsto places, for example through studyingrespondents reactions to images of urbanareas or buildings (Hubbard, 1994; Morris,1980). Although there have been somecommentaries on the changing nature ofagents, these have not treated the new urbanforms being produced and consumed in anydetailed morphological way (Short, 1989).

One related field of work has been theexamination of the post-war reconstructionplanning of British towns and cities. Theprocesses of plan production, the employmentof eminent consultants versus extant localauthority staff, the means of communicatingplans to the public and other professionals, theimagery selected, and the use to which planswere put in place-promotion, have all comeunder scrutiny (Larkham, 1997, 2002;Larkham and Lilley, 2001, 2003).Comparative studies of the physical formsproposed in these plans form a future stage ofthe research programme.

A notable development, though its utilityremains questionable, has been the recoursethat scholars have had to the methods oflinguistics and semiology. This has led tourban landscapes being viewed as texts to beinterpreted. Such interpretations are farremoved from the idea of landscape as amathematical or statistical construct. Insteadthe focus of interest is often the ideologicalbasis of creations in the landscape.

Despite the amount of discussion that hasappeared on landscapes as ideologicalconstructions, the amount of empirical work inBritain is, as yet, small.

Humanism and the post-modern urbanlandscape

Among scholars adopting a humanisticapproach to the urban landscape, considerableinterest has surrounded the nature andmanifestations of post-modernism. The notion

of post-modernism has been regarded by someresearchers, including some of a primarilysocial science disposition, as sufficientlyfundamental to justify speculation about linksbetween post-modernism and economicchanges. These suggested economic changes,associated with reduced emphasis on massproduction, have prompted questions about thevalidity of existing urban theories and theirapplication to urban form.

However, examining a long span of thehistory of British urban form does not providegrounds for regarding the onset of post-modernism as providing changes to the urbanlandscape that are notably more fundamentalthan those that were characteristic of the onsetof previous morphological periods. WithinWestern countries in general and Britain inparticular, the years following the First WorldWar brought new urban landscapes,particularly new residential landscapes, thatarguably differed more fundamentally fromtheir predecessors than post-modernlandscapes have differed from the landscapescreated in the three decades following theSecond World War. Indeed, one of the keyfeatures of many post-modern landscapes isthat they differ from landscapes created in the1950s and 1960s in ways that are essentiallyonly cosmetic. It is true that residential high-rise building became unfashionable in the1970s in most Western countries, but theprincipal change in the appearance of low-riseresidential building has been in the greater useof external decoration and the greater varietyof house type contained within individualstreets. The historicist elements characteristicof much of architectural post-modernism are,in many cases, merely applied to buildingelevations. These are superficial changescompared with those that heralded some earliermorphological periods.

It is still far from clear how fruitful this partof the heightened interest in the urbanlandscape will prove to be. That a number ofmajor, sometimes spectacular, urban landscapefeatures have been associated with post-modernism, for example high-tech corridors,festival settings and pedestrian shopping malls,is clear, though there have been few British


investigations of these phenomena. The needfor a theory of late-twentieth century urbanlandscapes, distinct from earlier theories, hasyet to be demonstrated. Causal links betweenpost-modern landscapes and economicrestructuring have still to be convincinglyshown. Although it is evident that in thecourse of the 1970s British towns and cities like most Western cities entered anarchitectural-style period distinct from that ofthe quarter-century following the SecondWorld War, it remains to be seen how far theconnection between this fact and broadlycontemporaneous social and economic changesinvolves relationships different from thoseassociated with previous morphologicalperiods.

Conclusion

The resurgence in urban morphology, broadlydefined, occurred at much the same time as arenewed interest in the study of place ingeography (Johnston, 1984, 1991) and the riseof urban design in professional practice andas an academic discipline. The types offeatures that have traditionally interested urbanmorphologists are to be found closer to themainstreams of academic debate in Britainand elsewhere than has been the case formany years. Understanding issues such as thephysical qualities of place, and the processesand agents involved in the production of place,are now fundamental to British governmentpolicy (UK Government, 2000; Urban TaskForce, 1999) and to the widespread currentdebates on urban quality and the quality of life(Parfect and Power, 1997). However, work in the Britain has beencharacterized since the late 1970s principallyby a concentration on individual themes andcase studies. There has been little engagementwith research users or policy, except perhapsfor work on conservation. Even here, morph-ologically-informed studies (e.g. Larkham andJones, 1993a) seem to have had littlemeasurable direct impact. The rather differentperspective taken in urban design has beenmentioned; and there have been warnings that

detailed morphological research may beunduly time-consuming and expensive(Samuels, 1985).

Whitehands early call for theory (1977)was followed by his own overviews (1987a,1992b), themselves drawing on a broad basisof research. Yet, apart from these, the largerpicture is mostly absent. The comment madenearly four decades ago that however usefula general theory of the city may be, only thedetailed tracing of an immense range ofvariables, in context, will illuminate thedynamics of the processes (Handlin andBurchard, 1963, p. 26) remains valid. Muchof that groundwork has been done, althoughsignificant gaps remain; the step to integrationand theory-building has found little support asyet.

