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AT some point in history, someone-whether he be a politician, economist, geographer, architect, or any other man of learning-sets down a fundamental concept concerning a structure for communities based on certain idealistic principles.1 These principles have often evolved out of a reaction to conditions or trends contemporaneous with the period during which they were proposed, and they frequently assume the form of either Utopian or anti-Utopian theories. For example, most of the planning ideas put forward in the first half of the nineteenth century by such men as Robert Owen, Charles Fourier, Saint-Simon, Jeremy Bentham, and others arose out of an attempt to alleviate the social and physical disorder of the emergent industrial city by establishing a new political and economic structure for

A scientific understanding of urban-metropolitan structure and function is becoming increasingly important for metropolitan planning decisions and for governmental policy development, especially in the field of transportation. There is a strong coincidence between the needs of policy makers for adequate information about the implications of alternatives, and the interest of scientists in explaining the development of cities. Theories of urban form and intra-urban location are examined in some detail. It is concluded that existing theories of urban form are largely descriptive and taxonomic, while existing theories of locational behavior may be inadequate to deal with the inflexibilities and nonlinearities that arise in the urban framework. An adequate explanation and theory of metropolitan growth and structure depends on the accumulation of considerably more knowledge as to the behavior of locational decision makers, and the ways in which metropolitan policy impinges on their decisions. Some of the problems of this analysis are explored. Different types of models applicable to the urban system are considered and the particular model under development at the Penn Jersey. Transportation Study is sketched in relation to criteria developed. The implementation of models of the type discussed is related to questions of data collection, computer technology, mathematical formulation, and other operations-research concepts.

Wyatt G. L. and Winger A. R. (1971) Residential construction, mover origin, and urban form, Reg. Studies 5, 95–99. Migration flows influence urban form primarily through their impact on new construction. The magnitude of this impact, however, depends partly on the origin of the mover. A series of regressions calculated with 1960 Census data show convincingly that intercommunity migration in the United States has a substantially greater impact on construction than intracommunity migration. The data also show that certain forms of intercommunity migration have a positive impact on construction in communities experiencing negative net migration. Reasons for this importance of intercommunity migration as a construction factor are discussed as are the urban form implications of regional development policies which encourage such migration. While the migration flows which a growth center policy for regional development would encourage might intensify the problems associated with the residential extension process...

Planners and local governments should develop an active interest in the mobile home industry and its potential impact on urban life. Through its adaptability and technological advantages, the mobile home holds near-absolute domination over the low-cost housing market, and gives promise of continuing its phenomenal market expansion. However, hard data and analysis—on the mobile home resident, the nature of the impact of mobile homes on the housing situation and urban form in general, and evaluation of public policy and its determinants—is meager. The need and opportunity for significant and immediately-usable research is great and should be answered.

Understanding the varied effects of different physical forms, and of the locations of human activities in relation to physical forms, is or should be the principal analytical skill of the physical planner. For a variety of reasons these skills have been neglected. This paper examines possible analytical approaches to this problem, concentrating in particular on the need for analyzing urban form in relation to goal formulations. It also discusses techniques for studying the interrelations between such forms and goals, and the possible implications of this new approach for theory, research, and practical planning decisions.

A COMMUNICATIONS THEORY OF URBAN GROWTH M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, 1962. by Richard L. Meier “THE URBAN PLACE AND THE NONPLACE URBAN REALM” by Melvin M. Webber in Webber (ed.), EXPLORATIONS INTO URBAN STRUCTURE, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1963. “A THEORY OF URBAN FORM” by Kevin Lynch and Lloyd Rodwin Journal of the American Institute of Planners, XXIV (November, 1958), 201–214. “URBAN STRUCTURE AND URBAN GROWTH” by Albert Z. Guttenberg Journal of the American Institute of Planners, XXV (May, 1960), 104–110. TRANSPORTATION AND URBAN LAND Resources for the Future, Inc., Washington, D. C., 1961. by Lowdon Wingo, Ir. URBAN GROWTH DYNAMICS by F. Stuart Chapin, Jr. and Shirley F. Weiss, eds. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1962. (Especially initial part of Chapter 1 and Chapter 13.)

Stone P. A. (1967) Urban Form and Resources, Reg. Studies 1, 93–100. Little is known about the value for money offered by different urban forms or the demand they make on resources. Since some factors are presently imponderable, it is necessary to restrict the study to the costs of constructing and operating settlements. Relevant to the study are the impact of size, density, land-use pattern, and settlement shape. The communications system and the phasing of construction need to be considered. These factors will be analysed in more detail in a study taking place at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research under the author's direction.

A common assumption is that in Precolumbian times, an urban form of civilization developed in the highlands of Mesoamerica, while a non‐urban form developed in the tropical lowlands. However, excavations at Tikal, one of the largest Maya sites, questions this assumption. The results of these excavations are summarized, and suggestions are offered which might help to explain the emergence of urbanism in the lowlands.