Further, the undoubted utility of GIS andother computer techniques for recording,analysing and presenting morphologicalmaterial much of it visual has, as yet, beenlittle exploited in British urban morphology.There remain related, but quite separate,research traditions that are heavy users ofinformation technology for a range of urbananalyses. The development of much strongerlinks between geographical urban morphologyand Hillier and Hansons space syntax andBattys computer simulations andvisualizations would be beneficial. This is anaspect that would merit considerable furtherdevelopment, paralleling developments inmorphology seen in other countries, and inpractice-related disciplines such as architectureand urban design.

However, while GPS, GIS and othercomputer-aided approaches could be of greatsignificance in correlating different forms ofdata, and storing and representing it, thedissemination of such work will be neithersubstantial nor influential until electronicpublication becomes widely accepted forresearch assessment exercises.

Neither have there been significant morph-ologically-based examinations of British urbanlandscapes as ideological constructs, regardingthe urban landscape as a text to be read.Although there has been some concern forcities of spectacle, particularly following


initiatives such as the Garden Festivals, thespectacular urban landscapes of post-modernism have also remained little explored.The related literature on flagship regen-eration projects has explored the socio-economic and policy impacts far more than thespectacular and large-scale urban forms beingproduced (Bianchini et al., 1992; Loftman andNevin, 1996).

A further fruitful avenue for explorationmay be the perspectives of the most under-researched of agents, the consumers. Whathave been the views of those who have lived inor worked in the city centres and suburbswhose forms and means of production havebeen subject to such detailed study? Theextent to which such experiences, values andattitudes are fed into procedures for the designand management of current and future urbanforms is limited, as Larkham (2000) showedfor the conservation system. At a time whenthe focus on agents and agency in urbanmorphology is growing, the importance of theoccupiers of urban buildings, plots, streets andspaces should be reviewed.

There is also the major contemporary issueof involvement in value judgements,particularly in the problematic area ofsustainable development. Morphologists,particularly in their developing of broad-scalecomparative knowledge, should be in aposition to comment on the implications ofvarious urban forms, both existing andproposed. What, for example, are the desirableand undesirable, intended and unintended,consequences of suburban sprawl? How cannew residential forms be designed to minimizethe problems? Exploring such questions, andtherefore strengthening links with planners andurban designers, could result in urban morph-ology becoming more firmly embedded incontemporary policy formation.

This raises the issue identified by Levy(2005, p. 50), and confirmed by this overview,that morphological activity has beendominated by historical approaches and forms.Urban Britain has, indeed, been subject tohuge transformations in recent years; althoughstudies mentioned here have looked at therelatively recent past (the post-war period),

contemporary complex urban forms do requiremore attention. The Conzenian conception ofurban form, so clear in historic towns half acentury ago, requires re-examination in thelight of new forms such as campusdevelopments, logistics parks, retail malls andso on. However, this is not a uniquely Britishproblem.

In a review of this nature it seemsappropriate to conclude with a reflection ofwhether there is an identifiable, distinctive,British approach to urban morphology. Therange of authors, disciplines, approaches andtopics cited here suggests that there is not.There is one coherent morphological school,that influenced by M.R.G. Conzen eitherdirectly from the University of Newcastle uponTyne or indirectly, through the work of theUrban Morphology Research Group at theUniversity of Birmingham. Space syntaxforms an equally distinctive school, but withsuch a burgeoning international following thatit is hardly distinctively British. It isregrettable that these two traditions have notyet systematically explored their similaritiesand differences. The indigenous group ofBritish-based researchers identified here ishardly sufficiently sizeable or cohesive tomerit the term school.

Yet Conzenian cannot be thought of assolely British; indeed M.R.G. Conzensbackground in the German geographicaltradition has been charted. Neither is theremuch particularly unique about British urbanform or urbanism, and many researchers havereviewed the links between Britain and the restof Europe and the former British colonies.

To a large extent, therefore, this is anartificially constrained survey. It does notexplore the rich interchange of internationalscholars nor the export of British-trainedmorphologists (including, for example, M.P.Conzen, Deryck Holdsworth, and AidanMcQuillan). Although these nationally-boundoverviews do have pedagogic use, the natureand extent of international intellectualexchanges require further detailedinvestigation.


Notes

1. Some critics have remarked on the Conzenianfocus of commentaries on British urbanmorphology, and mentioned alternative disci-plinary approaches (e.g. Gauthiez, 2004, p. 78).This paper deliberately seeks to represent suchalternatives in presenting a broad-brushhistorical and multi-disciplinary overview.

2. M.R.G. Conzens 1988 paper on Ludlow hasbeen reprinted, as the accurate version hewished readers to have, with its proper nuances,as Conzen (2004).

Acknowledgements

This review is a substantial extension and updatingof reviews that have appeared elsewhere,particularly in Whitehand and Larkham (1992) andWhitehand (1992b, 2001c). I am grateful toJeremy Whitehand for his suggestions andencouragement in completing this update.

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