The traditional approach to urban recreation planning concentrates on measuring and projecting use. However, nonuse may be the significant problem. Despite excellent weather, convenient access, and good development, maintenance, or program, observations indicate that neighborhood parks are underutilized. The implications of nonuse on the support of local park and recreation systems and the possible demise of these systems could have a serious impact on urban form and function. The projected implications of nonuse are related here to professional challenges for research and action.

Geographers have always had an interest in the shapes of objects that they study, and have used descriptions of shapes in their analyses of urban form, trade areas, political units and physical features in the landscape. Geographers have also sought quantitative measures of shapes, and to utilize these measures in the development of theory explaining spatial phenomena. However, there have been numerous methods of measuring shape devised without any agreement as to which of the methods is most appropriate. In addition, an increasing number of recent articles reject earlier methods of measuring shape, thus stimulating the need for comparative research. It is obvious that critical comparison is a difficult task but a preliminary method of estimating the value of different methods is suggested by psychophysics and signal detection theory. We hasten to emphasize that this is a preliminary solution but one which may stimulate further work in this area. The concern of the remainder

The development of effective metropolitan planning research requires the adoption of a uniform land use classification for all cities in the United States. Classification systems now vary from city to city, and the data resulting from land use surveys are therefore not comparable among the cities. Comparative studies are essential if we are to understand the regularities of urban form and land use distributions that hold for cities in general. The suggested classification scheme is a modification of the Standard Industrial Classification. It would permit adaptation to special local requirements but would still allow comparisons of land use among cities.

To understand the surface evidence of urban form requires knowledge of the society that form sheltered. Early nineteenth century Philadelphia is so studied through an examination of membership characteristics and residential locations in certain of its churches, both white and Negro. The churches prove to be class oriented, and the residential locations of their members are found to present significant evidence of grouping by class. From the resulting pattern of residential groupings inferences are made as to spatial stratification of classes whose organization and movement through time can be seen in the urban form of Philadelphia before the Civil War.

Viewing the physical environment as a field of communications about activity systems gives the urban designer clues for the achievement of a more meaningful urban area. An environmental survey research approach is developed to examine relationships between physical form and activity organization. Correspondence or congruence between variables representing type, intensity, and significance of forms and activities is measured, and its impact on knowledge evaluated. It is concluded that by design of the environment itself—through establishment of a congruent and expressive system of forms—the city designer can significantly influence the achievement of a more meaningful environment.

The urban areas comprise complex systems of activities, so the study of its form in terms of a few statistical measures is quite taxing. This paper attempts to employ such measures to define the urban form of Rajshahi city in Bangladesh. It evaluated some of the measures to quantify urban form and selected two indices, namely, Gini coefficient and Moran coefficient to quantify the urban form of the study area. Residential floor area and floor area for employment was computed in a tessellated form for quantifying the urban form of the study area. GeoDa software was employed to calculate Moran for both of the residential and employment floor space. From Moran and Gini value it was found that both of these land uses are highly clustered in a few locations of the study area. The two indices together give intuitive results, which is, residences are generally more dispersed and continuous than that of employment. Although this kind of analysis of urban form is better applied in comparative analysis, the present study provides the take off point for further research of urban form in Bangladesh.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/jbip.v2i0.9555 Journal of Bangladesh Institute of Planners Vol. 2, December 2009, pp. 39-48

The growing enthusiasm for the use of computer models as aids to urban planning and administration derives less from the proven adequacy of such models than from the increasing sophistication of professional planners and a consequent awareness of the inadequacy of traditional techniques. As Lowdon Wingo has put it, planners are now prisoners of the discovery that in the city everything affects everything else.

Many studies of intraurban migration have shown that movement patterns are generally far from random. Among the spatial biases which have been observed, the most common is a distance-decay pattern in which short moves predominate. Directional biases have also been noted. Their existence is explicit in Hoyt's [15] sector theory of urban form and growth; Simmons [28], too, has suggested that directional bias in intraurban migration results from sectoral variations in the socioeconomic characteristics of

No subject today seems more likely to guarantee an enthusiastic readers' market than the city and its problems, and the fact has understandably led to a steady outpouring of expensive books designed to reveal the urban character in its contemporary form and its historical development. Two years ago the publishing firm of George Braziller undertook to systematize this literature and to make it more available to students by publishing a series of low-priced books written by experts in their respective fields and issued under the comprehensive title of Planning and Cities, with George R. Collins of Columbia University as general editor. In the past year the company has brought out ten titles covering chronological periods beginning with the primitive village and ending with the 20th century. Of these I have selected four recent examples as representative of the group.' They are admirable little books, for the most part clearly written, revealing unusual powers of selection and synthesis on the part of their authors, handsomely and accurately printed (in the Netherlands, by the way), well illustrated with an average of eighty-two plates per volume, and concluding with good though limited working bibliographies. The only exception to these general comments is the essay on 19th-century planning: the organization of the text is disjointed; Mme Choay's French must have given the translators some problems, and she herself is a devotee of semiology, that offshoot of structural linguistics that often seems preoccupied with restating old ideas in new and opaque ways.